A Preludes Project (2021)
This is a comprehensive summary of a 14 week project I did in 2021 that explores preludes written in each of the 12 major and 12 minor as a complete set. Bach did this twice (in his Well Tempered Clavier Books 1 & 2), Chopin in his 24 Preludes (Op 28), Scriabin in his 24 Preludes (Op 11), Rachmaninov in preludes from Op 3, 23, 32 and Shostakovich in his Preludes & Fugues (also twice, but I’m focusing on his Op 87 for now).
Based on a color picked at random every day with my friend and collaborator, Anca, using a 100 Days of Color theme, we each find three words (an adjective/emotion, a thing/object and an action) to describe the color which then leads me to one of the preludes in this set and leads Anca to create a digital pattern a day.
As an update, since 2021, I have been learning each of the Bach Well Tempered Clavier Book 1 preludes on the piano — it has taken me almost 2 years to learn all 24! (and a few are still in progress now). What I know is that I will be playing these for the rest of my life. They are transformational. I am a different person now in ways that I could not have imagined and cannot explain in words. Music is such a gift to us and I’ll always be amazed what a treasure these composers left for us.
Week 14 playlists:
On Apple Music and Youtube
Week 13 playlists:
On Apple Music and Youtube
Week 12 playlists:
On Apple Music and Youtube
Week 11 playlists:
On Apple Music and Youtube
Week 10 playlists:
On Apple Music and Youtube
Week 9 playlists:
On Apple Music and Youtube
Week 8 playlists:
On Apple Music and Youtube
Week 7 playlists:
On Apple Music and Youtube
Week 6 playlists:
On Apple Music and Youtube
Week 5 playlists:
On Apple Music and Youtube
Week 4 playlists:
On Apple Music and Youtube
Week 3 playlists:
On Apple Music and Youtube
Week 2 playlists:
On Apple Music and Youtube
Week 1 playlists:
On Apple Music and Youtube
Week 14 is the final week of this 100 day project! (though I am continuing to match all 144 preludes in this set to colors and words out of pure curiosity). This moment feels full of an awareness of the changes and possibilities and openings to something new. Will the opening lead back to a studio practice with a new found understanding of color? Will it lead to more digitally based art? Will it inspire a new project to learn to play some of these preludes on the piano (slowly through a lifetime)? What new listening project will fill the space of this one?
Thank you to those who tuned in and helped me transcend the doubt I had about sharing this project online. And a big thank you to Anca, my partner in crime, who was curious enough to take on this strange and demanding and joyful project with me. I truly hope the project will always provide an opening to build awareness of the beauty of this music and to remember the importance of paying attention to the things that spark your own interests and your own joy!
Week 13 covers days 85 to 92 of this project. All the familiar ones are covered so I’m having to explore ones less known to me and it brings a kind of inexplicable joy with it - a joy of discovery.
There are so many new favorites this week: the two Scriabin minor key pieces are so tender I feel them stir the heart. And then, Bach in the strange key of d# minor is so intriguing...does it sound different than e-flat minor? It does feel brighter to me than his WTC 1 prelude in e-flat minor. F# minor also has an upbeat melancholy relative to the just upbeat sweet E major that follows. C minor has been really hard for me to cover in this project. It’s like I can’t ‘see’ the color in this key. But Chopin’s prelude here does feel like the color of golden moonlight to me - a glorious light in the darkness. And I’m still getting to know Shostakovich - I find his works so imaginative but it takes me so much effort to listen well. In this F# Major prelude, I feel a poetic phrasing almost like a breath or lyric phrase. And the g minor prelude feels very active to me. There is something in his use of rhythm and tonality - it’s like something new is being formed, almost sculpted.
For week 12 this week, there are lots of works in minor keys (3 just in the key of a minor) along with Bach’s WTC Book 1 Prelude in B Major and the gorgeous, rich and full Rachmaninov Prelude in B-flat Major (which reminds me a bit of the uplifting feeling I experience in Chopin’s Prelude in B-flat Major - maybe there’s something about this key?). When I first started this project, I called it ‘Music Changes Us’ and I think the Rachmaninov Prelude in B-flat is a good example of a song that can help unblock stagnant emotions. It’s hard not to feel like you can conquer the world after listening to it.
I tried to carefully listen to see if I noticed any differences and similarities in the works in a minor, b minor and e minor this week. I’ve always felt a hauntingly sad feeling in the key of a minor (which I do feel in these Bach and Shostakovich pieces). And these b and e minor works have a different kind of melancholy in them - I feel a stark, longing loneliness in the Chopin prelude in b minor while the Bach prelude in e minor has a sort of sweet and troubled sadness. Seems like week 12 turned out to be a week of exploring various shades of sadness :)
The works by Shostakovich, Bach and Chopin are all powerful and moving this week but what I really notice in Week 11 are the 4 preludes by Scriabin.
There have been many surprises for me in this project but the most memorable one so far has been discovering the Scriabin preludes. It almost feels like they speak and breathe in the phrasing. They sometimes feel just a bit ‘off’ to the ear (like how our most intimate speech to each other is not perfectly spoken but filled with meaning and surprise - which is probably what makes it feel more tender and vulnerable) and in them, I experience an expanding awareness of the wonder and possibilities of our world and existence. And each one has its own feeling in it...am looking forward to listen to all 24 consecutively again after really listening to each one on its own.
Here we go with Week 10! It has been such an enriching experience to have an epic listening project to explore and I’m just starting to wonder what will come next.
This week has a lot of works in minor keys: e-flat, e, g#, a minor. The minor keys often require more openness to listen to but when I am able to focus I find they are so moving and spacious in an inexplicable way (like the Bach WTC 1 Prelude in e-flat minor and Scriabin’s a minor prelude). Again, some surprises if you jump around in the playlist: you can compare the Chopin pieces in A major and a minor, compare the Chopin and Scriabin preludes in a minor. And then, the Rachmaninov in g# minor prelude is a favorite - so otherworldly, melodic and full of light. Even the Shostakovich prelude in e minor contains a strange optimism in a melancholic way.
The colors feel shadowy yet stunning in Week 9. The muddier, less saturated colors took me to more serious, minor keys though the first song - Rachmaninov’s Prelude in g minor - is a jolt of joy. To me, it’s a reminder that browns and grays can be created by mixing complementary colors...for example, orange and blue mixed together will turn brown, even go to black. I feel many vibrant colors in this piece including a joyful orange, a shadowy blue-ness and the mixing of the two together to create the feeling in this restrained and luminous energy-filled brown.
And some other sweet listening surprises I'm noticing this week: you can compare Chopin and Scriabin's c# minor preludes and also listen to Chopin's E Major and its relative minor c# minor preludes if you skip around in the playlist. And the preludes by Bach are also a major-relative minor pair though from different books: C# Major (Book 1) and b-flat minor (Book 2) so perhaps there is something new to discover listening to those together?
So here we go with Week 8, starting off Day 50 of #100daysofpreludes with the beautiful, short and sweet Prelude in B Major by Chopin (which to me, feels full of possibility)!
Welcome to week 7 of this project! This week starts off with a sweetly affectionate prelude in F Major from Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier (WTC) Book 2. I love a description I once read in the album notes by Andras Schiff of his recording of the WTC that each pair of Bach’s 48 preludes and fugues was like a gate (prelude) and path (fugue). The prelude is the opening and the fugue is the deeper journey. I experience each of the preludes (not just the ones by Bach) like an opening. In this project, each one has been an opening to colors, shapes, emotions, and sometimes whole worlds! that feel like they have their own deeper journey still waiting to be explored.
I think part of the magic in music is it has the potential to change us in inexplicable ways. I hope that just one of these 100 preludes will help unlock a gate in your life too because based on these pieces, there’s such a rich experience waiting for us when we open it.
Ready for a little virtuosity and drama in Week 6 — Rachmaninov’s Prelude in Db Major, Chopin’s Prelude in d minor, Bach’s WTC Book 1 Prelude in c minor and the unusal juxtapostion of sounds in Soshtakovich’s Prelude in Eb Major? There’s a bit of shadow this week. But maybe that makes the sweetness even sweeter - like the back to back Scriabin + Chopin preludes in F Major (and noticing something similar in Chopin’s prelude in G Major) and then ending the week with one of my favorites from Bach’s WTC Book 1 - Prelude No. 17 Prelude in Ab Major that feels like a reminder of the brilliance in the full depth of our experience being here. Every time I re-listen to a playlist, I’m more amazed by the music. Each piece captures something so human. They are a record of our shared stories and that’s what I’m most grateful for in this music - the reminder of how beautiful humanity is despite the shadow we inevitably create and witness in the world.
Week 6 here marks the week that Anca and I finished our 100 days of color collaboration. The project provided so much structure and stability (and joy!) at a time when there has been so much uncertainty. It’s hard to see it end yet there is a glimmer of hope realizing how we’ve changed and grown in so many ways. I feel lessons like these are in these songs too - like in Bach’s Prelude in Ab Major which in some way creates a space where darker sounds linger in between the pure joy of the piece. It captures the brilliance of the whole experience even when individual parts of it can feel so heartbreaking.
I am trying out a new format here this week (partly in preparation to do this for another 10 weeks). 100 preludes are a lot of pieces to cover, but I guess that is the point of taking on a 100 day project - to expand your experience further than you think you can go and further than what feels comfortable. So here we go with Week 5 covering Days 29 to 35.
So much of this project has been about discovery and paying attention. Of all the pieces that came up this week, I only really knew one of them (Bach’s WTC 1 b minor prelude). I had heard of Chopin’s “raindrop” Db Major prelude and Rachmaninov’s Eb Major prelude but wouldn’t have been able to recognize them if I had heard them in a different setting. These are now some of my favorite pieces - I love the energetic (exuberant!) jolt in Scriabin’s C major prelude and the ethereal beauty of his Bb major prelude. And I am starting to sense the strength and endurance (like a tree!) that exists in darker pieces in the key of g minor that contrast the more playful character of the parallel key of G major.
I believe we all experience colors and musical tones differently but every now and then I feel something intrinsic in a certain key - kind of like the difference between a major and minor key but more subtle and it is in those subtle moments that music amazes me the most.
Welcome to Week 4! In case you were wondering, all my posts are time delayed. Anca and I are actually almost to Day 90 of our color project so in a weird way, we are getting towards the end of our collaborative project while I feel like I’m just getting started sharing our progress. I’ve been developing a strange relationship with time during the pandemic and it doesn’t really bother me when time doesn’t “line up” like our logical minds want it to. So in a way, it can be Day 90 and Day 22 at the same time and it feels good like this.
Welcome to Week 3! Not sure about you, but I am still getting oriented here. It has been a learning experience trying to find ways to share this music in a way that is accessible to anyone. Apple Music is where I started to collect a complete set of recordings for this music. It allows a preview but you will need a subscription to listen to the songs in full. YouTube is free though it has been hard to find recordings of the Bach and Shostakovich preludes without the corresponding fugue in the same key (which is how most practicing musicians would probably listen to the pieces) so sometimes you will hear an extra song in there.
As we progress through this project, I will try to bring more attention to the performers and recordings - there are so many good performances out there. Right now, I am trying to find ones that feel closest to the versions I found in my original Apple Music collection (or ones that felt unique in some way) but I would love to be introduced to other versions and other music platforms if any of you have favorites.
And for the curious, there is a bit more about how each of the works was paired to the color and words that came up each day in my Instagram posts. My ultimate hope is that some of this music will find its way into our lives again and bring some comfort and joy and wonder with it!
I’m still trying to find my groove with this project. It feels a bit odd - somewhere between art and music and poetry (and data in a way) but this is where I often seem to land so I guess I am on a learning path to find out how to honor the voice I hear in my heart. To be honest, I feel so awkward about this project I thought about pausing my posting but I love this music so much and am still perplexed why it’s not more of an integral part of our everyday lives and cultural consciousness. So here we go with Week 2…where every song is truly an amazing work of art. These are like 7 paintings you could spend a whole day with on a visit to the museum.
Come explore these prelude treasures with me - from blushing sunsets to shadows playing to passionate embers smouldering...these songs contains such a wide range of experiences and fantasies (even if we are mainly experiencing them through our imaginations these days)!
With the camraderie of my friend Anca, I’m pairing a 100 day color project to a listening project that has been brewing in different forms over the last few years - to really get to know the preludes that were written in each of the major and minor keys as a complete set. I am not sure why classical music can feel so inaccessible to us. I think it has to do with the foundations of what we learn when we are growing up. We leave the classical music to the experts but somewhere forgot this music is for all of us. It is about us and allows us to be connected to each other in real time as well through the ages of time past and future.
So I hope you will join in and discover something new (as I stumble my way through these 100 days). I already feel like I know this music more intimately by the simple practice of trying to pair each song to a color and words. And what a solace it has been in these times. It gives me hope knowing what the human spirit is capable of and I am endlessly grateful to be lost in the wild worlds these composers and performers created for us to experience.