APERTURA DE PROPOSICIONES Y PROPUESTA DE ADJUDICACIÓN

Piano practice routines should be either memorizing or technical sessions, don't

mix them because playing other things during memory sessions will confuse the material being memorized. The first process when starting a new piece is to memorize; so let's learn three of Bach's 2-part Inventions: #1, #8, and #13. I will go through #8 in detail. After learning #8, try #1 by yourself and then start on #13. We learn all three

simultaneously here, but if that proves too taxing, try two (#8 and #1), or even just #8. It is important to try only what you can handle easily, because the objective here is to demonstrate how easy it is. As Combe said, how young or old you are, or how many years you have taken piano lessons, is not that important. You can start learning these Inventions practically anytime you want, and use them to practice the methods of this book, as with the Für Elise. Nothing terrible will happen to students with lower skill levels; they will progress more slowly, but will learn a lot in the process. Below is a step

by step example of how to start learning a piece; however, true technique is developed

after the learning is over, when you can play it to your heart's desire, and can concentrate on the music.

Invention #8, day one, memorizing. The time signature is 3/4 so there is one beat

per quarter note and each bar (measure) has 3 beats. The key signature shows one flat, which places the key one step counter-clockwise from C major on the circle of fifths -- or F major (not D minor because the music does not use C# and starts and ends with notes of the F major chord). In bar one, the first beat note of the RH is missing ("start with softer note" rule). Play with a slight accent on notes 2 and 4 (beat notes), and the heaviest accent on the first note of bar two — these are clever uses by Bach of basic rhythm rules dictated by the time signature. The pedal is not used in any of the Bach Inventions.

Start by memorizing in small segments, bars 2 to 4 of the LH, including the first four notes of bar 5 (continuity rule). It should take about a minute to memorize; then try

playing it at speed. Then close your eyes, and play this LH section in your head (Mental

Play, MP, don't play on the piano), mentally visualizing every key or note (keyboard or

photographic memory), and fingering. Then do the same for the RH, bars 1 to 4, including the first 4 notes of bar 5. Now return to the LH and see if you can play it without the score, and similarly with the RH. You should never have to refer to this part of the score again, unless you have a blackout, which will happen once in a while. Go back and forth between the LH and RH until you are comfortable, with and without the piano (MP). This will take a few more minutes. The whole procedure takes about 5 minutes; less for a fast learner. You will find fingering suggestions on most sheet music; for example, W. A. Palmer's "J. S. Bach, Inventions and Sinfonias" by Alfred.

Now memorize bars 5 to 7, including the first beat of bar 8. This should take another 5 minutes. These are HS practices but you are free to try HT at any time; however, do not waste time practicing HT if you do not make easy progress because we have a schedule to follow! When starting bars 5 to 7, don't worry about forgetting the previously

memorized bars -- put them out of your mind. This will reduce mental tension and confusion (by not mixing different memorized sections), and make you partially forget the previously memorized section, forcing you to re-memorize later for better retention. Memorizing is partly the job of the subconscious brain, so let it do its job while the conscious brain moves on to the next. Once you are comfortable with bars 5-7, connect bars 1-7, including the first beat of bar 8. It may take 3 minutes to do both hands, separately, including MP practice.

Next memorize bars 8-11, and add them to the previous sections. Let's assign 7 minutes to this part, for a total of 20 minutes to memorize bars 1-11 and to bring them up to speed, HS, both hands. If you have technical difficulties with some parts, don't worry, we will work on that later; just memorize it.

Next, abandon bars 1-11, don't even try to remember them -- it is important to remove all sense of anxiety from the conscious brain and let it concentrate on the immediate task, and work on bars 12-23. Use the following segments (the conjunctions should be obvious): 12-15, 16-19, and 19-23. Bar 19 is practiced twice in order to give extra work for the difficult 4th finger in the LH. Work only on bars 12- 23 until you can play them in succession, HS, both hands, which should take 20 minutes.

Then finish off bars 24 to end (34). Use the following segments: 24-25, 26-29, and 30-34. This may require 20 minutes, for a total of 1hr to memorize the whole Invention HS. You can now either quit and continue tomorrow, or review the three sections. Don't worry about whether you will remember everything tomorrow (you probably won't), but have fun, maybe even try to connect the three sections or to play the beginning parts HT to see how far you can go. Work on parts that give you problems when you try to speed them up, breaking them into as small segments as possible. You can also start on the second piece, Invention #1. Between days 1 and 2, practice MP away from the piano whenever you have time (but not when driving a car).

Day two: review each of the three sections, Invention #8, then connect them. The

only requirement on the 2nd day is to play the whole piece HS from beginning to end, both on the piano and in MP, completely memorized. Work on bringing up the speed, using parallel sets, and go as fast as you can without making mistakes. Practice

relaxation. If you start to make mistakes, slow down and cycle the speed up and down in

short segments. It may be easier to memorize playing fast, and you might get memory lapses playing slowly, so practice at different speeds. Beginners have most difficulties at chord changes, which often take place at the beginning of a bar. Chord changes create difficulties because the change requires a new set of fingerings and notes.

Start staccato practice so that you convert parallel playing to playing with finger independence. This should also help with increasing speed and relaxation. Staccato practice does not mean non-musical play, so pay attention to musicality. Practice softly, even where "f" is indicated.

At about this time, you should feel quiet hands. If you cannot get close to the final speeds, you will need to be satisfied without quiet hands. Return to HS work for

increasing speed later. Otherwise, make sure that you have quiet hands and can play faster than final speed HS, before starting HT. Watch your fingers and suppress any involuntary, unnecessary finger movements so that you have both quiet hands and quiet

fingers. Quiet hands is one of the most important lessons embedded in the Inventions

because you will need it when playing HT.

If completely comfortable HS on the 2nd day, you might start HT, using the same small segments used to learn HS. The first note of bar 3 is a collision of the two hands, so use only the LH for this note, and similarly in bar 18. Accentuate the beat notes to

synchronize the two hands.

Pay attention to the rhythm and dynamics from the very beginning, checking with the sheet music. Then slow down and work on accuracy. To prevent the slow play from speeding up, concentrate on each individual note. Repeat this fast-slow speed cycle and you should improve noticeably with each cycle. Wherever you have technical difficulties, use the parallel set exercises to increase speed quickly, followed by staccato practice. Practice time: less than an hour.

Day three, technique session: learn HT in the three major sections as you did with

HS. As soon as you notice confusion with HT, go back to HS to clear things up. Increase the speed HS. Those with insufficient technical skill will have to play slower, because relaxation is more important than speed.

From here on, you will have to depend on post practice improvement to experience any major improvement. However, in 3 hours over 3 days, you have memorized the piece, can play HT, and can MP the entire piece HS.

Start memorizing Invention #1, while you polish up #8. Memorize #1 completely, then practice the two pieces alternately without the sheet music. Work on #1 until you start to forget #8, then go back and refresh #8 and work on it until you start to forget #1,

working in segments. Remember that you want to forget a little so that you can relearn, which is what is needed to establish long term memory. This also removes the anxiety over whether you will successfully memorize or not because the brain functions best when it is relaxed and worry-free. There are psychological advantages to using these "win-win" methods: if you forget, that is exactly what you were looking for; if you can't forget, that's even better! You might find that forgetting is harder than you thought. The amount you can memorize at one time increases as you gain experience and add more memorizing tricks. Because memory is associative, the more you memorize, the more you can memorize because the number of associations increase. Memorizing is also a positive feedback process in which the faster you memorize, the faster you can play, and the faster you play, the easier it is to memorize because at faster speeds you memorize at higher levels of abstraction.

Day four: There is not much you can do to rush the first piece technically after two

or three days. For several days, practice #8 by playing HS, then HT, at different speeds according to your whim of the moment. All technical work is done HS; HT is only for coordinating the two hands and making music. As soon as you feel ready, practice HT, but return to HS if you start making mistakes, have memory lapses HT, or have problems getting up to speed. Practice HT in segments, jumping from segment to segment at

random. Start with the last small segment and work backwards to the beginning.

Isolate the trouble spots and practice them separately. Most people have a weaker LH, so bringing the LH up to faster than final speed may present problems. For example, the last four notes of the LH in bar 3 (Inv. #8), 4234(5), where (5) is the conjunction, may be difficult to play fast. In that case, break it up into three parallel sets (PSs): 42, 23, and 345. Then connect them: 423 and 2345. 423 is not a PS (4 and 3 play the same note), so you cannot play this as fast as PSs. First practice the PSs as chords and then practice relaxation, playing in rapid quads. Then convert the chords to PSs, then join them and practice them staccato to develop finger independence. You should feel a distinct improvement the next day, and a lot of improvement after a week.

When you can play it HT, start playing HT in your mind (MP). This should take a day or two. Those who have difficulty with HT MP should use only HS at first, and make HT MP a long term objective. MP HT only what you can do comfortably; your MP ability will slowly grow with time; it may take months or even years for older pianists.

By day 5 or 6, you should be able to start piece #13 and begin practicing all three pieces every day. An alternate approach is to learn only piece #8 well first, then after you have gone through the entire procedure and have become familiar with it, start #1 and #13. The main reason for learning several pieces at once is that these pieces are short and you will be playing too many repetitions in one day if you only practiced one. Over- practicing will not gain you much technique and can lead to bad habits and loss of

musicality. Remember, from day one, you will be playing at speed (HS, in segments), and from day two, you should be playing at least some sections faster than final speed — this

leads to a lot of repetitions in a short period of time.

Beyond day two or three, how fast you progress will depend more on skill level than memory ability. Bach designed these Inventions for learning to coordinate the two hands as well as hand independence. In #8, one hand plays staccato while the other plays legato which requires independence of the two hands. Be sure to practice forearm rotation with bars 15, 21-3 in RH and 19-20, 24-5 in LH; all other bars should be played quiet hands. All three pieces discussed here should be completely memorized in one to two weeks and should begin to feel comfortable, at least with the first piece.

Let's say that for over a week, all you did was to memorize new pieces. Now if you go back to old pieces that were memorized previously, you should find that you don't remember them as well any more. This is normal and is a good time to re-polish those old pieces. You are done; congratulations!

Most people have a weaker LH; bring the LH technique up as close to the RH level as possible. Bach is particularly useful for balancing the hands because both hands play similar passages. You know immediately that the LH is weaker if it cannot keep up with the RH. For other composers, such as Chopin, the LH is usually easier and does not provide a good LH test.

Bach's music has a notorious reputation of being difficult to memorize and play fast, and is highly susceptible to fast play degradation. If this is the first time you used the methods of this book, you will be memorizing and playing at speeds you never dreamed possible; however, be mindful of fast play degradation and always play slowly before

quitting.

The Bach Inventions provide more challenges for the LH because the bass hammers and strings are heavier. The amount of technical material he crammed into these

compositions is incredible: finger independence (quiet hands, control, speed), RH-LH coordination as well as independence of the two hands (multiple voices, staccato vs. legato, colliding hands, ornaments), harmony, making music, strengthening the LH as well as the weaker fingers (finger 4), all major parallel sets, uses of the thumb, standard fingerings, etc. The ornaments are parallel set exercises; they are not only musical ornaments but are also an integral part of technical development. Using the ornaments, Bach asks you to practice parallel sets with one hand while simultaneously playing another part with the other hand, and creating music with this combination!

Be careful not to play Bach too loud, even where F is indicated. Instruments of his time produced much less sound than modern pianos so that Bach had to write music that is filled with sound, with few breaks. One of the purposes of the numerous ornaments and trills in Bach's time was to fill in the sound. Thus his music tends to have too much sound if played loudly on modern pianos. Especially with Inventions and Sinfonias, in which the student is trying to bring out all the competing voices, there is a tendency to play each succeeding voice louder, ending up in loud music. The different voices must compete on the basis of musical content, not loudness. Playing more softly will also help to achieve

total relaxation and true finger independence and control. One way to avoid playing too loud is to subordinate one hand (play it softer), and alternate this between the two hands in different sections. Generally, the lagging hand should be subordinated; #8 starts with the LH as subordinate because it lags the RH. Pay attention to the conversations between the two hands, and the harmonies they produce.

To learn a Sinfonia (3-part Inventions), try #15 which is easier than most of the others, if slowed down. It is very interesting, and has a section in the middle where the two hands collide and play many of the same notes. As with all Bach compositions, this Sinfonia contains a lot more than first meets the eye, so it can be a lot of fun to play. However, it is allegro vivace! Quite difficult to play at speed, requiring high level technique. The time signature is a strange 9/16, which means that the groups of six 1/32 notes in bar 3 must be played as three beats, not two (three pairs of notes instead of two triplets). This time signature results in the three repeat notes (there are two in bar 3) that have thematic value and they march across the keyboard in characteristic Bach fashion. When the two hands collide in bar 28, raise the RH and slide the LH under it, both hands playing all the notes. If the thumb collision is problematic, eliminate the RH thumb (upper hand) and play only the LH thumb. In bar 36, be sure to use the correct RH fingering: (5),(2.3),(1.4),(3.5),(1.4),(2.3).

Finally, let's discuss the last necessary step in memorizing -- analyzing the structure, or the "story", behind the music. The memorizing process will be incomplete until you understand this story. For Invention #8, the first 11 bars comprise the "exposition". Here, the RH and LH play basically the same thing, with the LH delayed by one bar, and the main theme is introduced. The RH is dominant, teaching the LH what to do. The "body" consists of bars 12 to 28, where the roles of the two hands are initially reversed, with the LH leading the RH, followed by some intriguing developments in which the two hands compete for supremacy. The ending starts at bar 29 and brings the piece to an orderly finish. The ending is the same as the end of the exposition -- the piece effectively ends twice, which makes the ending more convincing. Beethoven developed this device of ending a piece twice and raised it to incredible heights.