Blocking out the lush harmonic progressions of Bach’s C Major Prelude is an important first step in learning it. A melodic line that sings through these sonorities, albeit, in waves of broken chords, is the composer’s stroke of genius. The chord inversions are perfectly in place to flesh out a divinely “voiced” melody in the treble.
In the attached video, I focus on the value of listening from chord to chord; being sensitive to relationships between them as Dominant to Tonic, or to a Deceptive harmonic event, among others— “feeling” resolutions, modulations, suspensions, sequences, etc. that are part of the “Harmonic Rhythm.”
Shaping lines, in part, according to rhythmic flow enriches a player’s understanding of the composition, giving insights about its phrasing and interpretation.
International Online Piano Teacher, blogger, recording artist, composer, piano finder, freelance writer, film maker, story teller: Grad of the NYC H.S. of Performing Arts, Oberlin Conservatory, NYU (Master of Arts) Studies with Lillian Freundlich and Ena Bronstein; Master classes with Murray Perahia and Oxana Yablonskaya. Studios in BERKELEY, California; Member, Music Teachers Assoc. of California, MTAC; Distance learning by Skype and Face Time with supplementary videos: SKYPE ID: shirley kirsten
Contact me at: shirley_kirsten@yahoo.com OR http://www.youtube.com/arioso7 or at FACEBOOK: Shirley Smith Kirsten, http://facebook.com /shirley.kirsten; https://www.facebook.com/skirs.7/ TWITTER: http://twitter.com/arioso7
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2 thoughts on “Practicing the Bach Prelude in C from the Well-Tempered Clavier, by a process of chord blocking (Video)”
I love this music and am really interested in your analysis, but you don’t have the mic close enough so that I can hear you 😦
Thanks, I should probably redo in a louder voice, because the Yeti mic, needs to be far away to give a better representation of the piano. I appreciated your comments.
I love this music and am really interested in your analysis, but you don’t have the mic close enough so that I can hear you 😦
Thanks, I should probably redo in a louder voice, because the Yeti mic, needs to be far away to give a better representation of the piano. I appreciated your comments.