Bach (still Bach) and Henle

I don't even know how to tell you that it seems like if you are going to learn a thing, the best way to do it may in fact be to plunge in and see how much you can get on the first go, and then start asking yourself what you need to get before the second go, and then go get it.

In other words:

1. Identify what you know
2. Identify what you don't know
3. Learn what you don't know

And obviously this repeats ad infinitum.

So I sat down with Bach the other day, and the first thing I learned was that the two-and-three-part-inventions appear to have been written to be played as sets, e.g. the C Major invention goes with the C Major sinfonia ("sinfonia" being the word for three-part invention, in this case) and so on.

Because the information in the C Major sinfonia builds on the information presented in the C Major invention, which is extremely interesting.

(And also nobody ever told me that before, I sat through I don't know how many years of music theory and nobody said "actually these pieces were meant to fit together like a fractal," whatever, I'm learning it now AND SO ARE YOU.)

And the second thing I learned yesterday was that I could very easily read both the C Major invention and the C Major sinfonia, my fingering is arbitrary and garbage but I can read it just as quickly I can read choral accompaniments (and then just for funsies I went back and read a few Debussy pieces that Larry had suggested I learn years ago, stuff that had seemed too difficult at the time, and there go my fingers finding all of the notes, very interesting).

And then the third thing I learned was that I didn't want to sit down and work out the optimal fingering, I wanted an edition where an editor had already done that.

So, okay, fine, and then this morning I woke up and I started writing the invention for the King's song, and I got about eight measures in and realized that what I was writing sounded like a top-level gloss on a two-part invention (sooooo basically you've got this theme, and then the second voice comes in with the same theme, and then the first voice brings in another idea, and the second voice brings in a complementary idea in longer notes, and then the first voice takes over some of the longer notes while the second voice elaborates on the newer idea, and then the first voice begins the theme again in the dominant) and I was alllllll wait wait wait wait wait I need to go back and actually figure out how this thing works.

So.

To understand how the C Major two-part invention works I need to be able to not only play it from memory but also run the entire thing in my head, so I can mentally isolate specific measures and say "this is what is happening here" and the truth is I already know it isn't going to take that long, I could probably memorize it this afternoon, except I do not want to take any time re-discovering which fingerings are best, I want to take somebody else's work and build on top of that.

Which means I want the Henle edition instead of these public domain printouts from IMSLP, and if I were in college or in my fictitious university city I could go to the music library and borrow it, because Larry and I both agree it is ridiculous to pay $30 for something you're going to use for a month.

Actually when I write that out it doesn't seem that ridiculous.

Perhaps the ridiculous part is paying for my own copy when someone in this town has one that they aren't using, or when I could get a library card with the local college and ask them to get it for me, or maybe when I could ask our public library to inter-library-loan it, except all of that takes time, that's a week lag at minimum, and what I really want is to have a copy on my laptop right now.

Which, okay, this is interesting –

Someone's gone and written a guide to learning the piece, I mean obviously many people have, maybe a hundred people have (and maybe only half of them are SEO robots), but this guide is actually good.

Just like the guide I found to learning Handel's "O Sleep" was actually good, and it's worth noting that both of these teachers are freelance writers as well as musicians.

And sure, I had to deal with a bunch of ad-packed googleslop nonsense before I found something with actual information in it, but now I have it and now I gotta go learn it, kthxbai.

(p.s. Larry would say that I need to contact both of these writer-musicians and thank them, I agree.)