On Teaching

Organ Method XIV

This month’s column is a continuation of last month’s discussion of learning to play contrapuntal passages.

In the second movement of Felix Mendelssohn’s Sonata in C Minor, Opus 65, No. 2, the left-hand part is mostly in two voices. Any part of that movement makes wonderful material for practicing multiple voices in one hand in the way that we have been discussing. Here are the first several measures of that piece, shown in Example 1.

There are more than thirty measures that are constructed like this. Each of the two left-hand voices (marked Clav. I) is quite intricate by itself, so, in practicing each of them separated into two hands, you will have to take some care with the fingering and a fair amount of time. For using this piece to explore this method of practicing, it is not necessary to work on all of it at once: any few measures will be fruitful.

Example 2 shows another Bach passage with two voices in the right hand. It is from the Sinfonia in D Major, BWV 789, beginning just after the downbeat of m. 5.

In this passage, the two right-hand voices briefly cross, and in one spot, one voice passes through a note that is being held by the other voice. In playing the two voices separately on two keyboards, none of this causes any problems or is particularly noteworthy. Can you use this exercise to make it possible—or more natural—to hear those voices clearly as they cross, when you put them back together?

We now move on to three special issues in manual playing. Two of them are approaches to fingering that apply to certain types of writing that are common in the repertoire. These are 1) the fingering of repeated notes, and 2) substitution. The other is an exercise designed to help with the playing of trills and other passages that call for rapid, light playing. I will describe the trill exercise first, and then move on to the other two, which are in fact closely related to one another. 

This exercise is not written in music notation, and does not involve playing passages of music, but rather only simple pairs of notes. Its purpose is to create an awareness of a feeling of lightness and ease of touch, which can then be carried into the playing of other exercises and passages of music, especially of trills, other rapid ornaments, and rapid passages in general. It is physically easy to do, though it requires a certain kind of focus that can take a while to achieve. It is equally appropriate and helpful for seasoned players, for absolute beginners, and for anyone in between. It goes like this:

1) Choose two fingers on the same hand. (The first time you play this exercise, the fingers should be 4/3 or 3/2, in either hand. Later on it is especially valuable to play it with 5/4, and any two fingers can be suitable, even non-adjacent fingers.)

2) Choose two notes—at first they should be adjacent naturals, but later on it is valuable to include sharps/flats as well. As with some of the exercises from earlier in this series, it is important that you choose notes that lie in the part of the keyboard where your arm and hand are naturally more-or-less straight when you are playing (that is, your wrist not cocked or twisted). This is, of course, normally near the top of the treble clef in the right hand and near the bottom of the bass clef in the left hand. It is a good idea to position the fingers near the ends of the keys, and to let the thumb float in the air in front of the keyboard. (But see below for using this exercise with the thumb.)

3) Once you have chosen the two notes and the two fingers, rest the two fingers on the notes and relax your hand, arm, neck, shoulders, etc. Sit in a comfortable  position, and take a deep breath or two. Then play one of the notes—either one—lightly and smoothly, and hold it. When you feel completely relaxed, then:

4) Play the other note and the original note in succession, as quickly and as lightly as you can: a quick, light two-note gesture. While you are playing these two notes, your hand and wrist should feel more as if they are floating upwards than as if they are bearing down. This two-note gesture will leave you holding the same note that you played first, and it will have created at least a little bit of tension in your hand. Once again you should wait for your hand, arms, etc., to completely relax. Then repeat the two-note gesture, and do this a few times in a row. It is crucial to wait each time for your fingers, hand, arm, shoulders, neck, back, etc., to completely relax. Thus, it is not appropriate to develop a steady rhythm or beat in doing this exercise. If you do, you are probably not allowing yourself to relax thoroughly enough between playing notes.

5) After you have done this a few times with a particular pair of fingers and notes in one order, play it with the same fingers and notes in the opposite order. It is important to stop before it begins to feel “routine” and thus impossible to achieve a combination of concentration and relaxation. Usually it makes sense to play it about 4 to 6 times each (up/down and down/up) and then leave it. This varies from one person to another. It is better to do a little bit of this often than to do a lot of it in one sitting.

6) It is not necessary to segue from this exercise directly into playing a trill or other fast passage. Rather, the point is to remember the feeling of the exercise when you next play a trill or fast passage. If you do a little bit of this exercise most days, spreading it around to several pairs of fingers (not neglecting 5/4), and working with both hands an approximately equal amount, the feeling of it will spill over quite naturally into your playing.

7) The following “special cases” of the exercise require extra thought: the thumb, sharps and flats, and non-adjacent fingers. In these cases, particular care must be taken about hand position. Make sure that the alignment of the fingers with respect to the notes permits the hand to remain in (or constantly regain) a tension-free state. For example: using 2/1 on adjacent naturals is usually too awkward to be good for this exercise; however, using 2/1 or 3/1 on a natural and a sharp/flat is often very comfortable, and indeed a good thing to practice (thumb on the natural, obviously). Using 4/2 on F# and D (right hand) is usually fine, but using 4/2 on A and F# (right hand) is usually not. Using 3/2 on a natural and a sharp/flat is usually OK if 2 is on the natural, but not if 3 is on the natural. The point is to make sure that the wrist is not cocked or twisted outwards very much (ideally not at all), that the fingers are not so curved that they don’t have good leverage in pushing down the keys, and that it is possible to remain near the ends of the keys. (These are all normal considerations in organ fingering, but this exercise only retains its purpose if the hands are very comfortable, whereas in playing repertoire, the complexity of the music often makes some compromise in comfortable
fingering unavoidable.)

An important note: In 4) above, I use the phrase “as quickly and as lightly as you can.” The most important part of this is “as you can.” Quickness is the point, but it cannot be pushed. If you try to execute this simple gesture faster than you can comfortably do it, you will defeat the purpose of the exercise.

Playing repeated notes

Repeated notes on the organ are often seen as something of a problem—and with some reason. In order to repeat a note on organ, you must release it all the way. This is also true on harpsichord, but not on piano, and not consistently on other instruments. When you combine this need to release a note before you can sound it again with the sustaining quality of organ sound, you get a situation in which repeated notes can stick out: they can sound disconnected from the rest of the sonority, texture, and musical shape of a piece or passage. If a line or passage is being played fully legato, then two notes in a row that are the same will be articulated differently from the non-repeated notes around them. Repeated notes cannot be fully legato. Even in a line or passage that is being played in an overall detached style, repeated notes can stand out, since the way in which they are detached can sound different—more crisp or abrupt. 

It is a reasonable goal to be able to play repeated notes as naturally as possible, that is, to reduce as much as possible the extent to which they stand out or draw attention to themselves. It is also a good thing to be able to control and shape the playing of repeated notes—timing, articulation, sonority—with as much flexibility as possible. This is true of all notes and all playing, but with repeated notes it calls for some extra thought. 

In general, the discovery made by organists over many centuries and through all sorts of different schools of organ composition and organ playing is that it is a good idea, when possible, to play repeated notes with different fingers—to change fingers from one note to the repetition of that same note. This is not always possible to do. Repeated notes that are octaves or that are embedded in chords, especially four- or five-note chords, sometimes must be played using the same fingers. However, the changing of fingers on repeated notes is a practice that is important to learn and to get used to.

If you have just played a note with a given finger and you are still holding it, then in order to repeat it with that finger you must do all of the work of releasing and replaying the note with that finger. You need time to move the finger up off the note, and then bring it back down. This sets a limit on how little time there can be between the release of the first note and the playing of the second. Not only must there be a break between the two (same) notes, but that break must be a certain length. Also, the gesture of moving a finger up and back down is likely to produce tension. The shorter you try to make the break between the two notes, the more at risk you are for introducing tension into the hand. The paradox arises that trying to make the repetition more “legato” actually makes it more abrupt: more of a conspicuous break. 

If you repeat a note with a different finger, then you can be preparing the new finger to play the note before you have released it with the old finger, and you can release the note smoothly. Sometimes it will make sense to release down and towards your body sitting on the bench or off to one side, rather than straight up above the note that you are holding and that you need to play again. The new finger can move in and replace the old finger smoothly. This gesture creates less tension and gives you the greatest possible flexibility in timing and articulation. The repeated note still must be detached, but, if you want, it can be only slightly detached—
almost imperceptibly. 

Start getting used to using different fingers on repeated notes with the simplest possible exercises, such as that shown in Example 3.

You can move this to different notes and use different fingering patterns. (For example, try 2-3-4-3-2-3-4-3, or 2-1-2-1-3-1-3-1.) Remember to keep hands, arms, shoulders, and so on completely relaxed. Release notes smoothly but cleanly: that is, do not inadvertently slip the new finger onto the note prior to releasing it. If you do that, you are in fact practicing substitution—which we come to next—but not playing repeated notes with different fingers. Experiment with different amounts of articulation, and with patterns of differing articulation between the different notes.

Another useful pattern for practicing is illustrated in Example 4. The fingering given is just one set of possibilities. You can devise and try others, preserving the principle of changing fingers on the repeated notes. Try different things with articulation: making the non-repeated notes legato, with different amounts of break at the repeated notes; articulating all of the notes the same; using varied detached articulation for all of the notes, and so on. ν

To be continued.

Hand Distribution III

Continuing our trek through the Alla Breve section of Bach’s D Major Prelude and Fugue, BWV 532—looking closely at issues involving hand distribution—we come to a brief section that is influenced by something other than the music itself:

Example 1 shows that if there were nothing else to think about, clearly there is reason not to distribute the two voices between the two hands. That is the first principle of hand distribution, after all. However, in most editions of this piece, there is a page turn right about here. Therefore, the player can gain a bit of ease with that page turn by taking all of these notes in one hand (most likely the right hand). It is entirely possible that the various editors have chosen to position these measures at a page turn in order to help out in this way. Of course, for a player who memorizes the piece this won’t matter in the long run, but it might still help during the learning process. 

This is a special case—sort of a diversion. In fact, analyzing it like this is a useful way to help a student to relax: talking about something practical and not artistically intense, but relevant. However, it is not an unreal concern, and there are other reasons for taking clusters of notes in one hand in order to deal with something else while playing. The main one is probably the act of changing stops. Even something as simple as grabbing all of the notes of the final chord of each verse of a hymn in one hand to change stops with the other is a branch of decision-making about hand distribution.

The rest of this Alla Breve section mainly presents the same issues that we have already seen, with perhaps a few twists. I will go through it all, but concisely, since it is more or less “review”. 

The next short passage (Example 2, measures 48–49) has an outer voice that is more active than the other voices. Therefore it will make sense to keep that voice by itself in one hand, for the most part. Some players may want to break up the middle voice by taking the d′ at the end of measure 48 in the right hand. There may be other modifications that could make sense, but tracking the entire middle voice in the right hand would significantly increase the difficulty of the passage.

Example 3 (measures 50–51) shows the next measure, which has an intricate middle voice. All of the notes of that voice can be reached by the right hand; however, it might make sense to take some or all of those notes that can also be reached by the left hand, to break up the physical act of combining that line with another. The candidate notes are probably the opening c#′, and the b and the a in measure 50.

The next, which is fairly lengthy, has the fast-moving figures in the upper voice. However, the two slower voices are not close enough to one another to be taken in the left hand, clearing the right hand just to track the intricate line (see Example 4, measures 52–59).

For most players, the easiest and most natural way to finger the passage will involve taking in the left hand all of the middle-voice notes that the left hand can actually reach, and taking the notes that the left hand cannot reach in the right hand. On the second quarter note of each of the odd-numbered measures, where the two higher voices come together, there is a special issue to think about. Which hand can best project to the listener the illusion that this is two notes, one of which moves away as part of the upper eighth-note line and one of which is part of the middle-voice quarter-note line? It is actually a trap in a spot like this to try to play the note with two fingers at once, one from each hand. (No one would suggest this on purpose, but students will indeed fall into doing it, probably through indecision.) The choice of hand (and finger) should be made clearly, even though it can be made either way.

For most of the next nine measures, there are no real questions to think about, either because the (manual) writing is in only two voices or because the balance of more intricate and simpler writing makes it clear. 

At measure 65 (Example 5) there is an interesting subtlety to examine. The middle voice takes over the note being held—presumably in the left hand—by the lower voice. Which hand should play the note? The left hand is right there, but with the “wrong” finger—since whatever finger is holding the note, the hidden repeated note will sound better if it is played with a different finger. This is not hard to manage. The articulation and timing of the move from the c#′ to the a in the middle voice might seem to be under more natural control if both those notes are played in the same hand. However, it is entirely possible to practice towards making that gesture effective across the two hands, as I will discuss below. It might seem better to take that eighth- note a with the left hand to give the right hand more time to get up to the c#′′ on the second quarter note of the measure. However, to me that “leap”—the tenth from the a to the c#′′ over the time-span of an eighth note—is the main reason to take the a in the right hand. The physical gesture of moving the right hand up the distance of that tenth will—like a bowing gesture in string writing—give the player the best chance of shaping the articulation and timing of the musical gesture in an effective and natural way.

At measure 69 (in Example 6) there is a brief passage in which any and all of the notes of the middle voice could be taken by either hand.

This is a good spot at which to remember once again that it doesn’t matter on which staff the notes are printed. The decision about which middle-voice notes to take in which hand should be based on comfort and logistics. This is not a bad time to mention that this will vary with the particular hand shapes of different players. For example, it is quite likely that a player with relatively short thumbs will gain more comfort from taking the d′ in measure 70 with the left hand than a player with relatively long thumbs will. 

Measures 71 through 78 display a texture in which the upper voice is mostly holding long notes, while the other two voices are fairly active. A sample of that passage is shown in Example 7.

It makes sense to take the eighth-note middle voice in the right hand, just accepting that one finger (the fifth finger) of that hand is unavailable since it has to hold long sustained notes. 

At measure 79 there is another opportunity to use hand distribution to make the playing of repeated notes sound natural, and to avoid letting those repeated notes disrupt the flow of the voices. My suggestions are indicated by letters, and are shown in Example 8.

The next complicated or involved spot begins at measure 89 (Example 9). This is a longer example of the sort of writing found at measure 36 and discussed in last month’s column. In this case, however, the eighth notes in the middle voice can all be reached by either hand. The player has a free choice as to which hand should play any of these notes and therefore what pattern to follow through the passage. The teacher’s role is mostly to point this out to the student, and to help the student notice the implications of different choices for hand position and articulation (and of course the implications of articulation preferences for hand distribution choices: the more interested a student is in playing the upper half-note line legato, for example, the more middle-voice notes the student will want to take in the left hand). I myself would probably take the third eighth note of each beat in the left hand—those that are a third higher than the lower voice left-hand notes, closest to them—and the others in the right hand. There are other ways to do it.

The next few measures (Example 10 measures 94–96) end the section of the piece that we are analyzing. Again, either hand can reach the middle-voice notes. Choices can be made based on the usual factors: closeness of notes to one another, hand position, and so on. However, this passage also has a special feature. A player might find that the shaping of the timing and articulation of the syncopations/suspensions in the upper voice feels more natural either 1) with those notes isolated on their own in the right hand, or 2) played with the middle-voice notes in the right hand, using a kind of rocking motion to reinforce the feeling of the pacing and articulation of those notes. This is an individual thing: I can easily imagine doing it either way.

When a student (or any player) has made all of the decisions about which hand should take which notes of a (middle) contrapuntal voice, and worked out the actual fingering, then the next step is to practice the passage in such a way that that voice sounds the way that the player wants it to sound. If the hand distribution and fingering are right (comfortable) then this should not be categorically different from practicing any other sort of passage. 

However, there is one concern. It is undeniably a little bit more difficult—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say “less intuitive”—to shape the timing and articulation of the transitions from one note to the next in a contrapuntal voice when those notes are in different hands than when they are in the same hand. It is very important not to let this fact lead a player into making awkward hand distribution choices. (Sometimes it can and should influence those choices when other factors are fairly evenly split). But it should be kept in mind and addressed in practicing. 

The main way to address it is to practice that voice by itself, but split between the hands with the correct, worked-out fingering. This is partly physical practice, but even more it is listening practice. It is easiest to attune the ears to the flow of the line when the line is not covered by other notes, and this will make it easier to hear and follow the line in the context of the full texture. It is always straightforward to extract the line once the fingering process has been accomplished. It can be a good exercise for a student to write out—or type out—the line by itself, add the chosen fingerings, and practice it from that. However this is probably not necessary. 

For the bulk of this practicing it is important not to change the chosen fingering—and it is crucial not to do so accidentally or at random. (It is always OK to rethink fingering consciously, if there is a reason to do so.) It is also important to listen carefully during this practice to the transition moments, where the voice crosses from one hand to the other. It is possible, especially with a line that is physically not hard to play, to play short sections of the line in one hand at this stage to listen for the continuity, and then put it back into the correct (two-hand) fingering, trying to match the one-handed effect. It is probably a good idea not to do very much of this: just once or twice through a given short section of the line being practiced. If a student finds this to be disruptive (that is, if it is hard to go back to the fingering that is really being practiced after visiting the one-hand fingering) then he or she should not do it. 

When a student has practiced a line this way and is ready to put the whole texture back together, he or she should try at first to listen only to the line that passes between the hands and to pay no attention to the voices around it. (Unfortunately, it is impossible by definition to solo out this line, since in all of the passages of the kind that we have been studying both hands and all the voices are—and have to be—on one keyboard.) This is an exercise in focusing, and of course it can’t be achieved literally. You will always hear the other notes, but you should try to focus on the line that passes between the hands, to be conscious of that line and the sonority of all of its notes.

It can be a good exercise to take any line of music—say the top line of a hymn, or one voice of a two-part Invention, or a cantabile melody from the slow movement of a Mendelssohn sonata—assign it an arbitrary fingering that shifts back and forth between the hands, and practice that fingering. (The fingering can be worked out arbitrarily, but should be written in and not changed at random.) This is not to end up playing that line that way regularly, but as training in listening to and executing the transitions from one hand to the other.

Often the issue is not that of passing a line between the hands. In non-contrapuntal music, the question of how to divide the notes between the hands (assuming, as always in this context, that the whole texture is meant to be played on one keyboard) should usually be determined as simply as possible by trying out the physical comfort, simplicity, and convenience of any of the various possibilities. In fact, very often, just remembering that it is perfectly all right to distribute the notes between the hands however they fall most easily is the most important as well as the first step. The rest follows from that. 

It is interesting that the impulse to play upper staff notes in the right hand and lower staff notes in the left hand can be pervasive. I recently took part in a conversation about the wide left-hand chord on the fourth beat of measure 8 of the Widor Toccata (Example 11). For many players, it is impossible (or nearly so) to play all four notes of this chord in the left hand, and for even more players it is at least awkward. The player who initiated the discussion absolutely could not reach those four notes. Nonetheless, the conversation revolved around such issues as which note or notes it was best to leave out, or whether there was a solution based on arpeggiation, or whether Widor’s left hand was really big enough for him to be able to play this chord easily and nonchalantly. 

It took a while for someone to notice the obvious solution, namely that the highest note of the so-called “left hand” chord is within easy reach of the notes of the upper voice, and can perfectly well be played in the right hand. Doing it this way opens up some performance issues similar to some of those discussed above. The timing and articulation of that note must be just right, as a match to the other notes of the chord. That is intuitive if all of the notes of the chord are in the same hand—and less intuitive, more challenging, if the notes are split between the hands. This is analogous to the issues involved in passing a voice back and forth between the hands. It is also important to keep the articulation of the top line going the way you want it while adding an extra note for the right-hand thumb. A player who absolutely cannot reach the entire chord can take on the task of practicing to get these things right. A player for whom the chord is possible but awkward can decide where the balance lies as to what is easiest and what will give the best results. 

This month’s column continues the discussion of learning to play more than one note or voice in each hand, specifically expanding it to music in which the multiple-note texture is that of counterpoint. Playing multiple independent voices in one hand is a practice that many players, most particularly beginning students or aspiring players, find intimidating. As always, part of my own aim in teaching this aspect of playing, or in presenting it in written form, is to demystify it and make it seem less scary, though of course without in any way “dumbing it down” or leading students to believe that it can be achieved trivially or without plenty of study. This is an area in which I would most appreciate feedback from Diapason readers. I begin with a discussion of the concept and move on to exercises and practice suggestions.

The distinction between multiple-note textures that are chords and multiple-note textures that are voices is one that is meaningful and important, but not always cut-and-dried. In the setting of the Old Hundredth discussed last month (see October issue, pp. 18–19), there are four voices: each voice might well be sung as a separate melody by members of a choir or of a congregation. For purposes of practicing at the organ, and in particular becoming accustomed to playing more than one note in each hand, it is possible to think of the piece as being written mostly in chords without misrepresenting it, because the voices are mostly in the same rhythm as one another. Voices (in keyboard pieces) that sound together and that are in the same rhythm as one another are, in effect, simultaneously voices and chords. Voices that differ from one another in rhythm are clearly voices as such. If the number of notes in the texture varies a lot, then it is probably a sort of hybrid. At this stage you should feel free just to keep these notions in the back of your mind. You do not have to define the texture of any passage that you are working on: just notice its characteristics. You will perhaps explore these definitions and distinction further, from a theoretical point of view, later on. The distinctions are also somewhat circular, in a way that is artistically meaningful: that is, you as a player can influence, by how you play, the listener’s sense of what is counterpoint and what is chordal texture, when, because of the nature of the writing, both are possibilities.

In fact, the last line of the Old Hundredth can be used to illustrate the process of practicing separate voices—that is, in a texture in which there clearly are independent voices—that fall in one hand. (The last line is best for this because in that line the rhythm does vary a little bit from one voice to another.) This process is, as mentioned above, mostly one of training the ears: that is, training the ears to follow the separate voices as melodies while playing them together (Example 1). (Note that in this example the voices are differentiated from one another by the direction of the note stems. Most publishers use this technique when it is appropriate to the music.)

Start with the notes—the two voices—in the upper (treble) staff. Work out a fingering for just the upper voice, in the right hand. Since the notes of this voice, taken by itself, span a fifth, the fingering could be as simple as the five fingers over the five notes. This would give (in order) 5-3-1-2-4-3-2-1. Now work out a left-hand fingering for the lower of these two voices. (Yes: you will, when putting the voices together, play them both in the right hand. This left-hand fingering is temporary.) This line covers a span of only three notes, and there are many possible fingerings. One would be 1-2-3-2-1-2-1-2-3. Practice each of these lines separately a little bit: until each one seems solid. (Each of these lines is, in itself, fairly simple, but should still be practiced enough to become really well learned.) 

Now put the two voices together—one in each hand, as you have practiced—on two manuals. This makes the notion of the independence of these voices as concrete a physical reality as it can be, and therefore makes it easy and intuitive for your ears to follow it. At first, choose sounds that are similar in volume but different in character. Then, after you have done this a few times, try sounds that are very different in volume: one of them almost, but not quite, drowning out the other. Then play the two voices together on one manual—still in two hands.

Next, go back to playing the entire two-voice texture together in the right hand, using the fingering that you worked out when you worked on this hymn earlier (October, p. 19). After the experience of separating the two voices between the hands, you should be able to hear the voices independently as you play them together—or at least to be able to begin to do so.

Now follow this same procedure with the two lower voices—those that will end up being played together in the left hand. A right-hand fingering for the upper of these two voices (the tenor voice) might be as follows: 4-3-4-3-2-4-3-4. A left-hand fingering for the lower (bass) voice might be 2-1-3-1-5-3-2-1-5. Of course, other fingerings are possible; work out fingerings that seem comfortable to you. After you have learned each line, and tried out various keyboard and sound combinations for playing the two voices together in separate hands, put them back together in the left hand, again using the fingering that you worked out earlier.

At this stage of putting two voices back together in one hand after practicing them (temporarily) in separate hands, you can try to focus your listening on one of the voices at a time, while playing both. In doing this, you may notice that it is easier to listen consciously to one of the voices than to the other, or that focusing on one of the voices tends to make the playing easier while focusing on the other makes it harder. You can then “zoom out” so to speak, and listen to both voices while playing them both. You should also go back and forth: after you have put the two voices back together in one hand, separate them again and play through them in two hands a few times. 

It is, psychologically or as a matter of perception, easier to hear two voices simultaneously and to follow them as separate melodies if you can feel yourself playing them with different physical entities. This sort of practice is a way of enlisting your ears in helping you to follow separate voices when, because they are together in the same hand, the are naturally pulled towards feeling like part of the same entity. 

It can also be useful to ask your teacher or another player to help you with a drill similar to this one. This involves your playing one voice while the other player plays the other voice of the two that will later be combined in one hand. This should of course be done in all of the different possible combinations. You should play one voice by itself two or three times in a row, then you should play it again while your assistant adds the other voice on a different keyboard. (Note: choose keyboards in such a way that the two of you don’t bump into each other.) Next, switch voices. Then, right away, while that experience is fresh in your ears, you should play the two voices together in one hand with the proper fingering.

Here are some further exercises and excerpts from pieces to help you get accustomed to this sort of practicing, with comments about how to approach each one (Examples 2 and 3). In these two exercises, each separate voice stays within a compass of five notes, so the fingering for the hands separated into voices is straightforward. When you re-combine the voices into one hand, feel free to keep the articulation detached if that helps the fingering to remain simple. Here is one suggested fingering for each hand, though as always others are possible (Examples 4 and 5). 

In the following examples, the two voices are more different from one another rhythmically (Examples 6 and 7). Again, neither of the separate voices spans a particularly wide compass, so the fingering and practicing of the separate voices is straightforward. In practicing the separate voices on different sounds, it is particularly interesting in this case to try registrations in which the two voices are quite different in volume, and in doing so, try to listen carefully to the one that is quieter. See what effect this has on your ability to hear the two voices independently when you put them back together in one hand on one sound.

The following is an excerpt from the Fugue in C Minor from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier by J. S. Bach (Example 8). The two voices, which are the upper two voices of a three-voice texture, pass a motive back and forth. In performance, the left hand is fully engaged with much lower notes and cannot participate in playing either of these two very active melodies. A possible fingering for the passage might begin like this (Example 9). The fingering of the individual lines, one in each hand, is straightforward, especially since the rests allow for easy repositioning of the hand. 

Since this is a lively and dance-like passage, it is interesting to try the separate voices on colorful sounds: perhaps reeds, flute combinations including mutations, and so on. Again try some combinations that make the two voices similar in volume, and others that almost drown out each voice in turn. Focus on listening to the voice that is harder to hear. When you put both voices back together in the right hand, notice that in some of the spots where the two voices are both present and moving, they are moving at the same rhythm as one another. Can you hear those spots are individual voices rather than as chords? How does that compare to the last half-measure of the excerpt? 

(There are many passages in Bach’s works both for harpsichord and for organ that provide excellent material for this sort of practice. You can browse through The Well-Tempered Clavier, both preludes and fugues, or, especially, the fugues from the various Preludes and Fugues for organ looking for appropriate passages. It is a good idea to do this sort of practicing in fairly short increments: about the length of the Bach example above.)

Here is an example for the left hand, from the Chorale-Prelude Morgenglanz der Ewigkeit from Opus 79b by Max Reger (Example 10). Each of the two voices ranges fairly far. However, each is still fairly simple to finger for one hand. (The upper voice goes high enough that it lies extremely comfortably under the fingers of the right hand). When the two voices are put together in the left hand, the fingering is challenging, especially since the composer has marked the entire piece sempre ben legato. This does not necessarily mean that all notes must always be legato. However, any convincing rendering of the legato style calls for the use of substitution, an important technique which is discussed later in this method. For purposes of using this and other similar short excerpts as part of the project of learning to hear multiple voices clearly while playing them together in one hand, it is acceptable to play the lines less fully legato than you would want to play them if you were learning the piece. (For example, using 5 on certain successive notes in the lower voice can clarify and simplify the fingering quite a lot, in a way that will be useful for a player who is not already familiar with this repertoire. The articulation that that gives might differ from what you would end up preferring if you were to learn the piece. You should experiment with different possibilities for fingering the two voices together, while working on getting to know the voices separated between the hands.) The fingering can be modified later, if necessary. In fact, just out of interest, I will use this same passage as part of the material for discussing substitution later on. ν

This discussion will continue next month, and will then segue into certain special techniques in manual playing, including substitution and playing repeated notes. After that, in the following several columns, I will deal with combining hands and feet. That will conclude the “nitty-gritty” practical aspect of the Method. It will be followed later on by discussion of registration, repertoire, and the history of the instrument.

It has always struck me as interesting that changing fingers on repeated notes and substitution are so similar to one another in what they actually involve physically. Thus it makes sense to me to use one of them to introduce the other. It is also important to keep them straight: it is extremely common for students to fall into the habit of doing a substitution when they think that they are changing fingers from one note to the repetition of that note.   

This continues without a break from last month’s column.

Gavin Black is Director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. He writes a blog at www.amorningfordreams.com.

A further practice step is to try patterns in which the hand plays more than one note at a time (Examples 1–4). The fingerings given above and below each line are alternates. There are other possibilities, for example, involving pairs such as 1/4 and 2/5. You can adapt these exercises in ways that occur to you, such as using black notes. Once again you should experiment with articulation. You can make non-repeated chords legato, and repeated chords any degree of non-legato; or try to match, as nearly identically as possible, the articulation of each of the motions from one chord to the next; or use a variety of non-legato articulations. Keep the hands light and relaxed, especially while releasing notes. Pay attention to the direction in which you release each finger when another finger is preparing to play that same note: up, down, slightly (or fully) to one side or the other. These logistic possibilities all have their place. They work out differently for players with varying relative finger lengths, and also for varying note patterns. It is your job to pay attention as you work on these exercises and figure out the most comfortable ways.

Repeated notes often occur in the context of ornaments, especially trills. The exercise in Example 5 allows you to practice that, assuming that you start each trill with the upper (auxiliary) note.You can play the opening note with 3 and each of the trills in succession with 4-3, or play the opening note with 2 and each of the trills with 3-2, or perhaps other patterns. You should adapt this exercise to other specific note patterns, including some involving black notes and the left hand. Do not worry about making the trills especially long or fast: the focus of practicing is the repeated note that initiates each trill.

Another ornament-based repeated note exercise, involving mordents, is shown in Example 6. You can play each quarter note with 3 and each mordent with 2-3-2, or other fingering patterns. For the purpose of this exercise it is only necessary that the final note of each mordent be played with a different finger from that which you want to use to play the following quarter note. Again, adapt this exercise to different specific note patterns and to the right hand.

Playing repeated notes with different fingers, in addition to giving the player more control over the timing, articulation, and sound of the repeated note patterns, also gives the player a free chance to re-position the hand. It can actually clarify and simplify fingering patterns for the passage around the repeated notes themselves. The excerpt from Rameau shown in Example 7 (part of the fifth of six variations on a Gavotte in A Minor) is an example of this, so extreme that if Rameau hadn’t written it, anyone discussing the fingering of repeated notes would have had to do so.

For all players except those with the very largest hands, changing fingers on the repeated notes in each group of four sixteenth notes is actually necessary to permit the playing of the other sixteenth notes. The same is true in the left hand sixteenth note pattern in the sixth variation from the same piece (Example 8).

But in being necessary it also guides the shaping of all of the rest of the fingering in such a way that the passages are actually quite natural and straightforward to play. Each decision about what fingers to use on the first and second notes of each pair of repeated notes should be based on where your hand is coming from and where it is going. Example 9 shows one possible fingering for the left hand part of the preceding example.

In Example 10, from the Brahms chorale Mein Jesu, der du mich, there is a moment, at the beginning of the second full measure, where the use of a different finger on a repeated note makes it possible to set up a simple and effective fingering for the succeeding passage. (My suggested fingering is not the only way to do it.)

The musical advantages of using different fingers to play repeated notes can only be heard and felt if the hand is very relaxed and the touch smooth and fluid. Any repeated-note moment (such as the one in this Brahms example) is a good place to remember, recapture, and apply the feeling of lightness gained from the trill exercise described above. 

Substitution

As opposed to changing fingers on repeated notes, the technique known as “substitution” is changing fingers on held notes. While these two techniques serve very different musical and technical purposes, and indeed are most typically associated with different historical periods and repertoire, they have so much in common technically as to be essentially versions of one another. 

There are several things to bear in mind when beginning to work on substitution:

1) A substitution can be either measured—the new finger placed silently on the note at a predetermined time, probably defined in relation to the beat of the passage, or instant—that is, the new finger slides in to replace the original finger as part of the gesture whereby the original finger played the note in the first place. (Whereas the timing of finger change in a repeated-note passage is determined by the timing of that passage’s notes.) A substitution can also be somewhat in-between: that is, not instant, not a one-gesture slide, but not specifically timed to be on a beat or subdivision of a beat. This latter is probably the most common in practice, though all are quite useful.

2) In any substitution there is likely to be something to observe about the specific direction in which the original finger departs and the direction from which the new finger arrives. It may make sense to get the original finger out of the way by lifting it up, moving it sideways, allowing it to curve downward, or something else, or some combination. The new finger can slide in under the old, or from above it, or from one side or the other. All of this affects or is affected by hand position and by the relative lengths of the fingers. It is not—since the substitution is silent in any case—something that affects the musical results. It is about comfort and reliability. 

3) Substitution is generally associated with legato. The usual reason for introducing an extra gesture into the act of playing is to permit the hand to be in a position to play the next note or notes without having to release the existing note(s) in a way that creates an unwanted break. Sometimes, however, substitution simply seems to make a passage easier. Different players develop different degrees of comfort with substitution and use it to differing extents. 

4) Substitution is more likely to be necessary or to provide an appropriate solution for creating true legato in situations in which a hand is playing more than one note: counterpoint or chords. In single line textures, substitution is rarely necessary to effect a particular musical result. (When it is necessary, that is usually a result of something having to do with very wide intervals.) That is not to say that it is not often comfortable or convenient. Sometimes it can serve the same function as changing fingers on repeated notes in that it can allow the hand to reposition itself efficiently.

5) Substitution—unlike most of what most performing musicians do while playing—creates physical gestures that do not correspond to anything that the player or the listener actually hears. This can break or weaken or generally interfere with the player’s ability to experience the rhythmic vitality of the music through the kinesthetic experience of playing. For some players this sense—almost of dancing to the music while playing, but doing so with the playing gestures themselves rather than by literal dancing—is a real and valuable aid to vivid and convincing performance. If the feeling that the hands (and perhaps feet) are doing things that aren’t part of the rhythmic flow of the music seems, to a particular player, like a problem, then that player might well be inclined to use substitution less than other players. There are also ways of counteracting or compensating for that effect. At an early stage of learning organ, and of becoming comfortable with substitution, this is something to file away at the back of the mind, in case it seems like an issue to be dealt with later.

6) Sometimes a tendency to rely on substitution as an all-purpose way of finding notes (scrambling for notes, in effect) can lead a player—whether a student or otherwise—to cut short the process of working out good, efficient fingerings and then practicing those fingerings with enough focus and dedication to learn them. In this way, a heavy reliance on substitution—especially by a beginning or “intermediate” student—can actually damage the learning process, sometimes seriously. This is far from being a reason not to learn and work on substitution, since it is a valuable tool, and for some purposes a necessary one. It is simply something to watch out for.

The second exercise given above for changing fingers on repeated notes can be adapted as a good beginning point for practicing substitution, simply by tying the repeated notes, and keeping the fingering the same (Example 11).

And this same note pattern can be used with an extremely wide variety of fingerings, since in principle any substitution is possible and is worth practicing. For example, the right hand fingering could be 3-4-5(1)-2-3-2-1(5)-4-3(5) (The parenthesis indicates substitution. In this fingering, the tied g’ going from the second to the third measure does not have a substitution.) Another possibility would be 1-2-3(1)-2-3(1)-4-3(1)-3-2(1). These fingerings are musically random: their purpose is to help you get the feeling of different substitution patterns.

The two-note chord exercises above can also be adapted as substitution exercises (Example 12). With the same-note chords tied, the fingerings would be carried out as substitutions rather than as changes of fingering on newly played notes. This can be tried with other specific fingerings, and other similar note patterns, and of course also in the left hand.

In carrying out substitutions with multiple notes, it is important to do the individual substitutions in the correct order. The correct order is the one that is the most comfortable and natural physically. (Again, since the substitutions are silent, this is about physical comfort and reliability rather than any audible result.) Usually that means the order that keeps the hand small: that doesn’t stretch the hand out any more than necessary. So, in the example above, the substitutions on the lower notes of the two note chords should be done first. It is always possible to figure out by trial and error which way is best. Sometimes it is also possible to figure it out in advance by analysis of hand position. Performing multiple substitutions in the correct order also has the effect of allowing the whole hand to move in one gesture towards the next note or notes or towards its next position. It is extremely important to get this right. That can make the difference between a substitution’s being easy and natural and its being both difficult and a potential source of strain or even of real injury.

Next month’s column will continue with more exercises for substitution and examples drawn from the repertoire.

Gavin Black is Director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. He writes a blog at www.amorningfordreams.com.

Substitution in thirds

The left-hand version of this exercise for practicing substitution in thirds starts as is shown in Example 1. Again, you should carry out the multiple substitutions in the most comfortable order. Try out various other fingering possibilities, and also try this, and other similar exercises, with added accidentals, as if it were in C minor, for example, or transposed to other keys. Substitution on black notes is physically different from substitution on white notes, since the black notes are thinner and spaced further apart. The principle is always the same: perform the substitutions in the right order, and plan out carefully the direction and angle from which each new finger arrives and in which each old finger departs. If the departing finger is released down and to the side, you have to be careful that it doesn’t inadvertently play an adjacent natural. 

You can also convert the Rameau passage shown in Example 2 (and discussed in the January 2014 column, as Example 9) into substitution exercises by tying the repeated notes and changing the repeated-note fingerings
into substitutions.

Substitution in fifths

Examples 3 and 4 are exercises for substitutions in fifths. Try these all over the keyboard: as written but with added accidentals, in other keys, an octave up or down. As you practice these exercises and a selection of transpositions, try carrying out the substitutions according to various different timings: 

1) As quickly and as smoothly as possible: instant substitution, but keeping the order correct. For example, in the above left-hand fifths it is better to execute the 4–5 substitution before the 1–2. This keeps the hand compact and avoids uncomfortable stretching. In doing the substitution instantly, as one gesture, this order can be preserved by carrying out something that feels like a rolling motion of the hand. (Technically the 4–5 is closer to “instant” than the 1–2, but the gesture is fast and smooth and should feel like one event.)

2) Very promptly and rapidly, but as a succession of separate quick gestures: in the case of these two-note-at-a-time substitutions, the timing of this approach is similar to that of a mordent.

3) Truly timed finger changes. This can be in a number of rhythms. For example, in the rhythm of the fifths above: triplet quarter notes (i.e., with the new chord, the first substitution, and the second substitution spaced out evenly); a quarter note and two half notes; a dotted quarter note and two sixteenth notes. This last rhythm shades over into the final timing concept:

4) Both substitutions as a quick one-piece gesture at the end of the held note, having almost the feeling of a before-the-beat ornament to the
next note.

I have listed these in a particular logical order: from closest to the beginning of the note to closest to the end of the note. It is important to avoid practicing anything at a faster pace than what you can carry out comfortably. Therefore, you should start with a slower (timed) execution of each substitution, and work towards the faster timings and the “instant” un-timed forms as you become fully comfortable with the fingerings and the shapes of the gestures.

Substitution in scalar passages

Examples 5 and 6 form an exercise that has the appealing feature of being simultaneously silly and efficient. It involves playing simple scale passages, and performing extravagant chains of substitutions on each individual note. This is beyond what you are likely ever to do in fingering a piece of music. There are, however, places where more than one substitution occurs on one note, as we will see below.

This can also be practiced in different timings. The “instant” version will of course take a discernable amount of time, since there are so many fingers involved one after another. Don’t try to practice this exercise at a tempo faster than it can be accomplished accurately and comfortably. It can still feel like one gesture: sort of sliding or slithering around on the note. As always, you should pay close attention to hand position and to keeping everything relaxed and comfortable. You may notice yourself occasionally inadvertently releasing a finger before the next finger has arrived to take its place: in effect converting the substitution to a repeated note. Do not try to correct this by holding the notes down harder. It is just a matter of timing. If this becomes a problem, slow down the exercise.

Substitution in counterpoint

Example 7 shows a Reger passage (from the chorale prelude Morgen-glanz der Ewigkeit—discussed in the November 2013 column as Example 10), demonstrating the practicing of separate voices, with a suggested fingering involving thoroughgoing substitution. (This is the left-hand part. I have written the fingerings for the two voices above and below the staff respectively, for clarity.)

The following is a detailed discussion of the logic behind these fingerings, but with an emphasis on the substitutions, and with comments on how best to carry out those substitutions. You should read it and correlate it in detail to what you see in the music before practicing the passage. If as you read this discussion you think of different fingerings that you want to try out, please do so. Make sure that you understand your own rationale behind those fingerings and that you are convinced that they will be comfortable and effective.

The choice of the first finger for the first note makes sense both because that enables you to reach down to the second note easily, and because it puts the hand in the best position to play the a# that is coming up. (This is a comfortable fingering in part because of where the passage lies on the keyboard. Try the same pattern two octaves higher. It will feel quite different and might need a different fingering solution, perhaps playing the opening note with 2, and substituting 1 at the last instant before playing the a#.) The choice of 5 for the d that is the second note of the piece is also obvious. The first substitution (4–5 on the note e) should be performed quickly, both to relax the hand and to enable the second finger to reach the c#. The substitution on the f# should be treated the same way for the same reasons. The substitution on the g# can be performed either instantly or on a measured basis (it is the first opportunity here to practice the latter).

Moving to the second measure, the substitution on the c# on the first beat has to be performed quickly so that the hand can move on to the next notes (d′, e′). In theory, the 4–5 substitution on the a need not be done until close to the time to play the b on the third beat. However, at the moment of the first beat itself, it will be more comfortable to carry out both substitutions quickly, with the 4–5 actually happening first. (This is to keep the hand compact and avoid uncomfortable stretching.) This should be carried out as an instant “rolling” double substitution. The b on the third beat of this measure is an interesting case. It is natural to play it with 4, and it also should have 4 holding it when it is ready to end (seven eighth-notes later, in the next measure). However, it is a good idea to hold it instead with 5 through most of the length of the note. This is to put the hand in the best position to reach the notes in the upper of the two voices, especially the f#′ that is the first note of the following measure. There is no particular reason not to do the substitution from 4 to 5 right away. (You could also postpone it until just before the end of the measure, in which case it would probably be more comfortable to play the d# with 2. The advantage to playing the d# with 3 is that it enables 2 to be poised to reach towards the upcoming f# as promptly as possible. This is a positive reason to do the substitution instantly.)

At the other end of this long-held b, the substitution back to 4 should be done only after the upper-voice substitution from 2 to 1 on e′. This is so as not to stretch the hand out uncomfortably. The purpose of that upper-voice substitution itself is partly to un-stretch the hand and partly to free the second finger to reach up to f#′. The substitution from 5 to 4 on the a should be done only after the thumb has played the f-natural. This is, of course, to keep the hand from being stretched out unnecessarily. On the fourth beat of this measure we come to the first substitution of non-adjacent fingers. The switch from 5 to 3 on the g# is motivated by the underlying rationale for substitution: it makes sense for one finger to play the note, but for another finger to be holding when it is time to move on to the next note. The reason for using 3 in the latter role is that the next two notes are in a downward direction. (It would also be possible to do a 5–4 substitution, and then another 4–5 substitution on the g-natural.) In any case, the 2–1 substitution on the e′ should be done first and very quickly.

The first substitution of the fourth measure, on b in the lower voice, is the first one we have seen that must be really instant: fully a part of the gesture that plays the note in the first place. This is, of course, because of the sixteenth-note motion in the upper voice. The hand must be in position to reach for and then play f#′ comfortably, essentially right away. The two remaining substitutions in this measure can be done at a somewhat more leisurely pace. On the third beat in the lower voice, my suggested 4–3 4 could be replaced by 4 5–4. Or indeed you could do a 3–2 substitution on e′ that is the lower-voice note on the second beat, and then play the rest of the lower voice in this measure with the fingers as they come. The 2–1 substitution on the f-natural in the upper voice on the fourth beat exists for the purpose of un-stretching the hand.

There are four substitutions that must be carried out in the half measure coming up, the last part of this excerpt. The switch from 2 to 1 on e′ in the upper voice and the switch from 3 to 2 on d′ in the lower voice (a note that was initiated in the previous measure) must be carried out in the order in which I just listed them, for the most basic possible reason. The “new” finger in the second substitution was just in use holding another note. It had to be freed from that note—by substitution—before it could take over its new note. These two substitutions are ideal to be played quite measured: the upper-voice substitution on the second half of the first beat, the lower-voice substitution on the second beat. On the second half of the second beat we encounter two substitutions, both of which must be carried out within the time span of an eighth note. For most hands it will be more comfortable to do the 2–1 substitution on d′ first, and then the 4–3 substitution on b. This means that the latter must be very fast indeed. The two should end up feeling like one gesture. 

The fundamental purpose of this fingering could be described as a way to play all of the notes legato without awkwardness or discomfort. This is achieved by a significant increase in the amount of fingering busy-ness: as fingered here, this passage involves sixty-one fingering events to play forty-three different notes. For comparison, Example 8 shows one possible fingering without substitution, based on a willingness to allow many of the notes to be played non-legato. (Remember, however, that Reger in his own hand marked this piece sempre ben legato.)

Try this fingering out, leaving aside for the moment its musical or historical appropriateness. Keep everything light, and make the non-legato gestures smooth and non-abrupt. Is one fingering easier than the other? What differences in feel do you notice?

(Note: Based in part on feedback from readers of The Diapason, I will possibly add further exercises and examples to the final version of this section on substitution. These will deal at greater length with substitution on black notes and with non-adjacent fingers. I will move on next month to exercises and approaches to learning to play with hands and feet together.) 

Gavin Black is Director of the Princeton early Keyboard Center. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].

Boëllmann Suite Gothique, Part 2: First movement
This month’s column looks at the first movement—Introduction-Choral—of the Suite Gothique. In the main, we will outline an approach to practicing the movement, starting of course with working out fingerings and pedalings. We will also consider some interpretive questions, mainly as they interact with or affect choices that must be made about fingering and pedaling.
Several technical features of this movement immediately stand out:
• Many thick chords in the hands—both hands;
• Double pedal for several measures;
• Except for the double pedal passages, the pedal part is strikingly low in compass, with the E-flat in the middle of the pedal keyboard as the highest note;
• Very little indication for swell pedal use;
• The hands sometimes more or less double each other in octaves;
• Conceptually each hand seems to be more of its own part than is usually true in a contrapuntal piece, where voices often wander from hand to hand—however, that does not mean that the hands cannot help each other out a bit;
• Very few chords do not include raised notes;
• There are no explicit instructions from the composer about articulation or phrasing, except for commas in three places, and one important slur, with its repeat.

Articulation
The thick chords raise one important technical issue right away, namely the matter of fingering in relation to articulation. It is essentially always easier—more natural as to hand position—to play successive chords of three or more notes non-legato. Sometimes it is actually impossible to do otherwise, more so the more notes there are in the chords, of course, but also depending on other matters, such as the placement within chords of raised notes. However, in a typical passage made up of successive chords, there are almost always some that can be played legato fairly easily, others that can be played legato with some sort of extra effort, and some that really cannot be played legato at all. This is of course different, around the margins at least, for different players, with hands of different sizes.
In music that we believe to be basically non-legato in overall style, none of this presents particular problems. Chord fingerings can be chosen based largely on the comfort of each chord—in turn based mostly on hand position—and the non-legato transition from one chord to the next can be practiced until it is, while non-legato, still smooth and cantabile, if that is what is desired. In a piece or a passage that we want to play legato, we must grapple with finding the best way to make connections between chords when it is not easy to do so. (By contrast, it is, from a technical point of view, almost trivially easy to play at least most of the upper voice melody in the third movement—Prière—legato, as per the marked phrases. The fingers of the right hand are simply available to do so.)
The question of whether this movement is meant to be legato, or the question of whether a given player wants or prefers to play it legato is unclear, or, more accurately, it is one that different students, teachers, and players will answer differently from one another (and from me). I am not interested in prejudging questions like this—that is, I want to try as best I can to leave all sorts of interpretive possibilities open as we consider how to work on the pieces under discussion. Also, there is a close relationship in a piece like this between articulation and room acoustics. In a very resonant room, a thick texture will come across as essentially legato even if the fingers and feet put small spaces between the notes and chords. If the player literally connects notes and chords, then there is a chance that the result will be enough beyond legato to sound unintelligible. This is an important consideration, especially since most organ repertoire, certainly including the pieces of Boëllmann, was written to be played in very resonant rooms. Of course, we must play in the rooms that are available to us.

Fingering
A fingering for the chords of the opening, in the right hand, that is designed to be comfortable, accepting that most of the chords will be non-legato, might look like Example 1. This happens to suit my hands. For another player, the best fingering might be a little bit different. In m. 5, for example, some players would rather do this (Example 2):

To achieve more full legato, substitution might be used, especially, for example, in the second and sixth measures (Example 3). (I find this fingering awkward, but possible with practice.)
A player with large hands might be able to do this (Example 4),

releasing the lower two notes of the opening chord early, but joining the upper two notes to the notes of the second chord. (I cannot quite do this one. Don’t try it unless it is really comfortable. The stretch could cause injury.)
In the passage at m. 13 (Example 5), the left hand can take some of the notes printed on the upper staff. I have put boxes around a few that I think make sense treated this way, although there are others that are possible. The decision to do this would make it easier to play the upper notes of the right-hand part legato, at the expense of some legato in the inner voices. This is an artistic judgment call, but notice the slurs in m. 18 and later its echo in m. 25. These are the only slurs in the entire movement, and are probably an important part of the rhetoric of this phrase.
Any student must make decisions and choices about fingering matters such as these, perhaps in consultation with a teacher. There are two important technical practicing points to make about some of these fingerings. First, non-legato fingerings will end up sounding smoother and most natural the more they are practiced, at first, with large rather than small breaks between the notes. That is, a gesture such as this (where the asterisks are) (Example 6),

should be practiced with the A-flat/
E-flat/C chord released almost as soon as it is played (but released gently), so that the motion to the next (B-flat/F/D) chord is as easy as possible. Then it will also be easy, later in the practicing process, to close that gap and make the articulation very small and unobtrusive. If you try to make the articulation too small from the beginning—waiting until the last instant and then quickly moving to, almost lunging at, the next chord—then it is likely to end up sounding awkward and stiff, no matter how much you practice it.
Second, it is important to remember to use the correct order in any fingering that includes multiple substitutions. For example, in this triple substitution (Example 7),

it is necessary to execute the substitutions from the lowest to the highest: 2-1, then 3-2, then 5-4. In every case, it is important to carry out substitutions in such a way that the hand moves inward—becomes smaller—rather than moving outward and stretching out. This can always be worked out by trial and error, and getting it right can make the difference between a substitution’s being impossible and its being easy.

Pedaling
One advantage of double pedal is that it resolves any doubt as to which foot should play which note. In effect there are two pedal lines—in the case of the first four measures of this piece, identical to one another except for being an octave apart—and each line has to be executed by one foot. An approach to pedal playing that involves paying attention to the position of each foot with respect to itself (as outlined in my earlier columns on pedal playing) not just, or mainly, in relation to the other foot, tends to make double pedal passages not seem as different from “regular” pedal as they might otherwise. In the case of this passage, as with the manual part, there is a relationship between pedaling and articulation. If this were a line from a Buxtehude piece (which it, unlike the manual part, could just as well be) then any comfortable pedaling would be fine: perhaps all toe, perhaps some heels when the angle was such as to make that comfortable. If, in keeping with an overall interpretive approach, we want to play this line legato, then a pedaling like this for the right foot part might work (Example 8).
The two quarter notes could be played by rolling the toe area of the foot, that is, playing the B-flat with the outside of the foot and the A-flat with the inside. The first note (G) of the second measure could be played with the toe, creating what should be a small articulation before that note. I might also play the first note of the passage with the toe initially, to make a clean, crisp beginning easier to achieve, before substituting the heel to prepare for the next note. There are other possible variations. The left foot could well use exactly the same pedaling as the right.
For the non-double segments of the pedal line, different players will choose different pedalings based largely on personal preference. Here are two different pedalings for mm. 5–8 (Examples 9 and 10); and of course there are other possibilities.

Practicing
The most efficient procedure for practicing this movement is the same as for almost any piece: work out fingerings and pedalings; divide the piece into manageable sections (in this piece, it makes sense to work with the phrases suggested by commas and by fermatas, although it is certainly fine to subdivide those units into smaller ones); practice these sections with separate hands and feet, very slowly; put hands together, or hands and feet together, only when the separate components are very well learned; increase tempo only when a given tempo has become almost trivially easy. This procedure can never be mentioned too often, and it can never be stressed enough that, if it is followed thoroughly and patiently, it always works.
In the case of this movement, I would strongly suggest that at every stage of working on the piece, until it is really ready to go at approximately the composer’s suggested tempo of half note equals 50, the beat in the student’s head, or coming from the student’s metronome, be equal to an eighth note. The quarter note will be too slow to be followed easily until close to a performance tempo.

Special procedures
In the case of this movement, there are a few special procedures that can enhance the learning of the piece—that is, getting to know it musically—while the notes are being learned securely. These are analogous to the practicing of separate voices in a contrapuntal piece, but modified to reflect the texture and structure of this piece: one in which the melody—the top voice—is indeed musically the most important thing, and in which the interaction between that melody and the bass line is the main source of motion.
So the first special practice technique is simply to play the melody and the bass line together, omitting all of the other voices or chordal notes. This can be done with the bass line in the pedal—as soon as the pedal is well enough learned—or with the bass line in the left hand, read from the pedal line or extracted from the left hand part of the manuals-only phrases. It can also be done with the melody in the left hand—since the left hand often doubles the melody—and the bass in the pedal. This can be done before the fingering of the chords has been practiced and made comfortable, since the extracted individual lines are fairly easy to play. But I would also suggest continuing to do it at later stages of work on the piece as a listening exercise and a way of keeping focused on the architecture of the piece, rather than just the complexities of learning it.
In the passages in which the left hand doubles the right hand an octave lower (this is a slightly oversimplified description of the texture), it is difficult for the ears of the performer to follow the left-hand part. The higher sounds of the right-hand part predominate. And, although the left hand in these passages is in a meaningful sense somewhat subordinate to the right hand, the overall texture will benefit from the left hand’s being played in as interesting and nuanced a way as the right hand, and from the two hands really being in sync. One way to work on this is to play the two hands together—once they have been practiced and are secure!—on different keyboards, with the left hand significantly louder. The right hand should be almost but not quite actually drowned out. Of course this only applies to some passages (mm. 1–8, 16–23, and 33–37, more or less). Then, when next practicing on a “normal” sound, try to focus on listening to the left-hand part, and let the right hand take care of itself.
Next month I will return to the Buxtehude Praeludium, looking at the first contrapuntal section beginning at m. 13. We will return later to the Boëllmann, looking at the Menuet.