Bach
Bach is truly a brutal dictator. Just kidding I didn't mean that...ok
maybe I did. Its just hard as hell and this is one of his easier
pieces! First I chose a short piece from my book, but I quickly
realized it was too easy, so I tried another one and thought I could
play them consecutively, but I still thought they'd be too easy even
together. Then I started this prelude foolishly thinking, "I can just
play these three all together!" and Bach LoL'd in my face - this one
alone wound up taking almost twice as long as my posts usually take to
record.
You could spend your entire life studying Bach and still have your mind
blown regularly I think. In fact, Pablo Casals the famous Spanish
cellist who played the Cello Suites internationally said when he was
around 80 years old that he was still only scratching the surface. My
favorite Bach player of all time is Glenn Gould and you just have to
imagine the ecstasy he must have felt by having such a command of the
repertoire. Then I imagine someone looking at my playing who maybe has
tried playing piano a few times and he or she says "wow it must be
amazing to play and understand music." but I am in the exact same
position! And it never ends - going on forever! The more you practice
the more you realize "merciful Jesus I'm only learning how little I know
and how much farther there is to go!" I guess it is pretty profound
though that works like Bach even exist on planet earth. My counterpoint
teacher in college said that if aliens ever came to earth and for
whatever reason needed proof as to why we deserve to even exist in the
first place, that all we'd need to do is submit the Musical Offering by
Bach (another collection that was composed for a local prince) and we'd
be safe case closed.
Keyboard
I used to think that Piano was more accessible than guitar because a
single piano key is wider than a guitar string, so you have a greater
change of hitting the note - more room for error. But now I think
its equally as hard. You must be precise in terms of where on the piano
key you
are landing else the neighboring key walls trip you up as your wrist
moves in new direction. Its audible on a recording when your mind is
consumed with trying to navigate
obstacles instead of proactively landing on the right spot and
triggering the note you want. What you gotta do is eliminate a step by
practicing precise landings instead of landing
on a key and then worrying how to get off it a millisecond later.
Accuracy eliminates
the second step of getting off it smoothly.
The Harpsichord
Considered an early instrument, the harpsichord was a popular piece of
furniture in the homes of wealthy European families, and often daughters
were taught how to play in hopes of rounding out their candidacy for
marriage to the son of another neighboring wealthy family. If you press
a key down, a trigger in the body plucks a single string creating a
tone at a fixed volume. If you had a "double manual" harpsichord, the
second keyboard would trigger the plucking of 2 or 3 strings which would
make the tone 2 or 3 times louder - so you had a softer manual and a
louder manual. Unfortunately, when the Piano was invented and mass
produced for purchase, everyone quickly upgraded to the Piano because
the technology allowed the force applied by the finger tips to be
directly transferred to a hammer inside therefore creating a relative
volume proportionate to the force applied which suddenly made the
keyboard much more like a violin or wind instrument or voice because you
could produce a whole range of volumes for dramatic effect. The
harpsichord reached its peak in popular during the early / mid 1700s -
to put the timing in perspective Thomas Jefferson played the Harpsichord
(and other keyboard instruments).