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In comparison to our predecessors, the modern educator enjoys an embarrassment of riches regarding the selection and variety of available teaching materials. A quick visit to the local music store reveals dozens of instrumental method books, collections of songs and technical primers from which the teacher is free to choose. Many possess a particular slant or focus, intended to assist the instructor in arranging acceptable sequences of activities and assignments. Suggestions on hand position, embouchure placement and other technical details specific to individual instruments or voices may also be included on the pages of such books. Other editions may only contain the building blocks of instruction--songs, etudes, duets--leaving the actual order and pace of instruction to the teacher's discretion.

Whatever the approach, there are two discordant themes that seem to sound throughout the selection of current teaching materials:

* The direction of instruction is often reversed.

* The quality of music included in these texts is often quite poor.

Sequence

In regard to instructional sequence, all too often the books in question attempt to teach skills--trills, vibrato, breath control--in an isolated manner. Devoid of a logical musical context, the acquisition of these technical abilities may lack relevance for the learner. While technical studies and exercises have their place in pedagogy, current research indicates that learners grasp information more quickly and retain it longer when it is delivered in a context-rich environment. According to Charles Chew, director of the division of communication arts and social sciences instruction for the New York state education department, major misunderstandings abound in the area of skills instruction.

...skill instruction comes in a context of need and meaning. For the most part, we have approached sill instruction in an isolated way. No matter how cogent the discussion; no matter how articulate the reasoning; no matter how definitive the research findings, we teach skills out of context. We believe that drill on twenty spelling words a week yields good spellers. We teach subject-verb agreement and pronoun case through grammar exercises that have little rhyme or reason, We teach the conventions of writing at the beginning of the writing process rather than in the editing stage where they belong. Many teachers are questioning such an approach and focusing skill instruction in a context understandable and accessible to students.(1)

As is true of nearly any discussion of educational practice, the notion of extracting instructional sequence from actual compositions can hardly be considered a new concept. Good teachers have based their methods upon the music of the great composers for hundreds of years, employing drills as the need arises and taking care to relate these exercises to music being studied at the time.

Quality

An issue familiar to most teachers is the selection of quality literature for use in teaching. The teaching landscape is littered with an excess of contrived, artificial music that appeals only to the trendiest of musical tastes. Poor arrangements of popular music intended to satisfy the desires of immature learners are found in too many folders, serving as an inadequate substitute for more substantial musical fare.

...much [educational] music is of appalling quality, representing little of the heritage of significant music...the classics of Western music...do not occupy the central place they should in singing, playing, and listening...To the extent artificial music is taught to children, to that extent they are invited to hate it. There is no reason or need to use artificial or pseudo-music in any of its forms.(2)

The challenge facing modern educators is twofold. Teachers need to find ready sources of high-quality musical material that allow them to plan instructional sequences from a musical foundation, as opposed to a technique-driven approach. It should come as no surprise that a possible solution to this problem can be found in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Bach as Teacher

"Of Bach it could be said that no one had ever been a worse schoolmaster with greater talent for teaching."(3) This description of Bach's teaching career by Albert Schweitzer paints a picture of the composer as a poor disciplinarian who nonetheless possessed the ability to construct a sound pedagogical framework upon which to base his students' musical growth.

Like most of the teachers of his time, Bach was disposed to use compositions for the bulk of his teaching material. Although certainly not averse to studying other composers' work (his fascination with Vivaldi's music, for example), Bach thought it important to produce a body of didactic work for his students' use. "Bach's conviction was that (technical study) was to be continued for at least six to twelve months. If it happened, however, that any one's patience was becoming exhausted after a few months, he was pleased to write little connected pieces, in which these exercises were embodied."(4) In tying these short pieces into specific pedagogic aims--finger exercises, trills, clarity of touch--Bach provided his students with instruction designed in a pedagogically sound way. Technique was derived from the music, not the other way around, making the information more relevant to the learner

Another element of Bach's approach to teaching that parallels a contemporary trend in music education was his stress on composition as a major component of his students' musical training. The current "whole language" movement in general education encourages a greater emphasis on student-generated writing, in an attempt to improve upon traditional music education delivery systems. These traditional systems have done an acceptable job with two of the three ways people deal with music, performance/improvisation and listening, but have done less well with composition.

The fundamental idea of whole language programs is to immerse children as early as possible in the world of text and to allow them to become meaningful apprentices to competent literate individuals...It is heartening to report, therefore, that classes filled with student writing and "prewriting" exemplify what is probably the major change in American elementary education over the past quarter century. A whole-language emphasis is far from being a universal practice, but it is being used in many places where it was not seen a decade or two ago.(5)

The "whole language/music approach makes the whole enterprise of composition worthy of notice."(6) Young students are more than capable--especially if allowed the freedom to explore alternative notational systems and creative avenues of expression--of producing valid compositions appropriate for use in traditional learning situations.

Bach would have found much to agree with in the thoughts expressed above. According to Schweitzer, "After the pupils had made some progress in the technique of the instrument, the lessons in composition began. A musical education devoted merely to the technique of performance, such as is mostly the rule nowadays, unfortunately, was not usual then, and least of all with Bach. The pieces that he made his students play served at the same time as examples in composition, as the title pages of the Inventions and of the Orgelbuchlein expressly declared."(7)

Collections that provide examples of this dual teaching intent (instrumental technique and composition) are the two Clavierbuchlein that Bach composed, one for his oldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, and the other for his second wife, Anna Magdalena Bach. Both collections were motivated through Bach's sense of "domestic duty" and share a number of similarities in scope and content.(8) Each was intended as both a keyboard primer and a composition manual. Each is comprised of pieces found in multiple editions or versions. Each contains mostly short compositions focused on specific pedagogical goals. But it is through their differences that these two collections allow us to observe how Bach adapted his instruction to suit the needs of his pupils.

Clavierbuchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Presented to his eldest son on January 22, 1720, J.S. Bach's Clavierbuchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach is a quilt of preludes, fantasies, inventions, dance movements (allemandes, gigues, courantes, menuets) and chorale treatments. A total of sixty-three compositions grace the pages of Wilhelm Friedemann's "little book," encompassing a wide variety of keys (up to six flats and seven sharps) and forms (inventions, praeludiums, menuets, suites and so on). The book begins with an explanation of the various clefs and ornaments (manieren) in use at the time. The placement of this material at this point in the text seems to call into question the traditional view of the Clavierbuchlein as merely a keyboard primer. Surely a beginning student would not be ready for ornamentation before a thorough grounding in more basic fare.

But underlying this seemingly haphazard array of short piano compositions is a more serious purpose. "The traditional view, which attempts to see in the Clavierbuchlein something resembling a formal keyboard method from the hand of Johann Sebastian Bach and even finds the order of its contents pedagogically significant, cannot do justice to the understanding of its character."(9) Indeed, a closer examination shows that the series of thirty two-voice and three-voice compositions titled Praeambulums and Fantasias are not only arranged in a sequential key scheme (see Figure 1), but are placed in order of increasing "technical and compositional difficulty and complexity."(10) (Figure 1 omitted)

Although the Clavierbuchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann is familiar to generations of young pianists as a source of endless study material, the pieces included in the collection were also meant to introduce students (in particular, Wilhelm Friedemann) to the art of composition. In keeping with his fondness for motivic development, Bach imbues these pieces with a great economy of means in order to demonstrate how a composer can create with a minimum of thematic material. Examples of nearly all the compositional devices favored by Bach can be found in these works: augmentation, inversion, canon, invertible counterpoint, fugue, stretta and others.

There is also the possibility that Bach left some of the compositions incomplete, to serve as models for his son's continuing attempts at compositional imitation. "...the true purpose of the Clavierbuchlein becomes apparent no later than at the point where, after his father had set down the first notations, the uncertain hand of Wilhelm Friedemann makes its first appearance."(11) The striking similarity between numbers 2 and 26 (see music examples) seems to bear out this assumption. (Samples omitted) One can imagine the younger Bach being presented with the earlier piece as a model upon which to base his own endeavors, using his father's work as a springboard, first copying and studying, then altering a note here and there. After sufficient practice expanding on the master's archetypes, the apprentice composer would then begin his first efforts at putting his own musical thoughts on paper.

Clavierbuchlein der Anna Magdalena Bach

The Clavierbuchlein der Anna Magdalena Bach appears in two versions, "the first belonging to 1722, the second...bearing the date 1725. The first contains twenty-four easy pieces for the clavier; the second consists of preludes, suites, chorales, and sacred and secular songs."(12)

It appears that the twenty-four two-reprise-form compositions of the first version of the Clavierbuchlein for Anna Magdalena Bach were intended as an introduction to the keyboard, while the 1725 collection, with its broader variety of formal models, might have served as more of a compositional guide. This contention is strengthened by the inclusion of "some highly important rules of General Basso recorded at the end of the Clavierbuchlein of 1725," which seems to indicate that the later volume emphasized composition rather than beginning keyboard instruction.(13)

Through the differences in the nature of the didactic additions to the two Clavierbuchleins, Bach also shows his interest in individualizing instruction to the abilities of his pupils. For the nine-year-old Wilhelm Friedemann, a relative musical novice, Bach provides practical knowledge. By including fingering charts and tables of ornaments and clefs at the beginning of the book for easy reference, Bach supplies the musical nuts and bolts necessary for assembling the pieces to follow.

For the older, more accomplished Anna Magdalena, Bach's pedagogical instructions emphasize the more advanced principle of figured bass. Coming at the end of the book, this information is more likely included as an introduction to the topic rather than merely as a reference, as in Wilhelm Friedemann's primer.

From a comparison of the two collections one can also surmise that Bach approached the composition of each from different perspectives. The thoroughness that characterizes Wilhelm Friedemann's book seems appropriate coming from a "father who destined his son for his own profession, and that profession semi-sacred."(14) On the other hand, the directness that marks Anna Magdalena's Notenbuchlein is in keeping with Terry's description of this work as "an intimate anthology for his young wife's instruction."(15)

"Every piece of music, he told his pupils, is a conversation between the separate voices, that represent the characters. If one of them has nothing pertinent to say, it may keep silence for a while, until it can again enter quite naturally into the conversation. But none must break in with an interjection that is meaningless and has no reason to be there."(16) This description of Bach's instructions to his students provides us with an insight not only into his philosophy of teaching, but into his fundamental approach to composition. Similarly, the clavier books of Wilhelm Friedemann and Anna Magdalena can be thought of as musical conversations connecting teacher to student, father to son, and husband to wife. And in a larger sense, these books serve to provide a connection from our musical past to the present.

Editions of the Clavierbuchlein & Related Works

Clavierbuchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach:

Recommended:

* Edited by Ralph Kirkpatrick. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959. Edited in facsimile from the holograph in the library of the Yale School of Music.

Other editions:

* Kassel, Germany: Barenreiter, 1979. Facsimile edition with preface in German and English.

* Edited and annotated by Richard Jones. London: The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (T. Presser, selling agent), 1988.

Clavierbuchlein der Anna Magdalena Bach

Recommended:

* Edited by Georg von Dadelsen. Kassel, Germany & New York: Barenreiter, 1988. A reproduction of the autograph in the Staatsbibliothek Preussicher Kulturbesitz in Berlin. Afterword in English, French and German.

Other editions:

* Edited by Hermann Keller, with translations by Kurt Michaelis. New York: C.F. Peters Corp., 1981. A recent urtext edition.

* Edited by Ernst-Gunter Heinemann, Munich: G. Henle Musikverlag, 1983. An urtext edition based on the original manuscript in the Staatsbibliothek Preussicher Kulturbesitz in Berlin. With prefatory notes in English, French and German.

Selections from the Clavierbuchlein and Related Works

* An Introduction to His Keyboard Music, edited by William Palmer. Van Nuys, CA: Alfred Publishing Co., 1991. Contains selections from the Clavierbuchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach; the "Applicatio," an introduction to ornamentation, from the same work; and Bach's first two-part invention, introduced with a thorough analysis of the piece.

* First Lessons in Bach, edited by Walter Carroll and Willard Palmer. Van Nuys, CA: Alfred Publishing Co., 1991. Includes information on ornaments and sixteen easy pieces composed by Bach or used by members of his family in learning to play.

* Selections from Anna Magdalena's Notebook, edited by Willard Palmer. Van Nuys, CA: Alfred Publishing Co., 1992. The selections have been arranged in such an order as to introduce one ornament at a time. Information on ornamentation is also included.

* Selections from the Little Clavier Book for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, edited by Willard Palmer, Van Nuys, CA: Alfred Publishing Co., 1994. Includes information on ornamentation, phrasing, articulation, tempo and dynamics.

Music samples set using Nightingale software provided by Temporal Acuity Products, 300-120th Ave., Bldg. 1, Bellevue, WA 98006. Temporal Acuity Products recognizes MTNA as a member of the educational community and gives MTNA members an educational discount.

NOTES

1. Charles Chew, "Whole Language: A New Agenda for English Language Arts," Journal of the School Administrator Association of New York State (Winter 1992), 5.

2. Michael Mark, Contemporary Music Education (New York: Schirmer Books, 1978), 236.

3. Albert Schweitzer, J.S. Bach (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1911), 214.

4. J.N. Forkel, Uber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke, quoted in J.S. Bach, by Albert Schweitzer (Leipzig: Breitkopf Hartel, 1911), 216.

5. Howard Gardner, The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think & How Schools Should Teach (New York: Basic Books, 1991), 211.

6. Rena Upitis, Can I Play You My Song? (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1992), 145.

7. Schweitzer, 217.

8. Charles Terry, The Music of Bach: An Introduction (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1963), 27.

9. J.S. Bach, Klavierbuchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, edited by W. Plath (London: Barenreiter Kassel, 1979), v.

10. Robert Gauldin, "Bach's Inventions," unpublished class notes, The Eastman School of Music, 1994.

11. Bach, Klavierbuchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, v.

12. Schweitzer, 108.

13. Ibid.

14. Terry, 27.

15. C.S. Terry, Bach: A Biography (London: Oxford University Press, 1928), 139.

16. Schweitzer, 219.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author wishes to thank the noted Bach scholar Alfred Mann of the Eastman School of Music for his help in the preparation of this article.

Mitchell Robinson is a doctoral candidate at the Eastman School of Music. He has studied at SUNY-Buffalo, the Hartt School of Music and Northwestern University. He served for ten years as director of bands and music department facilitator in Fulton, New York.

Copyright Music Teachers National Association Apr 1995