What Bach should I play?

ShiroKuro · 2025-12-28T12:53:12+00:00

@KevinM ’s post about finding a simple Bach piece inspired me… In my piano class, I’m supposed to work on at least different genres. Last semester, I worked...

ShiroKuro

@pianosearcher , thanks for the book recommendation. The annotation looks nice, some fingerings but not too much and not too cluttered. I'll have to decide whether I want to get another book or go with what I have.... That Schirmer one might win out, I really dislike the gray annotation in the Palmer one that I have.

Re the Inventions, when I still lived in Japan, I believe I played (and worked on enough to bring up the tempo etc) the following: #1, #8 and #13. I didn't really work on #4 enough, but that was the one I worked on during fall semester. But that was long enough ago that my "Bach chops" are very rusty. That, plus the fact that I have other pieces I want to devote more attention to, is why I don't want to work on any Inventions until I've worked through some easier Bach.

@BartK I want to say that I started with #8... But maybe it was #1. At this point, I don't recall.

ShiroKuro

By way of update, I’ve been playing in the Selections for Anna Magdalena’s notebook. I’ll probably try to work through maybe at least half of this book, even though I hate those gray annotations. (I have to go through and write them in fully or scratch them out, otherwise, they’re too distracting. It’s almost like, because they’re so hard to see, my brain tries to focus on them and actively read them, to make sure I’m not missing some important information. As soon as I write over them, making them more visible, I can ignore them and focus more easily on the score itself.)

I also followed @pianosearcher ’s recommendation and ordered this, which is supposed to be delivered today.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1423421922

twocats

ShiroKuro can you scan them into your iPad and then "white out" the grey fingerings and then write them in again?

ShiroKuro

twocats can you scan them into your iPad and then "white out" the grey fingerings and then write them in again?

I could but it's not worth the time cost. I plan to work through the pieces pretty quickly, and then move on. It does make a big improvement to just pencil in/over the annotations, which is pretty fast. But since I'm using these easier pieces almost like sightreading, it's kind of frustrating to have to mess with that.

Oh wait, actually, now that I have the Schirmer book, actually the first thing I'll do is compare the contents and maybe I'll just shift to the Schirmer book completely...

twocats

ShiroKuro hopefully you can find a quick and easy solution to solve your annoyance! 🙂

ShiroKuro

twocats hopefully you can find a quick and easy solution to solve your annoyance!

hahaha! You see right through me! 😃

Unfortunately, my annoyance is destined to remain a while longer.... the new book doesn't have the BWV numbers written in. 😑

pianoloverus

The grey ornaments and fingerings In some of the books under discussion were undoubtedly done that way because the authors felt the majority would like that approach. If someone doesn't like that kind of printing the very simple solution is just make the ornaments and fingerings darker with a pencil or pen.

ShiroKuro

pianoloverus If someone doesn't like that kind of printing the very simple solution is just make the ornaments and fingerings darker with a pencil or pen.

that's what I've been doing. But it's still annoying! 😃

« Previous Page