Play intervals of thirds along a scale is a great way to start. This video introduce a couple fun exercises.
They should be practiced in all major and minor keys. Practicing them in 'inversion-image' manner would be much more difficult but can be beneficial.
Don't practice sight-reading! Practice reading music instead. Sviatoslav Richter has an extremely proficient sight-reading ability according to his teacher Neuhaus. Richter has a habit of reading music, step by step meticulously careful reading of music. Liszt is well known for his abnormal sight-reading skill. He also had the habit of carefully reading music, lots of music.
Insight Number One
Having said, I discovered today a way to read music. For each measure, scan from top to bottom to see what notes are used. From top to bottom, not left to right. After collecting the notes, which you should remember are different pitches, and if you can, try to sound the pitches in the mind, take a mental visualization of their keys corresponding to the keyboard.
Then mentally play those keys from the left to the right.
Insight Number Two
When practicing a measure on the piano, press down all the keys that are used in this measure. They for good probability are broken chords. Then play normally from left to right. But now we play with very different perspective--not purely horizontally but from harmonic structure.
When this approach is practiced as a routine, chord pattern recognition and harmony cognition will greatly improve!
Just tried playing G-Major scale with the right and left hands in the opposite direction. Metronome goes from 60 to 145 bpm and cool down. The F-sharp key really helps me to have a more vivid mental image of the keyboard. A wonderful exercise.
[somersault touch]
In this video, the runner tripped over the beam, but she instinctively somersaulted forward, winning the championship. It stimulates me the think that one kind of touch technique is based on the same principle. Your drop your hands and when they touch the keys, you immediately let the fingers roll forward, which creates a downward momentum to press down the keys.
This is kind of advanced touch technique. [Youtuber ..] explains it very well in his Youtube video.
(link to the video will be put here later)
It can also cure a problem corrected by Dorothy Taubman in a video. The problem is that the player already press down the keys before touching the keys.
(link to the video will be put here later, maybe if I can re-discover it.)
This post is intended to be a collection of my thoughts, ideas, experiments, reflections, mistakes, improvements, and so on, during my practice of Bach WTC Prelude in C Major. Whatever I think would be valuable to look back in the future will be recorded here. So, this post won't have a 'final' version; instead, it will be revised, updated; a renewing company for my musical engagement with Bach that this will be.
[Technique]
Technique-wise, I found a wonderful way to play the RH arpeggios: subtle, tender rotation of elbow, which powers relaxing wrist, which rotates tenderly would transfers gentle power to the fingers for musical touch. This approach produces nice legato effortlessly. In comparison, if focusing on finger tips as the starting point for touch, both the music and muscles will feel tensed.
Taubman Approach works better. Moving elbow and wrist too much isn't efficient. Focus on rotation of forearm with slightly in-and-out motion.
[Tips of practicing challenging points]
Isolating first four notes in each bar to practice. This is a good practice to smooth out bar change.
Isolating the right hand arpeggio in each bar to practice, keeping beat counting continuously. When the RH is in rest in the first two beats, lift and relax it. The key of success is mental mapping of key positions.
[Practice Relaxation]
Ruth Slenczynska suggested a way to practice relaxation and confidence in her autobiography. She wrote, "Whenever hands are raised off the keyboard for rests or phrase endings, wrists should be up with the hands handing in order to insure relaxation. If this becomes habitual you will have endurance even in a difficult composition." BWV 486's right hand phrases as great opportunities to test it. So I tried and it did make the playing much more relaxing. I will incorporate this technique into my practice.
Bar 1. C major chord
Bar 2. Henle Urtext suggests for the left hand fingers 2, and 1(thumb) while Czerny edition 3 and 2. I prefer Czerny. Henle uses Schiff's fingering, which makes the left hand and the fingers too busy. That violates the peaceful, at-ease spirit of the music.
Bar 3.
Czerny fingering is preferred.
Bar 4. same phrase as Bar 1.
Bar 5. First time encountering hand spanned over an octave, A to A.
Bar 6. D Major 7 chord.
Henle suggests right hand for the F-sharp note. That's too much a jump. Czerny uses right hand thumb, which, though putting thumb on a black key, feels quite natural.
exercise flash point: moving the right-hand thumb to the F-sharp accurately. It's not that difficult. The fifth finger on D would not bump with the edge of the key of C if the knuckle bridge is kept in natural arch.
