An old customer of mine loaned me a copy of Pablo Casals' autobiography several years ago. He was really quite a person, often disdaining the spotlight which his talent had earned him to just spend time in his small Catalonian village. Most of his story I have now forgotten, just retaining hazy images, but one thing I remember very clearly. Each morning when he arose, he would play through one prelude and fugue from J S Bach's Well Tempered Clavier. For those of you not so conversant in music history, this is possible the single most influental book of music ever published. It's form was studied by virtually all of the great composers, and many composers for the piano, Debussey and Shostakovitch just to name two, published their own books of preludes (preludes to what?) in each key as Bach did.

While I am not so conisitent in my piano practice as Casals was (he was not a noted pianist, btw), I have become more so lately, playing through at least one prelude or fugue most days, though not first thing in the morning. They are certainly great reading and skill exercises, and I'm feeling slightly more confident with them each time I go through the book.

I was just noticing yesterday how Bach generally seems to stray the furthest from conservative tonality/harmony in the last eight bars of each piece usually. I have this vague recollection of learning somewhere that Bach like to build tension towards the end of a piece to make a fulfilling resolution, so that must have something to do with it. It is a bit disorienting at times though to get to the end of the piece and suddenly be faced with both a whole different rhythmic structure as well as an overwhelming number of accidentals.

So far as I know, there aren't any pianists reading this, so I'll just shut up now. Piano, in addition to being my prefession, is one of my soapbox topics. Why do people now think that playing music means pushing a button on an electronic machine? Why don't more churches at least provide musical instruction for their youth?