Playing J.S. Bach: Sing, Shape, and Phrase—it’s not rocket science

Having been submerged for 48 hours in mega-science minded theories of playing the piano, I managed to E-merge as the piano teacher I knew before the deluge--refusing to believe that my fingers are throwing hammers at the strings, or obeying the irrefutable laws of Physics. Notwithstanding what Emanuel Ax, and Cedarville University *ProfessorJohn Mortensen are…

“Hear it before you play it!”

Leon Fleisher, an icon in the universe of pianists, put it succinctly. He channeled the wisdom of Artur Schnabel that embodied the idea that a musician must have an internal sense of what he expects to hear before playing a single note. http://youtu.be/mAsA9EZc08c Fleisher further insisted that playing by accident, or having a pile of…