099 - My Bach Year

It started with an aspiration: “I want to get back into regular practicing,” I said to Steve one day. “But without a performance commitment, it’s hard to justify the time. What’s the point?” “There doesn’t need to be a point,” he said simply. “Do it for you. I think you’d enjoy it.”

In that moment, I gave myself permission to start: A recommitment, a new routine, an artistic practice.

But what would I play? Almost immediately, I thought of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. I played a few of the preludes and fugues from Book 1 in high school and maybe the beginning of college, but there were many I’d never learned. Some of the fugues were intimidating as I flipped through my score (the Willard Palmer edition)—certainly not something I could sit down and sight-read my way through.

I decided to challenge myself to learn one prelude and fugue each month, in order. I also decided to record them at the end of the month; not to post or share, necessarily, but as a way of documenting the project.

I’m sharing all this because I think it’s important to talk about the process of learning and to make it more visible. That’s what this podcast is all about—sharing field notes, reflections, and observations about the questions I’m asking, things I’m learning, teaching strategies I’m trying, and things I’m curious about.

Consider this episode my field notes on my year-long Bach experiment.