Bach's Schmucke dich in slow motion

Bach's Schmucke dich, o liebe Seele, BWV 654 was one of Felix Mendelssohn's favorite compositions of this composer. Robert Schumann remembered him saying that "If life were to deprive me of hope and faith, this single chorale would replenish me with them both."

Would you like to learn this beautiful piece by watching me play and by practicing together (if the tuning of your instrument allows it)?

Yesterday I recorded this chorale prelude in a very slow practice tempo from up close so that people could watch me playing and copy what I'm doing. It's like looking over my shoulder when I practice and people can practice together with me. The score is freely available, too.

More importantly, I subdivided this chorale prelude into one-page chunks for practicing one page a week, so if the piece is 3 pages long, it would take 3 weeks to learn it.

Each page has 5 lines of music, so if one learns only one line a day (and repeats the previously learned material), then it really takes 5 days a week of practice to stay on track with this schedule.

Although I play all parts together, you can work in solo parts and in two-part and three-part combinations before putting everything together in each line.

Because I play very slowly, you can copy my ornaments and my articulation (articulate legato), too.

Here are the videos for Week 1, Week 2, and Week 3. Although I played from the Bach Gesellschaft edition with the alto clef for the left hand part, I also prepared a pdf score with the usual treble and bass clefs.

Enjoy them but more importantly, I hope you will do something with these series.