Demystifying Bach at the Piano: Problem Solving in the Inventions and Sinfonias, Paperback

INCLUDES LINK TO VIDEO DEMOS. Pianists are horizontalists. When confronted with competing horizontal lines, though, we are called upon to rethink our predilection for spinning a single line beautifully to the right. To some it may seem sacrilege, but we must think more vertically. In these pages we consider the techniques of coordinating more than one musical line. We learn to apply principles of grouping notes together and shaping lines in certain ways for technical ease. We consider fingerings, sometimes more than one. When technical solutions coincide with musical objectives, we are delighted. But when there is a technical problem, we examine it on its own merits. No mindless rote here. We consider approaches to ornamentation and articulation and their expressive partners, dynamics and phrasing. All of this gently couched in physical movements so natural to the body as to be irresistible.***Praise for the previous volume, "Piano Technique Demystified": "This is an excellent book. Whether you are an advanced pianist or a novice, the concepts shared in this book will bring your technical skills at the piano to a new level." "This is a very well written book with lots of humor and fascinating anecdotes shared by the author. The reader is sure to find a wealth of useful and helpful information to enhance mastery of the piano." "Neil Stannard provides a clear, concise summary of how to co-ordinate good movement patterns into your piano practice. He approaches learning difficult repertoire as a series of solvable problems, and offers the reader many tools to come up with solutions."

About the Author:

Unlike life, playing the piano is easy and doesn't hurt. This mantra has carried the author through what might seem to others like several lifetimes-performing as a collaborative pianist, occasional soloist, symphony bassist and, through it all he has remained a dedicated teacher. He took part in the first Taubman Institute at Rensselaerville, New York, and though he does not represent the Institute, he participated in many subsequent institutes at Amherst College while studying piano privately in New York with Edna Golandsky, who showed him that there are no mysteries regarding piano technique. He has performed internationally with such artists as David Shifrin, Hermann Baumann, Eugenia Zukerman, Leona Mitchell, Clamma Dale and Christiane Edinger in venues from London to Moscow, including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the White House, Vienna's Musikverein, Berlin's Hochschule and Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow. He has played in the Great Performers at Lincoln Center series, the Berlin Festival, the Vienna Festival, Tage Neue Musik, Marlboro and the Newport Festival. His concertizing has taken him to every state in the contiguous United States. And yes, he has taught continuously. After graduating cum laude from the University of Southern California, a scholarship student of Muriel Kerr, Jacob Gimpel and John Crown, he accepted a Naumberg scholarship on double bass to the Juilliard School (M.S.), during which time he performed in the American Symphony with Leopold Stokowski (Columbia Records) and in the Marlboro Festival Orchestra with Pablo Casals (Columbia Records). It was also during this time that he made his New York recital debut at Carnegie Recital Hall as a pianist with violinist Christiane Edinger. Later, he studied piano on a German government grant with Gerhard Puchelt in Berlin, completed a doctorate in piano at the University of Arizona with Nicholas Zumbro and for thirteen years taught applied piano at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he was a tenured professor. He now teaches privately in Los Angeles, writes, paints, takes photos of the world around him and plays cello in the Santa Monica Symphony.