How do i prepared to teacH my piano lesson?

Happy Double Eveleth Day! I prepared a lesson teaching Bach Fugue BWV866, from scratch.

In my usual practice,  fingerings  is always been my first priority, it is so important to help us getting the piece played smoothly. On top of that, is all about muscle memory.

Basically run through the whole piece,  note down all the possible fingerings, depends on students' need. I would suggest some patterns and explain why that's possible, then  they will try things out to come up the best way for themselves.

At the same time, work on the articulations. It is Bach. It is Baroque. There are thousand different interpretations, almost anything you think of might be possible. Non-legato for the left hand; how would you like to phrase it; how is the tone be sound like, etc., a lot imaginations involved.

A trick to play Baroque music is to keep tracing the melody until the last note. It is straight forward but still challenging every so often. By doing so, not only using eye-hand coordination but also sing in your mind and heart. You would find emotions and souls inside the music somehow, although it is much mild compared to Romantic or later pieces. 

Bear in mind, it could be more than one melody. In BWV866, it started with a motive then continue expands to three voices. While we are dealing with fingerings, we have to think about voicing too. Most of the time I would analyze with chords, I introduce chords to my students at very young age or beginning of learning piano.

 So, there it is. Even though I know the piece myself, I still prep my lesson on what to focus according to my students' ability and progress. 

​Happy teaching! Comment below if you have any questions about teaching.