WHOLES AND PARTS

Yesterday, composer/pianist Kathleen Ryan  ran across this blog (after I sent her a link to it) and did me the great favor of commenting on it. For example, see her comment and my reply to the post "Well, it's been nearly two weeks..." from 2/12/2012. I'm very pleased and grateful to have guidance from a trained professional musician like Kathleen.

One of Kathleen's recommendations is to practice the left hand alone until I have it down pat before practicing both hands together.  Now, I'm generally a "play it as a whole" sort of guy. I enjoy hearing a piece as a whole, and I think it's a valuable way for me to get into the musical qualities of a piece. But I have a great deal of respect for Kathleen's skills at the keyboard, and I decided to try out her recommendation on Bach Two Part Invention #9, which I'm currently learning.

In this particular piece, I found it quite easy to learn the left hand part alone.  Within 15 minutes, I was playing it smoothly and musically at full speed. (I had a tendency to sing along.)  It turns out that Invention #9 just isn't that physically challenging for my left hand.  So, I'm not sure how much I got out of this little exercise other than making the left hand fingerings more automatic, although that in itself is no small benefit.  I can see, however, that learning the left hand alone to a good degree of completion will be very valuable for Invention #10, which promises to be considerably more physically challenging for my left hand than #9.

The biggest initial learning challenge for me in #9 is the cognitive challenge of putting the two hands together.  They intertwine in lovely and intricate ways, and it's taking me a bit of work to get it all sorted out.  In the end, I'm right back to playing the whole, which is where I was yesterday.

And what a lovely whole it is.  The piece, in F minor, is rather melancholy but very flowing. I take pleasure in practicing the hands together even at a very slow tempo.

I do, of course, stop off along the way to isolate and work on particular passages, but I soon integrate them back into the whole.

I suppose my conclusion from all this is that there are lots of approaches to learning a piece, and I can apply them flexibly as the need arises.