From Bach's little pieces to the Inventions and Sinfonias
In 1720 Bach began a keyboard notebook for the teaching of his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, and in 1723 he made the fair copy of the Inventions and Sinfonias. Its preface names the aims: to play two voices, then three, cleanly, and to play in a singing manner.
This path follows that teaching order: a fingering study first, then a minuet from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach for the hands answering each other, little preludes that pass an unbroken stream of notes between the hands, two voices in the Inventions, and finally three in Sinfonia No. 1.
In every piece, the short cut is to finish each hand as a melody of its own before combining them. Inventions Nos. 1 and 8 are on the "Sonatinas and Inventions" path; playing them as well widens the range of writing you meet.
- Who it is for
- For players who have learned a Bach minuet or two and want to go further with music in which each hand has a melody of its own.
- Where it takes you
- Hearing two voices at once while you play them - and a first three-part Sinfonia.
The pieces, in order
- STEP 1
Applicatio
What this piece teaches
The first piece in the notebook for Friedemann; its title means "fingering", and Bach wrote the finger numbers in himself. C major, 4/4, in two parts - a right-hand melody over a left-hand bass - with ornaments on the melody.
How to practise it
- If your edition prints Bach's fingering, play it with exactly those fingers. Following them teaches how the hand moves from position to position.
- At 0.5x, watch the falling notes to see which note each ornament starts on and where it settles into the beat.
- It is very short: loop the whole piece and play it through hands separately many times.
- STEP 2
Minuet in A minor
What this piece teaches
The A minor minuet from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach (its composer has not been established). In triple time, the right-hand melody and the left hand answer each other back and forth, in a binary form with each half repeated.
How to practise it
- Using the hand colours, find the places where one hand rests while the other answers. Whichever hand is answering leads.
- Give the first beat a natural weight, and carry each phrase on past its joins rather than stopping - that is what makes it a dance.
- The second half heads for the relative major, C, before finding its way back to A minor. Follow the change of colour in the score view.
- STEP 3
Praeludium 2
What this piece teaches
One of the pieces in Friedemann's notebook later loved as the "little preludes" (BWV 926). D minor, 3/4: the right hand repeats a broken-chord figure while the left supports the harmony. The lesson is letting the moment the harmony changes be heard within an unchanging figure.
How to practise it
- Play the right-hand figures as block chords first, so you know the route the harmony takes.
- At 0.75x, check that the repeated figure stays even.
- Where the harmony changes, let the tone change slightly too. Loop short passages with A-B to practise it.
- STEP 4
Petite Prélude No. 9
What this piece teaches
Another of the little preludes, in F major and 4/4 (BWV 928). A stream of sixteenth notes passes between the hands - practice, before the Inventions, in keeping one unbroken line going across two hands.
How to practise it
- Where the colour of the falling notes changes, the figure has moved to the other hand. Loop just those handovers with A-B.
- Stay at 0.5x until the beat no longer slips at the handovers. Speed comes last.
What this piece teaches
Invention No. 13 in A minor. A subject that runs up a broken chord and rebounds is handed between the hands without pause. The lesson is deciding, moment by moment, which of the two voices leads - and making it heard.
How to practise it
- When the subject moves to the left hand, the left hand leads. Follow the score view and find each place the subject appears.
- A shade more weight on the top note of each rebound brings the outline of the melody into focus.
- Put the hands together at 0.5x and raise the speed only while both voices can still be heard.
What this piece teaches
Invention No. 4 in D minor, in 3/8. A ceaselessly turning subject passes back and forth between the hands, and in the second half it returns upside down. The lesson is holding on to the metre inside a fast, unbroken stream of notes.
How to practise it
- Feel each bar of 3/8 as one beat and count in groups of two and four bars; the line steadies.
- The faster it goes, the more easily it falls apart. Make sure it holds together at 0.75x before raising the speed a little at a time.
- In the score view, look for where the subject appears upside down in the second half.
- STEP 7
Sinfonia No.1 in C major
What this piece teaches
The goal of this path: Sinfonia No. 1 in C major, the first of the three-part Inventions. A subject of sixteenth notes running up a scale passes from voice to voice, and also appears inverted as a falling line. Now two hands play three voices.
How to practise it
- The middle voice is taken sometimes by the right hand and sometimes by the left. Check in the colours which hand has it at each point, and settle the fingering first.
- At 0.5x, try to follow all three lines by ear. Humming just one voice as you listen is good practice too.
- Loop each entry of the subject with A-B and compare which voice it appears in.
The routine every path shares
- Listen through once with the falling notes to get the shape of the whole piece.
- Slow it to around 0.5x and learn the notes and fingering one hand at a time.
- Cut out the hard spots with the A-B loop and repeat them until they run without a stop.
- Put the hands together and bring the speed back up a little at a time.
- Log the time and what you noticed in the practice journal - it is where you pick up next time.
Other paths
The classic first pieces after a method book
Bach's minuets, Schumann's and Tchaikovsky's Albums for the Young, and on to Clementi's sonatina.
- Album for the Young Op.68 No.1 "Melody"
- Menuet in G major, BWV Anh. 114
- Menuet in G minor, BWV Anh. 115
- Album for the Young Op.68 No.2 "Soldiers' March"
- …
From Burgmüller's 25 Etudes to Für Elise
One technique per piece: twelve numbers from a collection Japanese piano teachers swear by, ending with Für Elise.
- No.1 La Candeur
- No.2 L'Arabesque
- No.3 La Pastorale
- No.4 La Petite Réunion
- …
Schumann and Tchaikovsky: pieces that paint a scene
From Morning Prayer, The Happy Farmer and First Loss to Träumerei: short titled pieces for learning tone and expression.
- Children's Album: Morning Prayer
- Album for the Young Op.68 No.10 "The Happy Farmer"
- Children's Album: March of the Wooden Soldiers
- Album for the Young Op.68 No.16 "First Loss"
- …
Sonatinas and Inventions, on to a Mozart sonata
Kuhlau, Beethoven, Bach, Chopin: the intermediate standards, leading to every movement of Mozart's K. 545.
- Sonatine Op.20 No.1: I. Allegro
- Piano Sonata No.20 Op.49-2 - II. Tempo di Menuetto
- Piano Sonata No.20 Op.49-2 - I. Allegro ma non troppo
- Invention No.1 in C major
- …
First Chopin: from the Preludes to the Nocturnes
Short preludes first, then a posthumous waltz and nocturne, the "Raindrop" Prelude, and the Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2.
- Prelude Op.28 No.7 in A major
- Prelude Op.28 No.20 in C minor "Funeral March"
- Prelude Op.28 No.6 in B minor
- Waltz Op.69 No.2 in B minor (Posthumous)
- …
Satie to Debussy: sound, space and the pedal
From the quiet of the Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes to Debussy's First Arabesque and Clair de Lune.
- Gymnopédie No. 1
- Gnossienne No. 1
- Gymnopédie No. 3
- Gnossienne No. 3
- …