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.
| Rank | Large US Cities | State | Population |
| 1 | New York | NY | 8,491,079 |
| 2 | Los Angeles | CA | 3,928,864 |
| 3 | Chicago | IL | 2,722,389 |
| 4 | Brooklyn | NY | 2,538,705 |
| 5 | Queens | NY | 2,277,251 |
| 6 | Houston | TX | 2,239,558 |
| Region | State | Capital |
| Deep South | Alabama | Montgomery |
| Deep South | Florida | Tallahassee |
| Deep South | Georgia | Atlanta |
| Deep South | Louisiana | Baton Rouge |
| Deep South | Mississippi | Jackson |
IN the beginning, all the Greeks had been equally rich and equally poor. Every man had owned a certain number of cows and sheep. His mud-hut had been his castle. He had been free to come and go as he wished. Whenever it was necessary to discuss matters of public importance, all the citizens had gathered in the market-place. One of the older men of the village was elected chairman and it was his duty to see that everybody had a chance to express his views. In case of war, a particularly energetic and self-confident villager was chosen commander-in-chief, but the same people who had voluntarily given this man the right to be their leader, claimed an equal right to deprive him of his job, once the danger had been averted.
But gradually the village had grown into a city. Some people had worked hard and others had been lazy. A few had been unlucky and still others had been just plain dishonest in dealing with their neighbours and had gathered wealth. As a result, the city no longer consisted of a number of men who were equally well-off. On the contrary it was inhabited by a small class of very rich people and a large class of very poor ones.
There had been another change. The old commander-in- chief who had been willingly recognised as ``headman'' or ``King'' because he knew how to lead his men to victory, had disappeared from the scene. His place had been taken by the nobles--a class of rich people who during the course of time had got hold of an undue share of the farms and estates.
These nobles enjoyed many advantages over the common crowd of freemen. They were able to buy the best weapons which were to be found on the market of the eastern Mediterranean. They had much spare time in which they could practise the art of fighting. They lived in strongly built houses and they could hire soldiers to fight for them. They were constantly quarrelling among each other to decide who should rule the city. The victorious nobleman then assumed a sort of Kingship over all his neighbours and governed the town until he in turn was killed or driven away by still another ambitious nobleman.
Such a King, by the grace of his soldiers, was called a ``Tyrant'' and during the seventh and sixth centuries before our era every Greek city was for a time ruled by such Tyrants, many of whom, by the way, happened to be exceedingly capable men. But in the long run, this state of affairs became unbearable. Then attempts were made to bring about reforms and out of these reforms grew the first democratic government of which the world has a record.
It was early in the seventh century that the people of Athens decided to do some housecleaning and give the large number of freemen once more a voice in the government as they were supposed to have had in the days of their Achaean ancestors. They asked a man by the name of Draco to provide them with a set of laws that would protect the poor against the aggressions of the rich. Draco set to work. Unfortunately he was a professional lawyer and very much out of touch with ordinary life. In his eyes a crime was a crime and when he had finished his code, the people of Athens discovered that these Draconian laws were so severe that they could not possibly be put into effect. There would not have been rope enough to hang all the criminals under their new system of jurisprudence which made the stealing of an apple a capital offence.
The Athenians looked about for a more humane reformer. At last they found some one who could do that sort of thing better than anybody else. His name was Solon. He belonged to a noble family and he had travelled all over the world and had studied the forms of government of many other countries. After a careful study of the subject, Solon gave Athens a set of laws which bore testimony to that wonderful principle of moderation which was part of the Greek character. He tried to improve the condition of the peasant without however destroying the prosperity of the nobles who were (or rather who could be) of such great service to the state as soldiers. To protect the poorer classes against abuse on the part of the judges (who were always elected from the class of the nobles because they received no salary) Solon made a provision whereby a citizen with a grievance had the right to state his case before a jury of thirty of his fellow Athenians.
Most important of all, Solon forced the average freeman to take a direct and personal interest in the affairs of the city. No longer could he stay at home and say ``oh, I am too busy today'' or ``it is raining and I had better stay indoors.'' He was expected to do his share; to be at the meeting of the town council; and carry part of the responsibility for the safety and the prosperity of the state.
This government by the ``demos,'' the people, was often far from successful. There was too much idle talk. There were too many hateful and spiteful scenes between rivals for official honor. But it taught the Greek people to be independent and to rely upon themselves for their salvation and that was a very good thing.
