In our current cultural climate, we seek not to offend. We are careful to be considerate of other people’s preferences, values, and belief systems. At least, we try to be. This can lead us to refrain from expressing anything that we actually believe, especially if it happens to be religious in nature.

Recently, I was looking up information about Johann Sebastian Bach online, and I wanted to find a quote of his. As I have started playing with AI tools a little bit, I asked AI to give me a list of quotes by J.S. Bach. Interestingly, 3 out of the 4 quotes AI came up with referenced God:

“Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.”

“I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.”

“The final aim and reason of all music is nothing other than the glorification of God and the refreshment of the spirit.”

“Without my morning coffee I'm just like a dried up piece of roast goat.”

(I had to look up that last one to see if it was actually something Bach had said. It was!)

I wanted to put a quote on a new resource I’m putting together for piano teachers, and at first, I hesitated to put down something “religious” in nature, thinking that it might discourage teachers from downloading the resource and using it in their studios. After all, no one wants to offend.

However, after giving it a little more thought, I realized that Bach’s faith in God was so much a part of who he was and why he composed that I couldn’t not include one of his “religious” quotes. In fact, at the beginning of many of his compositions, Bach wrote “J.J” or “Jesu Juva,” Latin for “Jesus, help.” And at the end he frequently added “S.D.G.” or “Soli Deo Gloria,” meaning “To God alone be the glory.”

Rather than trying so hard not to offend, we need to be bold about speaking what is true. Johann Sebastian Bach loved God and made it his aim to honor and glorify Him in his music. To omit his faith from the conversation is to omit the very soul of his artistry. As teachers, we have the opportunity to present historical context honestly and respectfully. Including a quote that reflects Bach’s devotion isn’t a statement of exclusion; it’s an invitation to understand the depth from which his music flows. In a culture that fears offense, let’s not be afraid to share what is true and to honor the Source of the music.

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Open score reading is one of the hardest skills to master as a choral accompanist. The average pianist is pretty adept at reading music as traditionally laid out: treble clef and bass clef; however, with open score, the music is spread out and difficult to take in all at once. Typically, we see choir music scored either with soprano and alto joined in the treble clef and tenor and bass in the bass clef, or with each vocal part on a separate line as follows: sopranos, altos, and tenors on their own lines written in treble clef, and the basses notated on the sole bass clef staff. Of course, there are exceptions that go beyond “simple” SATB reading, but this is where the majority of choral music lies. So, what is the choral accompanist to do?

Just as pianists have to grow in their sightreading abilities with a traditional score, choral pianists have to grow in their sightreading abilities with open score. The best way to develop fluency in either case is to read a lot of music at a lower level. 

Think about a child who is learning to read. A child begins by recognizing letters as representing sound, then strings the letters/sounds into a word. A first reading experience might look like reading a single word on a page accompanied by a picture: c-a-t. As the child progresses, he or she will start encountering some of the same letter combinations (words) over and over, developing a vocabulary of words he or she can read “at sight.” 

The same thing happens with a pianist. We begin with recognizing step (seconds) and skip (thirds) intervals, moving up or down or staying the same, and then we add to that vocabulary with bigger intervals, chords, and longer strings of “words” in the form of scales and arpeggios. But if we move too quickly into harder-to-decipher patterns, our fluency lags behind. We end up with a disconnect between our playing ability (higher) and our reading ability (lower). To fix this, we must read a lot of music at a level lower than our playing ability in order  to build up our ability to recognize patterns quickly.

For the choral accompanist interested in improving their skill in open score reading, I have put together several resources. One is the online workshop for How to Read Open Score. This gives a step-by-step overview of different scenarios one will face in choral accompanying, along with practical exercises for becoming more aware of what is happening on the page, how the voices are moving, and what is most important to play at any given time. 

Another resource I have put together is The Well-Tempered Chorale Player. This is a collection of Bach chorales notated in open score for the purpose of developing the skill of reading SATB vocal parts that mostly move together (homophonically).

I have found that most collections of Bach chorales available today tend to either be choral parts written on two staves, or simply a keyboard reduction or realization of the parts. While both are helpful in giving the pianist an overview of the melodic and harmonic structure, neither are very helpful for practicing open score reading. The solution is found within each choral score of the Bach cantatas themselves, which offer both the voice parts on separate staves and a piano reduction suitable for accompaniment. I have selected 15 chorales from these works for you so that you do not need to search through each full cantata in order to find what you are looking for!

The chorales in The Well-Tempered Chorale Player are ordered loosely in the circle of fifths, so that you progress from reading in C major to the flat and sharp keys. Major and minor keys are both represented, and you will notice that all of the keys in which Bach wrote the chorales are represented in this collection.

Lastly, I host a Community of Choral Pianists on Facebook where like-minded choral accompanists can exchange ideas, ask questions, and get support for their work. 

I hope you take advantage of one or more of these resources as you seek to build up your skills in reading open score for the benefit of your choir!

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Last week I put on a concert for the seniors’ group at my church. I called it “Joy Comes in the Morning.” I put together some of my favorite pieces by Bach, Liszt, and Margaret Bonds, along with a selection of hymn arrangements to show how music expresses the human experiences of joy, sorrow, and worship. The program began and ended with Bach. I’m happy to share with you some of the pieces I played at the concert.

Bach's is some of the most difficult music to play in the piano repertoire, both technically and expressively. He was a master artist, producing over 1,000 compositions during his lifetime. He was also a church musician, writing cantatas for the choir to sing each week, training up the boys’ choir, and serving as organist.

Franz Liszt also wrote some incredibly challenging music; however, for this concert I chose some of his Consolations, which are among his easier works. From pianist and composer Margaret Bonds, I played "Troubled Water" from her Spiritual Suite.

The hymns provided the text for meditation. 

"The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul." - J.S. Bach

I deliberately chose a mix of old and new music, classical and sacred* to show a continuum in time. If you are a Christian, you know that our faith has roots in the Jewish fathers – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but that it also appears in the lives of so many others in history. Johann Sebastian Bach is included in this line of believers. His creativity, work ethic, and excellence in all that he did, should inspire us today to dedicated and deep work, and his devotion to God should give us pause as we also strive to do everything to the glory of God.

I don’t know if Franz Liszt was a believer, but I do know that after being a showman celebrity at the piano, he withdrew in the latter part of his life and became quite meditative, composing pieces such as his Consolations. My thought here is that as we are comforted in our trials, God brings us to a point of submission to His authority and His will…and it is there that we find peace, which causes us to worship Him as He intended from the beginning. 

Once again, we return to Bach. This last piece is a bit of a marathon. It begins with an exposition of a theme, a dramatic introduction with repeating motives and fast running notes, then it steps back for a page into a meditative Adagio, stretching out long melodic lines that build and release. Finally, we come to the multi-page fugue in which the fugue subject appears 17 times! I have been thinking lately, as I practice the fugue, that it is like the sky that is new every morning – the clouds continually take a different shape; the sunrise appears in widely varying colors. Bach uses the same subject over and over, but in fascinatingly different ways, and as the piece goes on it becomes more complex and riskier and terribly exciting to play!

The way of an artist is mysterious and compelling; it draws us into another realm, causing us to stop and think, to meditate on beauty and soak in it. It can also induce in us an attitude or posture of worship. I think this is intentional. The God who created the world and made the breathtakingly beautiful sunrises is the same God who created Bach and gave him the inspiration for his wonderfully full and complex musical output, and He is the same God who made us to play and sing and create as He so wonderfully does over and over every morning.

The creation and the re-creation is an act of worship.

*Unfortunately, the hymn arrangements are still under copyright, and as such I am not able to share them here.

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Even though my oldest daughter is old enough to drive, I still drive my girls to school every day. We live in a typical suburban neighborhood with increasing density issues, traffic lights, and impatient drivers. But every morning we look up and are drawn to the ever-changing beauty of the sky. Funny I should say that, as we live in Seattle, an area famous for its blankets of clouds and monotonous gray skies. This year, though, seems less gray than normal, and the skies are full of change: soft pastel pinks give way to bright blue skies, billowing brilliant white clouds are accompanied by dazzling sunny skies. My girls and I are continually struck by the variety of skies we see. No two are ever the same.

I have been re-learning the Bach Toccata in C minor lately. It begins with an exposition of a theme, a dramatic introduction with repeating motives and fast running notes, then it steps back for a page into a meditative Adagio, stretching out long melodic lines that build and release. Finally, we are brought to the multi-page fugue in which the fugue subject appears 17 times! Bach’s sky painting. 

That is all I have been thinking of lately, as I practice the fugue: it is like the sky. Bach is using the same subject over and over, but in fascinatingly different ways, and as the piece goes on it becomes more complex and riskier and terribly exciting to play! Of course, this is not the only piece in which Bach develops a theme a million different ways, passing it between voices and weaving it in and out in various ways, even contorting it so that sometimes it ends differently or changes tonality or even shows up in a backwards form. But because I am studying this piece currently, I see the resemblance to the morning skies in every new iteration of the subject. 

The way of an artist is mysterious and compelling; it draws us into another realm, causing us to stop and think, to meditate on beauty and soak in it. It can also induce in us an attitude or posture of worship. I think this is intentional. The God who created the world and made the breathtakingly beautiful sunrises is the same God who created Bach and gave him the inspiration for his wonderfully full and complex musical output, and He is the same God who made us to play and sing and create as He so wonderfully does over and over every morning.

Artistry matters because our creator God is artistic and has made us to reflect His artistry in what we do at our instrument. If we produce shoddy work, it is a poor representation of Him and a weak stewardship of the gifts He has given us to create. If we produce excellent work (I’m not saying perfection is required here), we reflect His excellence; if we produce glorious work, as Bach has done, we reflect His glory. The creation and the re-creation is an act of worship.

More of my thoughts on practicing this Toccata. Come hear it LIVE at my April 3rd concert!

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I have been playing for choirs for three decades now, and while I have always been a good sight reader, I am realizing more and more that I don’t actually read everything that I play (and that’s a good thing!). Maybe some of these “secrets” I have learned over the years will help you as you navigate the complex world of open-score reading:

1. It is impossible to read ALL of the notes. Good readers are adept at scanning music quickly, noticing patterns, and filling in missing information (e.g. harmonies). If you think about how your eyes scan a piece of music, it is in a zigzag formation, scanning up and down, left to right, very quickly. At a slow tempo, with all parts moving at the same time, it is quite possible that you might be able to read every single note and play with 100% accuracy. But when the tempo speeds up, the harmonies change unexpectedly, or the parts move independently, the task becomes much more difficult. Secret: Good sight-readers don’t actually read all of the notes all of the time.
2. Open score reading is not an Olympic event (but maybe it should be?). What is the goal of open score reading? It is to help the singers in the choir learn their parts with tonal and rhythmic accuracy. The goal is not to test the pianist’s ability to read every note on the page. If you can make it your goal to play 100% of the singer’s entrances, and 75% of the rest of the notes with tonal and rhythmic accuracy, you will be a great help to the choir. Secret: It is okay to leave out notes.
3. Prioritize entrances. What do singers generally need the most help with? They need to know when their entrance is, and on what pitch they start. If you can help singers gain confidence in knowing where they come in – and on what note – each time, they can often take it from there (at least, until the next entrance or tricky harmony or rhythm). Mark every entrance in every voice part in your music and make it a priority to play them – even if you leave every other note out. Secret: When you prioritize entrances, you set the singers up for success!
4. Cheat #1: You can approximate harmonies. Remember the idea that your brain scans the music and takes in information, but then fills in the rest? Try taking a simple hymn or four-part Bach chorale where the voice parts move in harmony. Read only the soprano, alto, and bass parts. Now, go back and read SAB again, this time filling in the tenor when you can. Or, read STB and let your brain fill in the missing harmonies in the alto part. I am finding more and more that what I actually do when I read four-part harmonies is read three parts and approximate the fourth. On a second or third read-through, I will often take a minute to look at that missing part to correct any errors. Secret: In reality, good readers are often only reading three parts and letting their knowledge of harmonies and scanning abilities “fill in” the fourth.
5. Cheat #2: Mark your score. Help yourself wherever possible. If you have down time in a rehearsal, read through a piece of music away from the keys. Mark entrances and tricky rhythms, write in chord names (especially at cadences), and note where parts sing in unison. Give yourself as many visual clues as possible, in order to reduce the information overload that happens when you begin playing with the choir. Secret: Writing in “clues” helps you prioritize what to play and can help reduce the amount of information you take in at any one time.

It is possible to become “good” at open score reading! Better yet, it is possible to be of great help to a choir when you make their success a priority by improving your scanning abilities, prioritizing entrances, and marking your score (and leaving some of those notes out!). Be the rhythmic and harmonic foundation, and the choir will have something to build upon. 

Join my online workshop on How to Read Open Score for more tips and practical, hands-on exercises with reading SATB. Your registration includes a 37-page student workbook and an invitation to be part of a growing online community of choral accompanists.

For more practice with open score reading, you can purchase my collection of Bach chorales in a variety of keys, working through the Circle of Fifths from easiest to hardest, ending with a familiar bonus chorale!

I also offer one-on-one coaching if you have specific questions about open score reading, breaking down a particular choral score, or other choral accompanying concerns! Message me, and let's chat!

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This is the fourth in a series of posts about the 2024 Adult Piano Retreat at Icicle Creek Music Center in Leavenworth, Washington. 

At this year's Adult Piano Retreat, I gave an optional talk concerning Music as Healing, Worship, and Celebration in the Bible. We are so blessed, as musicians, to have been given the gift of music. Not everyone is fortunate to have spent any number of years in private music lessons, learning the language of music and discovering the riches therein. For those of us who have had that privilege, I believe it to be a gift given by the Creator of music itself, not only for our personal enjoyment, but also for the benefit of others, providing a way of healing, worship, and of celebration.

You may be familiar with King David, one of Israel’s most famous kings, who wrote a majority of the psalms in the Bible. He was one of several sons of a man named Jesse – not the firstborn or the tallest or strongest, but the youngest, whose days were spent tending sheep. He was anointed by the prophet Samuel to be king in the place of King Saul. The Bible says that David was God’s choice for a king, and not because of his outward appearance, but because of what was in his heart. 

David went from being a shepherd boy to being a king, all the while being a musician and using music to express his joy, sorrow, and worship of God. 

We pick up the story in I Samuel 16:

¹⁴ Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.

¹⁵ Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. ¹⁶ Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.”

¹⁷ So Saul said to his attendants, “Find someone who plays well and bring him to me.”

¹⁸ One of the servants answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the Lord is with him.”

¹⁹ Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” ²⁰ So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul.

²¹ David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers. ²² Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, “Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him.”

²³ Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.

At this time, Saul did not know that David was to be his successor; in fact, over the next few years, David would kill the giant Goliath, befriend Saul’s son Jonathan, and go out on military missions for Saul – killing a great number of enemies. Saul became increasingly jealous of David’s conquests and fame, and David continued playing his lyre in attempts to calm his spirit. (I Samuel 18:10; 19:9)

Maybe you have experienced the healing nature of music, too. I have a friend who plays cello both for “entertainment” and as therapeutic healing; she plays for hospice, too. And I remember a time awhile back when an old family friend emailed me and remarked on listening to a recording of my music when her father was dying, and being comforted by it.

Music is this remarkable gift that we have been given – to educate, inspire, and entertain, but also to express those deep emotions that cannot quite be expressed in words. 

This same David, after he became king, danced wildly in the streets after the ark of the covenant returned to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:14-15):

¹⁴ And David danced before the Lord with all his might, wearing a priestly garment. ¹⁵ So David and all the people of Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouts of joy and the blowing of rams’ horns.

His wife, Michal, was deeply embarrassed, and told him so. His response:

²¹ David retorted to Michal, “I was dancing before the Lord, who chose me above your father and all his family! He appointed me as the leader of Israel, the people of the Lord, so I celebrate before the Lord.”

Music can express our exuberant joy and our devoted worship. 

J.S. Bach made notes in his Bible about the spiritual nature of worship. At the conclusion of I Chronicles, he noted, “Splendid proof that…music was instituted by the Spirit of God through David.” And then in response to this passage in 2 Chronicles 5:13 – 

“The trumpeters and singers joined in unison, as with one voice, to give praise and thanks to the Lord…Then the temple of the Lord was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not perform their service…for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God,”

 – he wrote “Where there is devotional music, God is always at hand with His gracious presence.”

Like David, Bach could not help but worship God with his music. Not only did the routinely inscribe his manuscripts with the letters “S.D.G.” (Soli Deo Gloria – “To God alone, the glory”), he would frequently initial his blank manuscript pages with the marking, “J.J.” (Jesu Juva – “Help me, Jesus”), or “I.N.J.” (In Nomine Jesu – “In the name of Jesus”). 

Music as healing, as celebration, as worship…

I find that I am most at ease as a performer when I am conscious of being in the service of music – that my job is to minister to my listeners the beauty and goodness inherent in the music I’m playing. When I instead turn inward, and let my mind drift to questions about what the audience might think about me rather than the music, I quickly spiral down the path of self-consciousness and self-doubt. It is only when I am a conduit, or a servant, of the music itself, aiming to give to my listeners, that I am most at peace.

What about you? How have you experienced music to be healing, or celebratory, or worshipful in your life?

Read more about this week of Piano Camp in Leavenworth here:

What was it like?

Let's Talk About the Music!
Social hour: Keys to a solid performance

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If you want to improve your sightreading as a pianist, I often recommend Bach. The 2-part Inventions and the Preludes and Fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier are great material for the mental (and physical!) gymnastics of sightreading independent voices.

If you regularly play for a choir, you may also be interested in improving your 4-part sightreading skills. Again, I recommend turning to Bach for some practice! Johann Sebastian Bach wrote numerous chorales as part of his cantatas, and they are an appropriate place to start if you want to work on reading SATB parts in differing combinations. For one thing, the chorales are hymn-like in their structure, and the parts usually move at the same time. This makes it easier to scan the notes to see if they make up recognizable chords. (A good bit of sightreading is intelligently predicting what comes next, and when we can predict with our ear where the harmonies are going, there is a good chance that our fingers will find their way, too!) The chorales are short, just one or two pages, which affords you time to look at the same piece through different voices, or different combinations of voices. And there are so many of them, that they give us plenty of material which with to work!

I have put together a free resource for improving your 4-part sightreading by looking at a chorale from Bach's St. Matthew's Passion that will take you step-by-step through identifying harmonies and practicing the different voice parts. Take a look at it and let me know what you think in the comments below!

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Refreshed

"The mountains are calling and I must go." John Muir

Well, maybe not the mountains exactly, but the redwoods! My family and I spent last week in the bay area enjoying a rental house nestled in the California redwoods. Beautiful homes peek out amongst these awe-inspiring trees. Just a short 10-minute walk "through the neighborhood" brought my girls and I to a series of three small "wells" and then a waterfall! I found myself trying to imagine what it must be like to be a full-time resident in this area. Would I get any work done at all?! The call of the woods, fresh air, and easy walking trails is just too enticing. At any rate, it made for a memorable vacation, and we all appreciated the slower pace amongst such beauty. 

Finding “Hope” in the Works of J.S. Bach

Here is a wonderful article exploring the theme of hope in the music of J.S. Bach. Of particular note is Bach's use of chorale tunes in the final "Chaconne" movement of his famous Partita for Violin. I love this piece, which has been transcribed for piano, and I hope to bring it back into my fingers in the near future!  

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

"Going slow to go fast" is so antithetical to my impatient nature! But slowing down to analyze a piece before, or while, studying at the keyboard really does produce better, more secure performances. This article explains how to engage your mind learning a new piece.

Below is an excerpt from Chopin's Scherzo in Bb minor, Op. 31. I was practicing this today - a piece from my college days that I am reworking (and re-memorizing!). It is tempting to just plow through and play what I remember using muscle memory, but I know that is not reliable under the pressure of performance, so I am forcing myself to slow down and secure small sections by focusing on key centers and consciously noticing patterns.

Here, you'll see that I found that the left hand moves down the scale in octaves for eight measures, which is very helpful - because the jump from beat one to beat two in each measure is the same note - just an octave higher. If I can remember the starting note (Bb), I should be able to get through this passage! :) The intervals in the third beat lie nicely in the left hand, as is so wonderfully common with Chopin, but as extra insurance I will need to block (combine) the notes from the second and third beats to better understand harmonically where he is going.

The right-hand octave melody is not only singable, but to find the starting pitch of each eighth-triplet set, I can connect it to the preceding octave by noticing that in the first measure it is a minor third above, then the third measure is a step above, then the fifth measure a minor third above, then the seventh measure is a step above. Cool, isn't it? 

This kind of work is helpful in the initial memory phase. I admit that I do not always think this way in performance, especially when the piece is flying by at a fast tempo! However, there are times when I need to focus my attention on more than just communicating a beautiful melody or admiring the sound (!), and instead talk myself through a passage like this: ("B-flat, minor third, A-flat, step," etc.). It seems a bit sterile, but it is life-saving to have these things to hang onto when my attention starts to wander in performance!

Around the Web

And going even slower...Perhaps this is a technique those of you in retirement can try: How to Begin a New Piece.

More on approaching practicing as an investment in future performances. The last suggestion, keeping a practice diary, is one I use often!

Pianists pursue so many different career paths. Here is "A Short Essay on the Life of a Pianist." 

There is a new show in the UK called "The Piano" that sounds intriguing - something like "The Voice" for pianists. I wonder if it will ever end up airing here? 

This content is from Cori's February 2023 Newsletter. If you would like to receive her newsletters in your inbox, click to subscribe here.

Merry Christmas!

Twelve days left until the new year, twelve musical gifts for your enjoyment! 

This is my second newsletter of 2022 - I apologize for being absent for so long! I have packed this newsletter full of musical gifts that I hope you will enjoy as much as I have! My year has been full on the home front. As our girls get older, their activities require more time away which, for now, translates to more time on the road driving them places! I am loving every minute of it, but it does pull me away from the piano more than in past years. With everyone home on winter break and the resulting "pause" in our daily routine, I am taking some time to play catch up. The snow falling today makes a perfect backdrop for reflection on the past year and inspiration for the year to come!

1. Let's Get Together...ya, ya, ya

Much of art is worked out in isolation. Handcrafting a shoe, manipulating glass or metal or clay, practicing a musical passage...all require a level of focus and self-discipline, accomplished at least some of the time by oneself. An artist spends a vast quantity of time learning and practicing and honing his art. Someone said that to become an expert at something requires 10,000 hours. One would think, then, that coming out of full and partial isolation imposed by pandemic policies would result in a huge amount of artistic output. Are you seeing this? This has not been my own personal experience! 

Community is essential. The joint effort of collaborating in person serves to feed and inspire me between solitary practice sessions. As a natural introvert, I don't feel the "need" for community as often as my extroverted friends; however, we are not meant to live in isolation. There is a reason we send criminals to solitary confinement and stubborn toddlers to time-out. Isolation without regular intervals of community engagement is confinement. Much of what it means to be human is experienced when we are together. So I ask myself, and you...what effort are you making to be in community with others? How might the artist within you awaken when you let him out of isolation?

This video came across one of my social media feeds, and I found it fascinating. I have heard that handmade shoes are the most comfortable shoes you can wear. The amount of time, skill, and attention to detail in making a shoe is analogous to preparing a musical piece for performance. Whereas our audiences don't "wear" our music, they do walk in it for a time, and the care with which we have prepared it affects their overall enjoyment and can contribute to their quality of life.

2. Silent Night 

Sometimes in very difficult times, when words or actions fail to help, music comes close to us like a friend. The beauty of melody and lyric can open up our hearts like the sun opens up the flowers.

Keith and Kristyn Getty reflect on the story behind "Silent Night," which began in the 1800s. If you scroll to the bottom of the article, you can hear their daughter Grace singing the melody.

3. Another Silent Night

4. Let Them Sing! 

Two of my girls had the opportunity to participate in the Northwest Association of Classical Christian Schools choral festival this year. It is a fabulous one-day festival where junior high and high school students from around the Pacific Northwest come together to learn and fellowship and sing! I wrote about it here.

5. Gabriela Montero 

Wow, this pianist is amazing! She improvises on the spot - as pianists were required to do in the days of Bach and Mozart. The host of this interview reminds me of James Corden, who runs the Carpool Karaoke series...except this interview is in the classical realm!

6. BACH to Thankfulness 

Why study the music of the Western canon? This article considers the question and proposes an answer. 

7. More BACH 

The author of the above article, Jarrod Richey, presents his choir, made up of average students, singing the polyphony of a Bach fugue. You will have to click on the link in the article to hear the result!

8. Johannes Moser, cellist 

I love learning about other musicians' lives and how they deal with performance anxiety, practicing, and other challenges. Cellist Johannes Moser speaks here of these things, including his work with a sports psychologist.
 

9. Lief Ove Andsnes, pianist 

Another installment from Living the Classical Life, this time featuring pianist Leif Ove Andsnes.

10. & 11. Susan Tomes 

Pianist and author Susan Tomes always has wonderful nuggets of insight pertaining to the life of a musician. Here are two of her musings, one on the "mismatch between all the work that goes into preparing for a single concert, and the concert itself which flashes by in a couple of hours," and the other on the peculiar way we determine which tempo is the "right" one. 

12. Another Gem from Gabriela Montero 

I love the audience interaction in this formal classical music setting. Why is it that classical audiences outside the United States seem so much more engaged and invested in this style of music? Do we, as a country, seek to "progress" to our own destruction? Can we look to, and treasure, our past while seeking new ways to create and innovate in the present?

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 
Here's to more music-making in 2023!

This content is from Cori's December 2022 Newsletter. If you would like to receive her newsletters in your inbox, click to subscribe here.

Getting Back in Shape

New Year, new habits! I have started to incorporate some daily habits on my way back to physical and musical shape! Moving a little more each day: tracking steps with a step counter, a couple days a week of weight/resistance training, getting to the piano daily for at least a ten minute read…(which tends to turn into much more!) 

Bach always seems like a good place to start. I’ve been reading through some of his partitas, which are suites consisting of dance movements. They aren’t much more difficult than the preludes and fugues, and are less familiar to me, so a nice change. The thing about Bach is that the independent moving of melodic lines between left and right hands really helps to bring back not only finger dexterity, but also mental focus. The brain is forced to think harder in this scenario than one, say, involving static chords in the left hand and finger gymnastics in the right. The mental exercise is just as important as the physical playing of the instrument, as both must work in tandem to learn and refine the music. 

To prevent injury, it is important to start small – not committing to three-hour workouts/practice sessions when my muscle and brain performance are coming out of holiday mode! Little bits here and there throughout the day, every day, help my body and brain warm up and re-learn what they are supposed to do!

Composer Highlight: Margaret Bonds

I am excited to be diving into some new-to-me music! One piece that I am working on is "Troubled Water," by Margaret Bonds, an American composer (1913-1972). The video above gives a snapshot of her life. I enjoy her fusion of classical, jazz, and gospel elements, and wish she had written more for solo piano (She has many compositions for solo voice and piano). She knew Langston Hughes personally and was inspired by many of his poems. 

You may enjoy her arrangement of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands," performed by Kathleen Battle here, and by Veronica Moss, Heather Arnold, and myself at an Indie Musikhaus concert here (scroll down 3/4 of the way to find our version).

Around the Web 

I've found a new blog that I am excited to dig into, starting with these tips on bringing Baroque music to life! 

From the same blog, one pianist's goal for learning pieces in the New Year (2021). 

In honor of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., here is last year's performance of Dr. Stephen Newby's work, Montage for Martin. I had the privilege of playing the Seattle performances of this work at Meydenbauer and Benaroya Halls in the early 2000s, and it is just as relevant today as it was then. Enjoy! 

Upcoming Concerts 

Coming Soon! I am working on some wonderful music to share with you!

This content is from Cori's January 2022 Newsletter. If you would like to receive her newsletters in your inbox, click to subscribe here.

Solitary Reflections

The choir that I am a part of is working on another virtual concert project for spring. This involves a great deal of solitary work: practicing, viewing rehearsal videos, and recording oneself singing or playing alone. It is a tremendous task that requires courage, stamina, and dedication. It is not unlike the rest of our mid-COVID lives. We are more isolated than usual, and the mental load of doing things differently over a long period of time is draining. I am proud that so many of our choir members have taken on the challenge in this unusual season. 

Both the process and the product of our art during this time reflect our current lives. Though our finished project will be a concert of us singing "together," we are in actuality not together at all, but only meeting virtually over zoom and recording alone. Our art is an imitation of what we would prefer to be doing: singing together, in the same room, breathing as one. 

It's just not the same! As a collaborative pianist, the bulk of my music-making has been in the company of others. Even my solitary practice of solo works has this end in mind: sharing the music with others. Life is not meant to be lived alone. We are created to live in community with others, and when we are isolated, it is like there is a piece (or five!) of the jigsaw puzzle missing. 

I hope that you are finding ways to connect with others in person. As the sun starts to show its face again in the Northwest, we naturally find our way out of our homes. Restaurants are open again, and we have the opportunity to meet others for walks, coffees, and lunch dates. I hope that soon we will also be making music together! I am working toward that end, getting back in earnest to the piano to prepare music to share with you.  

Artist Spotlight: Angela Hewitt 

Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt is well known for her Bach interpretations. I also learned recently that she has made her own arrangements of some of Bach's works! If you are on Facebook, she is good about communicating what she is working on, often with videos of her playing in her London apartment. You might want to check out her page.  

Our local Meany Center for the Performing Arts has been streaming free performances of many fabulous artists this season. Angela Hewitt will grace their online stage in March, and it would be well worth your time to listen in! The free concert can be viewed March 5th through March 12th and no registration is required. Just click on and save this link!

Around the Web 

Pianist and writer Susan Tomes considers how musicians might navigate post-COVID performances. 

Are our digital interactions remaking us? This provocative article comes from Foley Music and Arts. 

Flashback to two years ago: Kirkland Choral Society, Lake Washington High School Choir, and I perform Eric Whitacre's lovely winter song, "Glow."  

Upcoming Concerts 

Spring 2021    KCS virtual choir concert. Date TBA.

This content is from Cori's February 2021 Newsletter. If you would like to receive her newsletters in your inbox, click to subscribe here.

Happy New Year! 

I hope this finds you busy with new projects and some fun things to look forward to in 2021! Although circumstances may not have changed much since turning the calendar page, I find it is always good to have some element of "newness" or celebration that our family can enjoy. For me personally, I have been revisiting music scores and trying to decide what direction to take my practicing in the new year. I am also busy preparing to begin a Children's Church program at my church, overseeing its inception and jumping into teaching (One fun element is choosing which music to incorporate into our study of the Attributes of God). We are also planning a fun family vacation in the near future, although we are holding our plans loosely as we learned to do in 2020.  As well, choir starts up again this week, albeit virtually, and we will begin working towards our spring program. I am excited to have some new things to work on! What new plans do you have to look forward to?

The Fugue Metaphor 

Like you, I have been contemplating “the way forward” as we are a country divided. This morning, while working a little on Bach’s Fugue in C Major from the Well-Tempered Clavier, I had some thoughts on this. 

In a fugue, there are multiple individual voices coming together to make a unified whole. Each voice is distinct, having its own register (treble, bass, mid-range) and often, its own way of restating or embellishing the main theme. In order to create an effective performance, the musician must make decisions about which voices to bring out (and when) and which to lessen in submission to, or support of, the one in the lead. 

Bach gave us no dynamic markings, and the period instruments with which he worked had little dynamic range. Because of this, there are always debates about how much to play with dynamics (distinctly contrasting loud and soft, or nuanced?) as well as whether to use pedal or not. While there is room for interpretation, the musician must look for clues from the composer for how it was intended to be played. Sometimes these clues lie within the music, and other times the musician must look to his other works, to the works of his colleagues, and to knowledge of the times in which he wrote, for guidance. 

A good metaphor doesn’t explain itself fully, so I will leave you to your own interpretation. But perhaps you might consider the themes of leading and submission, individuality and conformity, tension and release, in your meditation; as well, the idea of an agreed-upon set of rules (key, time signature, harmonic structure) put in place by the composer, and a nice harmonic resolution that finishes the piece. Might we learn something from the study of Bach? 

Here is my unpolished presentation of the work, warts and all. (Perhaps you can consider that as part of the metaphor as well!)

For a wonderfully polished performance, complete with the preceding Prelude, check out Andras Schiff's interpretation here.

The Secret Piano 

I spent much of my Christmas holidays reading, and stumbled on this intriguing book by Zhu Xiao-Mei. She is a Chinese pianist who grew up as Mao came into power. It is a thoughtful, provoking book. Here is a brief description: 

"Zhu Xiao-Mei was born to middle-class parents in post-war China, and her musical proficiency became clear at an early age. Taught to play the piano by her mother, she developed quickly into a prodigy, immersing herself in the work of classical masters like Bach and Brahms. She was just ten years old when she began a rigorous course of study at the Beijing Conservatory, laying the groundwork for what was sure to be an extraordinary career. But in 1966, when Xiao-Mei was seventeen, the Cultural Revolution began, and life as she knew it changed forever. One by one, her family members were scattered, sentenced to prison or labor camps. By 1969, the art schools had closed, and Xiao-Mei was on her way to a work camp in Mongolia, where she would spend the next five years. Life in the camp was nearly unbearable, thanks to horrific living conditions and intensive brainwashing campaigns. Yet through it all Xiao-Mei clung to her passion for music and her sense of humor. And when the Revolution ended, it was the piano that helped her to heal. Heartbreaking and heartwarming, The Secret Piano is the incredible true story of one woman’s survival in the face of unbelievable odds—and in pursuit of a powerful dream."

Around the Web 

Have you heard of the 100 Day Project? If you are in need of some inspiration, this project may jumpstart your creativity. 

More fodder for inspiration, especially if you are a musician seeking music by women composers. 

One hot topic these days is censorship. In the interest of preserving voices of the past, Estonia has a new "banned books" museum. 

Upcoming Concerts 

Spring 2020    KCS virtual choir concert. Date TBA.

This content is from Cori's January 2021 Newsletter. If you would like to receive her newsletters in your inbox, click to subscribe here.

It’s really wonderful how a good teacher can give you just the right tools to enable you to play better. Recently I was fortunate to be able to work once again with Pawel Checinski , who was visiting from Chicago. I played for him a little and then we got to work. He primarily focused on helping me come up with a decisive interpretation, achieve a singing tone, and use arm weight to produce a lovely sound. 

I had been struggling with the memory of the Bach Toccata in C Minor, BWV 911, often getting lost in Bach’s many statements of the theme with its variations. Pawel encouraged me to draw a roadmap of the piece as a way to hang my memory on the over-arching structure. I made a mental note to do this following my lesson with him. He then began to nitpick some individual elements, encouraging me to listen and bring out individual voices within the first page, which is in the style of an improvisatory toccata. He wanted more definition in the line, more of an arc, more interest created by growing in volume at the approach to a cadence. His instruction wasn’t just to make everything crescendo to a point, but to make me think about where I was going with the line. He wanted me to do something as opposed to just pressing keys down on a keyboard. He was concerned about bringing out individual voices as they entered the picture. He wanted me to draw tension to the entrance of each new voice. And more than that, he reminded me that it was not enough for the voice to enter, but then to have something to say-even if it was just holding a note for two beats; it’s still had to have presence. 

Piano is such an interesting art. Whereas ballet is concerned with the physicality of movement, playing the piano involves both physical movement and the aural aspect of creating a beautiful sound. It is possible for a pianist to sit and play a piece physically while not even really hearing what she is playing; kind of like when you speak to your children while they are watching TV-they are aware that a voice is speaking, but feel no need to focus their mind on what is actually being said. This is so easy to do at the piano, to relegate it to a mere physical task. It often takes a teacher, who is not involved in the physical effort of playing the notes, to hear what is happening musically with the line and to point out what is lacking in movement or interest. 

The second thing we worked on was achieving a singing tone. For the opening theme of the fugue, Pawel had me sing for him. He wanted to know what I thought the line should sound like. He then had me play the same line on the piano, and he stopped me and commented that I played it completely differently than I had sung it. I tried again, listening to myself more carefully as I played. Again, I did not achieve the same result as when I had sung the line. So I stopped and thought about how I had sung it and what notes I had put a little more weight on. We then moved on to the second entrance of the theme, accompanied by the original voice, which dances around the theme in a counter melody. Bringing this variable in resulted in my neglecting to sing the theme as I had done earlier. Now my challenge was to try and manipulate the two voices in such a way that I could stay true to my original interpretation of how the theme should be sung. As you can imagine, the more voices you add, the more things are going on in music, and the more effort is required to sing the theme as it should be sung. 

The third tool that Pawel handed to me was the idea of arm weight. His goal was for me to achieve a more beautiful tone when I press the key - and that is exactly what I was doing: pressing the key, using only my fingers to bring forth sound. What he wanted me to do instead was to transfer the weight of my forearm into the key by means of the finger. This has to happen without me locking my shoulder and breaking the expression of the sound. 

These concepts, in the space of a two hour lesson, can start to seem so nitpicky. And in fact it took me a couple of days to process the information and consider how I was going to apply it to my pieces. It wasn’t so much a conscious processing as a brain dump of words onto a paper, and letting Pawel’s words sort of marinate for a couple days. But then it was time to work, and the thing with tools is that you can pick them up and use them in a variety of applications, in this case, a variety of songs. These are universal tools for the pianist. Every great pianist has a definite interpretation of the piece he is performing; every great pianist develops a singing tone that makes the music interesting to the listener; every great pianist uses his arm weight to achieve a beautiful tone. Of course, every pianist has a unique personality and even differing technique-that is to say, different ways of working on these concepts and using these tools. But it is a continual process of growth, and I find it so valuable to work with a teacher like Pawel who seems to be able to pull just the right tools out to further me on my journey of becoming an artist.

It’s funny how you can hear that something is off as a pianist and not know exactly what is wrong with it or how to fix it until a teacher explains it. When I sit at the keyboard I often don’t ask the same kinds of questions of myself that I would if I were a teacher. It doesn’t come as naturally to me, perhaps because the work on notes and rhythms and memory and the physicality of what’s going on is consuming enough that to think beyond that is not automatic. However, as a teacher, you are physically removed from the keyboard and are freed up to think about the piece objectively; also, your mind is not engaged in trying to affect the quality of sound or remember what is next. You can focus completely on the notes that you’re hearing, the quality of the sound, and the interpretation of the music. In a recent lesson with Pawel Checinski, we worked on honing my interpretation of J.S. Bach’s Toccata in C Minor, BWV 911. 

His comments to me at the beginning were that the first and second measures felt disjointed: it sounded like I started one piece and then in the second measure I was in a different piece with a completely different tempo. Pawel suggested that to fix that I could extend the length of the first note on the second measure (which is a sixteenth note). He said I wasn’t holding it long enough, instead starting a completely different tempo. If I lengthened the note, I could ease into the new tempo. (The new tempo was not inappropriate, but it was too sudden a change after beginning a piece in one tempo.) So I lengthened the note and gradually built up to the tempo that I wanted. I felt like this was a good solution and allowed me to keep the spirit of what I was trying to do while making a smoother transition so that the music didn’t feel disjointed. 

I think as a performer there is so much of the body that is involved in the execution of bringing the music to life that it can be easy to get lost in the physicality of it and play almost robotically. It’s as much a matter of learning to listen to one’s playing and know what to listen for, as it is a way of thinking. It’s a very complicated task. Think about it: you are trying to physically play the notes that are on a page, remember exactly what was written on the page, listen to yourself as you’re playing, make decisions on the spot about what you are doing (for instance, if you need to change the dynamic or adjust something), and to also plan what is coming next without thinking so far ahead that you lose what you’re playing in the moment. It’s like you have to think past, present, and future at the same time. But it is dangerous to reflect too much on the past, like if you make a mistake, because you have to keep playing. Performance art is such a different medium from the visual arts. Once you’ve painted a stroke you can step back, sort of pause time, and reflect on whether that was what you actually meant to do or not. You can cover it up or change it. But in performance art, you are not free to fix mistakes. You have to move past them and make your adjustments after the fact, or choose to ignore what just happened completely and move on like nothing happened. 

There is a point to all this. We started working on nuance, which is so important for music to have in order to create an effect. Pawel was saying that Rachmaninoff used to play these fifths in a way that you could hear the harmonics but you didn’t realize exactly what was happening. It created a feeling, kind of an atmospheric effect in the music that listeners could feel but couldn’t describe. These kinds of nuances, bringing out individual voices, lengthening a note that lasts less than a second in time, adjusting one’s attack of a single finger in order to create a more fluid line- all these things are micro adjustments that a pianist makes in order to create a certain type of sound. And it’s not just required for one’s technique, although that comes into it, but it is something that has to be evaluated for each note in each measure in each page of each piece of music by each composer that one studies. 

It is an intensely detailed process. To focus on the weight of one’s finger on one of a number of 16th notes in one measure is incredibly picky, and yet adjusting the attack of that one note can make the whole line sound different. It is a fascinating, incredibly focused, time-consuming process, which makes me wonder sometimes if it’s worth the time and effort. No, not if it’s worth the time and effort - of course it is! The question really is how much time do I devote to it at, or away, from the piano? 

As Pawel said, his goal was to give me tools that I could apply in many different areas of the piece as well as in my understanding and study of music in general. His suggestion to make a drawing of the architecture of the Bach, his pointing out the statement of the theme in each individual voice and reminding me to make them all consistent in articulation, his emphasis on arm weight over a pressing into the key - all these tools are valuable because I can bring them to further study when I am away from my teacher. 

So is there a conclusion to the matter? Not really! I know what steps I need to take to further my studying this music, and for that I am grateful. But part of me feels like I don’t have a brain space to bring this kind of focused study to my daily practice while trying to raise three girls. Even with them at school all day it is not realistic for me to think I can spend those six hours at the piano. There are other life things that need to be taken care of while they are gone. But what I can do is make the most of the time that I have I do have and work smartly, for lack of a better word. And bit by bit I can make progress. The truth of the matter is that no musician ever stops growing; there is always the capacity for becoming a better musician. No one really ever arrives. And yet, there is satisfaction in the process of continually growing, in being challenged and trying new things.

Today I finished re-memorizing Bach’s Toccata in C Minor, BWV 911. I say re-memorizing, because I memorized it 6 years ago for a house concert. And then I moved on to learn and memorize other music and I forgot the piece. Well, I didn’t forget it entirely. My fingers remembered what to do when I pulled out the score, and it came more easily to me physically than it had when I first learned it. But remembering the piece away from the score took a grand amount of effort. And I asked myself, “Why am I putting forth the effort to memorize this piece again?!” 

I know Clara Schumann and Franz Liszt were at least partially responsible for starting the tradition of performing a piece from memory. Before them, it was considered an insult to the composer to play from memory, as if you were trying to “pass off” a piece as your own composition. Unfortunately for me, I was born post-Liszt/Schumann and the acceptable form of performing a solo classical piano piece in public today is to play it from memory. 

So why do I groan at this now time-honored tradition? Because this toccata has 17 statements of the theme! The beginning prelude is not so hard, but the fugue contains a theme that passes between soprano, alto, tenor, and bass voices which is at times played in its entirety by one hand but at other times divides between the hands which are also playing harmonic additions and/or counter melodies. It is enough to drive one mad. And if it were socially acceptable I would be tempted to play it with the music. 

It is not coincidence that at the same time I am wrestling with memorizing this piece I am reading a book by theologian J.P. Moreland called Love Your God With All Your Mind. The premise of the book is that Christians need to employ their rational, reasoning mind in the acting out of their faith, rather than just relying on feeling. Christianity is a reasonable faith with historical and scientific evidence to support it; however, we too often fall back on experiential knowledge instead of doing the hard work of study and reflection in order to “work out our faith with fear and trembling” and to share it with nonbelievers. 

Using one’s mind takes work – intense, focused concentration; sometimes in silence, often requiring reflection. This is in stark contrast to our technology driven world, where we need wait for almost nothing and can obtain information at the click of a button (or upon giving a voice command to Alexa or Siri). Discipline is required for thinking. This same effort and discipline is employed in memorizing a piece of music, particularly one written by Bach. And guess what? At the end of every composition, Bach wrote “For the glory of God.” Many of his pieces were teaching pieces, meant for study by his students. And they were intended to engage the mind. Why? Ultimately, for the glory of God. 

I think these concepts are connected: the idea that using our minds takes work and discipline, and that the effort of using our minds in the study (and memorization) of music brings glory to God. Anyone that has studied Bach’s work knows the genius that was behind it. The mathematical symmetry in his music is not there for its own sake but creates in the music a wonderful sound that is not only beautiful but also makes sense – like a poem that begins in one place and meanders around with connecting and contrasting ideas, only to come back in full circle to the initial idea that is restated in a completely different manner. It is beautiful, and it is beautiful precisely because it is hard and takes effort in order to understand. 

So while I don’t completely understand why it is so important for me to memorize Bach, of all composers (Chopin is so much easier!), I do know there is something to the process of engaging my mind in this exercise of memory that is bringing glory to God. In some small way it is a picture of Him in His infinite wisdom and beauty and perfection. And even if I don’t recreate this masterpiece perfectly, the effort made in engaging my mind is in itself a way that I can worship and bring glory to my Creator God. Soli Deo Gloria.

I am reworking a Bach Toccata I learned a few years back in preparation for my concert with Molly Tomlinson for the October 11th Ladies Musical Club concert. "Toccata" literally means "touched" and refers to the virtuosic nature of the music's fingerwork. Originally conceived for early keyboard instruments such as clavichord, harpsichord, and organ, the toccata is not necessarily a "piano" piece. However, I believe that if Bach were to live in our time, he would use the piano to its fullest extent, most certainly employing it in the performance of his toccatas.  

This particular toccata in C minor (BWV 911) carries the potential of all sorts of tone colors using the piano. Parts of it remind me of a harpsichord, while other parts seem distinctly written for organ as Bach layers sound upon sound on top of a pedal tone. I love the contrasts of fast fingerwork and rich chordal harmonies. Because Bach did so much writing for the church service, I wonder whether this particular work was used during the liturgy. In fact, toccatas that predated Bach were used during the Roman Catholic liturgy as a way to set the pitch for the choir! In the 16th-18th centuries the toccata was also often mentioned as "a piece that test[ed] the tuning, touch, and expressive possibilities of the instrument while the performer [warmed up] his fingers" (from Abigail Mace's dissertation, noted below) - I love this! So often as a pianist, I come to a new instrument on stage and have to familiarize myself with it quickly, sometimes without having rehearsed on it at all before the performance. What a great idea to have a "warm-up" piece to get used to the piano as the audience listens in!  

Of course, Bach's toccatas may not have served either of these functions. They came later on - really, his compositions were the "peak" of the form - and because of their extended length and the use of a wide variety of material, were probably meant primarily to be used as teaching pieces. 

In any case, having this knowledge of the toccata form that predated Bach's works feeds my imagination and I happily go back to the keyboard ready to imitate the harpsichord and organ sounds in my head even more fully, and to expand on the showmanship of the technical feats embedded in the work. I hope you will come listen to my interpretation at the LMC concert in October! In the meantime, here is a wonderful take on it by Martha Argerich.

*Here is the link to the wonderful dissertation by Abigail Mace on "Style and Interpretation in the Seven Keyboard Toccatas of J.S. Bach" (click on the .pdf file listed in the left column after you reach the site).

Note: This post first appeared in "September News from Cori Belle," a monthly newsletter that goes out to all my subscribers filled with upcoming events, piano news, and links to great articles about all things piano! If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, please go to my Contact page and sign up!

Have you ever wondered what goes on inside the mind of a performer during a concert? When I am in the audience, I am usually so engrossed in the music that I don't think about that until afterward. However, when I am the one performing, it is hard to shut out the self-conscious voice and concentrate solely on the music!

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to play the first movement of Bach's Italian Concerto as part of Master Chorus Eastside's Masterworks concert. The conductor, Dr. Linda Gingrich, had approached me about a month before and asked me to consider this piece, and as I had performed it in college, I eagerly agreed.

I hadn't touched the piece in years, but was pleasantly surprised by how quickly it came back into my fingers. In some ways it "fit" better than when I was in college. I think this is because of my recent study of Bach's Toccata in C minor and the Bach-Busoni Chaconne. Not only did it feel better in my hands, but my understanding of, and appreciation for, Bach's lyricism and wit has been growing as I have worked on these pieces, contributing to my interpretation of the concerto movement. What fun it was to approach cadences with an attitude of, "Hear that? Guess what technical wizardry comes next?!" I like to imagine Bach as a bit of an improvisatory show-off, playing the concerto in a friend's living room during a party with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. Just listen to the long right-hand trills in the second half of the piece - don't they sound like a long-winded soprano?

As I practiced the concerto movement in preparation for the concert, I tried to figure out what I wanted to "say" with it. Bach has never been my first choice of repertoire, as I much prefer the romanticism of Chopin and Rachmaninoff, but he's been growing on me. I came up with bits of dialogue throughout - like the bit about the long-winded soprano. As well, I began to wonder if I could really play it from memory again. I have always hated memorizing my pieces. Being a great sightreader has its advantages, but not when it comes to the laborious task of memorizing. But, as it remains the norm on the concert stage to play pieces from memory, I decided to take on the challenge. The dialogue bits I had come up with helped a little, but I also made sure I had harmonic "hooks" so that at cadences I knew what key I was in. I also did quite a bit of thinking the piece away from the piano. This was a tremendous help, something I had learned from my professor in college. When at the piano I tried "ghosting" where I would play the right hand and think the left hand part, and vice versa. With all these strategies, I got to the place where I felt my memorization was secure. The missing link was what would happen to it when performance nerves took over?

I'll skip to the punch line - the performance went well with nary a memory slip. But what was I thinking as I played? In the past, I might have said I heard the audience rustling their programs, or the coughs of the people in the next row, or I might have been thinking about the food I would eat after the concert. (In fact, I think the promise of leftover birthday cake in the fridge was a fleeting thought!) But this time I really did try to concentrate on communicating what was in the music. I still had the "Will I get through this without a memory slip?" thought and the "Oh no, My dad is in the audience - what will he think of this?" thought, but mostly I thought about Bach's inscription on many of his works: (translated) "For the glory of God." That is the purpose for which he wrote his music, and as a Christian and a musician I wanted to communicate that as I played. So to the best of my ability, I played "to the glory of God" with all the humor and wit I could summon from what I imagine might have been going through the mind of Bach as he played it for the very first time.

Click here to listen to the Bach!