Charlotte Mason Composer Study: Bach

Charlotte Mason asked that children come to know a few great composers well, rather than many composers a little. One composer, a handful of pieces, a whole term of quiet listening. Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the best places to begin, and he has a connection to homeschooling that most composer studies leave out.

Who was Johann Sebastian Bach?

Bach (1685–1750) was a German composer and organist, born in Eisenach into a large family of musicians. He spent most of his working life writing music for churches and courts, and from 1723 until his death he was the director of music in the city of Leipzig, writing new music for services nearly every week.

He was also a father of twenty children, several of whom became important composers themselves. Bach taught them at home. He wrote little books of keyboard pieces for his son Wilhelm Friedemann and for his wife, Anna Magdalena, and many pieces children still learn today began as lessons at his own family table.

Six pieces for one term

Play one piece each week or two, several times, without explanation at first. Let your child simply listen. These six are all widely recorded and easy to find.

• Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3 (often called "Air on the G String"). A long, slow melody floating over a steadily walking bass. A gentle first piece.
• Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, first movement. Strings bustling in groups of three, passing ideas back and forth. Ask your child to listen for the same short idea moving between instruments.
• "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" from Cantata No. 147. A flowing line in threes over a simple, steady tune.
• Prelude from Cello Suite No. 1. One instrument alone, yet it sounds like harmony, because the notes ripple through the chords one at a time.
• Two-Part Invention No. 1 in C major. A short keyboard piece Bach wrote to teach. A tiny idea of just a few notes is passed between the two hands, and later turned upside down.
• "Sheep May Safely Graze" from Cantata No. 208. Two recorders over a calm, rocking accompaniment.

A gentle weekly rhythm

You don't need much time. Ten or fifteen minutes, once or twice a week, is enough.

• Listen first. Play the piece without saying anything about it. Let the music speak before you do.
• Narrate. Ask your child to tell you about what they heard. What did it sound like? Did it feel calm, busy, joyful, sad? Did anything happen more than once?
• Add one fact. Share one small thing: the name of an instrument, a story from Bach's life, or what the piece was written for.
• Listen again. Hearing a piece a second time after narration is often when a child notices the most.

Younger children can draw while they listen. Older children can keep a simple listening journal with the date, the piece, and a sentence or two of narration.

Narration prompts for Bach

Bach's music rewards a particular kind of listening, because so often two or more melodies happen at once. These questions help children hear that:

• How many different lines can you hear at the same time?
• Can you hear the same little tune come back? Where?
• Does the music feel like it is walking, running, or floating?
• If this piece were a place, what would it look like?
• Hum the part you remember most.

The idea most composer studies leave out

Bach didn't only want his children to hear good music. He wanted them to write it. In the preface to his Inventions, he says the pieces were meant to teach a keyboard player not only to play cleanly but to learn how to come up with good musical ideas and develop them well. To Bach, playing and composing were one education.

A composer study can end the same way. After a term of Bach, invite your child to write a short tune of their own and then try one Bach-like trick: play it again, but upside down, so every step that went up now goes down. It is exactly what Bach does in the first Invention, and children are delighted to discover they can do it too.

Where Gradus fits

Gradus is a composition curriculum built on the same conviction as Bach's family lessons: children should write music, not only listen to it. Your child writes music from the very first lesson, and the curriculum follows the history of music era by era, so the composers your family studies in a Charlotte Mason term become composers your child writes alongside. Maestro, your child's personal composition tutor, does the teaching, so you don't need to read music.

You can read more about Bach as a composer, look up counterpoint, the art of combining melodies that Bach mastered, or see a sample lesson.

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