Not an easy thing to play, 4 part fugues. In the past, with less complex counterpoint, I've learned by playing hands separately and then putting them together. For a fugue in 4 parts my teacher has given me a different exercise:

First, go through and identify which is each part (SATB). I did this with 4 separate copies from a CD of out-of copyright editions and 4 coloured highlighter pens.

Then practice one part at a time (not one hand at a time) using the correct fingering.

Then practice 2 parts at a time (SA, ST, SB, AT, AB and TB), still not one hand at a time and still using the correct fingering.

Then practice mostly one hand at a time, but with the other hand in places where the odd note is "borrowed"

Only then try all 4 parts together, by which time you should have the 4 parts into your mind and fingers so articulation and accuracy will naturally be better.

Just thought I'd pass this on.

Still on 3 part.
That sounds very complicated..... would take me months to get through that I think!
One part at a time with correct fingering could feel very awkward I imagine.

How do you work out what the correct fingering is going to be in the first place?
Play it through very slowly with all 4 parts? Copy it off your teacher's copy? (That doesn't work well for me as my hands are a different size/shape, so I tend to find that different fingerings work better.)
I'm awful at fingering. I'll just play stuff without thinking about it at all. Then when my teacher makes me write in some fingerings, I either follow them and get in a worse muddle or end up ignoring them completely. If it's just the occasional number to get an important shift done, I find it useful. But where I've got a long string of substitutions and the like, I seem to do a lot better if I just let my fingers find their own way through it.

T.

Hadn't thought of that.
I suppose you'd have to have gone through very carefully first to get this riight.

A crucial first step has been omitted: analysis. In particular, identify the subject and counter-subject, identify the subject entries throughout, recognise false entries, and so on. A fugue is not just an exercise in finger independence, written to perplex amateur pianists. Without understanding the structure of the piece, one will never manage an aesthetic rendition. Then, think about how best to accentuate the subject/counter-subject, and try and keep it consistent on subsequent entries.

Then, stage the practice: don't slog out perfecting two bars then move onto the next two. Once one is at the point of putting some bars hands together, then start working on doing that alongside learning the next few bars hands separately. Further, every time one moves on a step in the process, turn the tempo right down and work it back up again.

presumably this is how to separate the music into the 4 voices in the first place (which the first poster had given)?

I must be a real philistine. I don't do any of that analysis stuff. Generally the various themes and variations on them are quite obvious in Bach without the need for formal analysis.

I certainly don't do any of that playing single voices, then pairs of voices etc. Maybe my Bach would be better if I did.

My approach is very simple. The first step is to memorise the notes, just like any other piece, to the point where I can play the whole thing comfortably from memory. This takes at least four or five times longer than getting a work by Haydn, Mozart, or Bethoven to the same stage! And at this point it sounds a bit of a mess!

Next I will practice by allowing my hands to play the notes while mentally thinking through one or other of the lines of the music. Without any conscious attempt to give more weight to that part it nevertheless naturally comes out with more clarity, either through unconcsciously giving the notes more weight, or through better shaping the phrase or both. I will do that with each of the voices in turn until I can bring out any voice at will. But I don't consciously think much about the fingers at all. I imagine the sound I want, and somehow the body figures out how to make it. Over time this transforms the piece from meaningless mush to real music. Somewhere along the way I attend to details of dynamics and touch. Any awkward sections will be isolated, for special attention - for example to devise suitable fingering. Over time the piece will be repeated hundreds, if not thousands of times, so eventually it is so thoroughly embedded in the mind and fingers that it just flows. I think the problem for most people with Bach is that they simply do not do enough repetition to get to this stage.


By that time, if I simply play the piece over, just concentrating on playing in time, and NOT on the voices then all the voices usually come out sounding clear, as separate, semi-independent, nicely phrased lines in the music. What is more, it sounds quite natural - there is no artificial bringing out of each entry of the theme, or heavy handed emphasis of the countersubject. In fact there is so much going on in a Bach Fugue that any attempt to consciously bring out the separate voices during a performance will just sound contrived and unbalanced. To sound right it has to happen at an unconscious level. The hard work should have been done in the hours of practice. The real dificulty is getting the interfering conscious mind out of the way, and just allowing the piece to play itself, through your hands.

I am no Glenn Gould or Wanda Landowska. (I only play some Bach as a means playing some aspects of Beethoven better, and in 40 years have learned only about half of the first volume of the WTC, plus one of the French Suites). But this approach seems to give decent sounding results. Perhaps it is just very inefficient, and the method of learning the separate lines might get to the same end more quickly.

p.s. If you have an electric piano, set it to Harpsichord and turn the volume down low for a more authentic Bach experience.

Sorry to have quoted little bits whilst leaving out bits in between, but this to me is the essence of it all. To practise with our ears. If we practise it enough, however we go about it systematically, we will - or should - begin to HEAR the parts in our head as seperate entities, at will, while the other parts are doing their own thing. What fingers we use to do that is largely irrelevant. It's good to be consistent with fingering for the sake of security, but I think it's better to allow that to evolve as we HEAR, rather than try too hard to establish a black and white blueprint before we really know the piece as a whole - in our heads. A fugue is, after all, like any other piece of music in that it should be listened to and enjoyed - and played - as a piece of music in its own right as well as just a sum of its parts.

EDIT - just had a thought...maybe it's like putting on Christmas tree lights; some people will work out how many they've got and start at the bottom and work their way up, while others will throw them all on really quickly and then rearrange as required once they see the big picture.

http://www.serve.com/marbeth/fugues.html

i came across this site when i was searching for DipABRSM program note information

thought i'd share it being you're discussing how to learn fugues- its a really informative site