The music critic of The Oregonian, David Stabler, decided a year or so ago to spend a year practicing the Bach preludes and fugues. The plan was to practice one set per week for 30 minutes a day -- not for performance or recording or from memory, but to get acquainted with all of them.
Here's his first post about it (October 2008):
Goats in the shed
And here's the last (February 2010):
A year of playing Bach
When I heard about this, I was looking forward to reading some details, though few were forthcoming (either he didn't post much about it or there was a website shakeup and posts got lost, but I could find only one other than these). He writes very well. It would be nice to read more.
Maestros behaving badly
20 hours ago
5 comments:
I only found one more:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/classicalmusic/2009/02/a_tribute_to_a_teacher.html
I think right after he began this project there was a big shake-up at the paper, and a lot of people took buy-outs and left. He seems to still be working there, but his separate music blog was merged with all the arts blogs around that time.
There actually are a couple more (between these two)...found them when I was tracking down links for a friend who hopes to do something similar:
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.oregonlive.com%2Fclassicalmusic%2F2008%2F11%2Fhooboy_that_was_fun_the.html&h=661bbLO5VWXiMaBMYEorjykO7xA
http://blog.oregonlive.com/classicalmusic/2008/12/welltemepered_clavier_week_5.html
Best, cd
Is that Carol? Yes, thanks, I found those a few times, too, but they are certainly buried in the paper's site. It's too bad.
I noticed on the first one, a reader urged him to record his efforts. Easy to say, hard to do! It takes so much longer to get a remotely satisfactory result -- or maybe it's just that when you record, you can hear every little flub, whereas when you're just playing for yourself, you can ignore that stuff.
What kind of project is your friend doing?
When he first joined our piano group, he was planning to do something similar to what David Stabler did. Unfortunately, he's been waylaid by life, and has had to focus more on earning a living by ramping up his catering business.He's also the sole family member looking after his ill mother.
Bach has to wait, but I did try to encourage him by sending the links...
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