Busting on Bach

If I’m going to beat something into the ground, then let it be Bach. More than most composers, Bach has a way of making hard labor worthwhile, however relentless it may be. I can tolerate anything so long as the result is a better ability to play something by Bach. He had the inscrutable ability to transform musical elements into something unprosaic. In his hands, scales and chords no longer seem the hum-drum ingredients of mindless drilling. Rather, they become the finely wrought beams and girders of a grand edifice.

It’s a good thing, too, because my project isn’t getting any easier.

When I play scales, there’s a curious disconnect between what I feel in the moment of playing and what I hear as I listen to a recording. As I play, my whole body screams that it’s too fast. Yet when I listen to a playback, I’m struck by how slow it sounds. Apparently relativity is more than a description of physics. Consider a car on a racetrack: in the driver’s seat is a NASCAR champion, and in the passenger seat is a Nervous Nelly who’s terrified of speed. When I’m listening, I’m the NASCAR driver, perfectly comfortable with the pedal to the metal. But when I’m playing, I’m the Nervous Nelly frantically begging the driver to slow down every time the car moves faster than a crawl.

I need to gradually trick my body into feeling comfortable at faster tempos. At the moment, however, my body ain’t buying what I’m selling. So on it goes.

Over the last week I’ve begun my practice sessions with quick staccato alternation. The tempo isn’t fast—I begin at two notes per click at 55 and gradually work up to 80. What’s fast is the exchange between i and m. There’s nothing new about this. Many guitarists recommend this for developing fast alternation, and I’ve done it before myself. My rationale is that light playing, for all the real good it does, isn’t enough. Light playing by itself fails to develop the quick snap and strength I need to drive a finger directly through a string at speed. So for now I’m walking a tightrope between the lightness needed for ease and the strength and quickness needed for controlled speed.

Below is a video progress report. The piece is Bach’s Two Part Invention No. 8. (I intend to record this with a young student of mine later this summer.) I warmed up for about ten minutes, then turned on the camera and did three takes. The video below is the third take. The metronome is set at 90. I’d be happier with 100, but the Nervous Nelly in me won’t yet allow it. Two things bother me. First, there’s a bit too much scraping on the wound strings. Second, I don’t like the looks of m—it sure looks like it’s pulling to the side as it plays.

But enough about me. Judge for yourself.

A New Posting Schedule

As you might have noticed, there have been no posts for the last two weeks. My apologies for this. I’ve concluded, however, that there’s no point in posting when I’ve nothing new to say. Doing so is an imposition on your time and patience. Further, it waters down whatever useful things I’ve written over the last year and a half.

I am, however, soldiering on. In fact, lately I’m feeling better about my prospects. Over the course of this project, I’ve boiled away some things that don’t work. What’s left is a basic process that needs more time to gel. If things continue to improve, I’ll write up a full report of how I went about it.

Of course, if I don’t improve, then it’s back to the drawing board.

For the rest of this project, I’ll report at the end of each month. This will include a video of whatever I happen to be working on at the time. My goal for the end of July is to post a video of Bach’s Invention 8—at least my half of the guitar duet version I’m playing. Lately I’ve been hitting it pretty reliably at 80. But I want my performance tempo to be no less than 90, so I’m trying to inch it upward.

By the way, it’s interesting how the left hand can sabotage the right. For example, in the following passage, I’ve a left hand shift down the fourth string during a sequence of sixteenth notes:

Often this little shift creates a tiny burst of nervous tension that slows down my right hand. Yet in the following passage, all my shifts are either on an eighth note or take advantage of an open string:

...so this passage creates no nervous tension, and I can play it easily compared to the previous example. Obviously I need to practice the previous passage until there’s no nervous tension whatsoever.

You can expect my next post on Monday, July 30. I hope to have good progress to report.