Start Date: May 18, 2020.
Background: I decided to begin learning this as I was randomly looking through book two of the Well Tempered Clavier. I had never looked at it before nor am I aware of having heard the piece before but when I started playing some of the parts it just sounded like something I would like to learn so I made a note of it. As of today (June 1, 2020) I have probably spent between 12 and 15 hours practicing various parts of it, most of it being the sections between measures 36 - 70 and probably around six of those hours being measures 63 - 70. Since I don't have any other 'assignments' that I must work on aside from my practice for my drum lessons, I have chosen this particular piece to use as a case study to document the techniques and methods I tend to use when learning a new piece of music. A couple of days ago I started this process when I wrote Starting From the End, a article that describes how and why I typically start learning music from the end. Because I anticipate it will take me anywhere from 6 to 8 weeks to thoroughly learn this piece and be able to play it well at speed I believe it would be an appropriate piece to use to demonstrate my practice techniques.
[When I was using Google Docs to make notes about projects I work on I generally insert the notes at the top of the document with a timestamp and will continue that practice here as I consider transitioning from Google Docs to using this website for that purpose.]
June 1, 2020. Today was actually the first day I used the metronome with this piece and my main objective for using it was to ensure that I had the rhythm consistent through the specific section I was focusing on - namely measures 63-70. I started with the click at 50 for an eighth note but it was clear that I was not ready to do it at that speed so I had to reduce it to 42 before I could play the passage consistently with the proper articulation and fingerings without mistake several times. I gradually increased the speed one notch at a time playing it at least four times without error but often several times more before increasing it another notch. After approximately 1 1/2 hours I was playing it at 54 for the eighth note at which time I stopped practicing this particular piece for the day.
Because I have been contemplating using this piece as an object lesson for this website I then decided to create a Finale engraving of the music so that I could both practice using Finale and would have an editable score to extract segments from that I could embed in both the web pages and the videos I plan to make to demonstrate specific techniques. After more than six hours of work I have an initial draft that needs some minor fine tuning with the placement of rests in some of the voices and some note stem directions but that is generally sufficient for my purposes. It can be viewed here: Fugue #14 - Book 2 - JSBach (p0365).
June 9, 2020. Over the past four days I have spent a lot of time working on this piece but it is still not where I want it. On June 6 I mostly focused on measures 38-43. I noted that in m38 the LH is difficult enough because of the shifting in fingerings and that it was a coordination challenge when adding the RH and getting it to speed. part of the challenge is due to two possible LH fingerings on beat 4 into beat 1 of m39. From an analytical perspective the first 2 beats are a vi - V - I6 progression. As an aside I'm referring to this using a figured bass notation. I did practice the LH fingering by playing that progression in all 12 keys. Measure 39 beats 3-4 I have as being a Em7sus4-2 - Fm7 progression that I noted as being a 'nice vamp progression' that I should learn in all keys to improvise on. Then on June 7 I worked mostly on m41-43 although I did some drilling on other segments as well. When I got up on the morning of June 8 I decided to go ahead and start from the end again using the metronome to fix the rhythmic irregularities I have when transitioning from segment to segment. I started on m67-70 with the eighth note set to around 50 and eventually got it to 120. At this point I think I have the ending relatively secure. I then went back to measure 65 getting it smooth to the end at mm=54 and then from measure 60 to the end with the eighth note mm=42. I did also do some work on various places after measure 38 and will probably start working with the metronome to smooth all of that out and finish memorizing the last half of the piece over the next week.
I did have hopes of making videos of my practice sessions to post so anyone would be able to see my progress and to identify the specific practice techniques I have been using but I've been somewhat preoccupied with some other things. I did actually play through the entire fugue today for the second time and it was actually reasonably tolerable but not near the speed I think it should be played at. I'll try and capture that sometime over the next week on video so when I do finally think it's at a reasonable level for performance there will be a reference point to compare it with after 3 weeks of work.
June 20, 2020. Now that I have spent a little over a month on this piece I can say that it will likely take at least the entire two months that I estimated to be able to play this piece well. I have measures 55-70 memorized and can play it reasonably well at an eighth note = 50. For that section I have managed to get both hands separately up to an eighth note at 160 but have had to work to overcome coordination problems when putting both hands together. I do expect to get that section up to a speed of the eighth note at around 144 within a week. By reviewing this practice log an making this entry I will likely feel motivated to record a practice session and post it so readers will be able to assess my progress sometime in the coming week as well. I have also done a good bit of work on measures 38 - 54 but have not started the smoothing process with the metronome like I have been doing with the final 25 measures. Still, this section is probably close to being memorized as well although there are a few spots where I still have memory slips. I have not spent any time working on measures 1 - 37 but will probably start looking at measures 21 - 37 next week as well. I do not anticipate that section to be as difficult as the second half as most of the themes present in that section have undergone extensive development in the second half of the piece and I am now quite familiar with them.
November 25, 2020. Unfortunately, I didn't made any recordings of this piece prior to the start of fall semester in August and it ended up getting put on the back burner. At that time I started working on Fugue #16 - Book 2 - JSBach (p0377) and will have to make a recording of it in about two weeks. As an outgrowth of my initial theory class this semester I will create a separate article for that with something resembling an analysis of the piece that I didn't do for this one but I expect I will return to polishing off both of these pieces sometime before the beginning of Spring semester.
One thing I did want to mention is that I have recently received a number of positive comments about this particular page on the site and am grateful for the positive feedback that I have been given. I haven't released those comments because the websites they reference are of a nature that is not compatible with my purpose in creating this site and some emails provided by the commentators were not valid. I hope to sometime add a link with some guidelines for commenting but that will not be until after the end of the semester.
