Here is a new composition based on an improvisation I did back in January of this year. My works tend towards complexity, but this one does the opposite and is boiled down to its bare ‘essentials’. The sheet music is available below both as original and easier versions.
Original Version
Easier Version
Aria
It’s January 1st, 2026 and this year I’m going to aim to record as many Goldberg Variations as possible as a fun personal project. I will add them to this blog post as I complete them. To watch a continued playlist of all the variations on YouTube please click here. Please enjoy the beautiful opening Aria from this wonderful collection by J.S. Bach!
Variation 1
This one is so much fun to play. It races out of the gate after the slow and contemplative Sarabande that is the Aria. I find it quite challenging to keep the steadiness of the 16ths as the motives switch between hands so quickly. The hand crossings at the bottom of the first page have needed extra work. My favourite aspect of this variation is the thumping bassline Bach gives us, especially at the top of page 2.
What’s interesting about Bach’s Goldberg Variations is that they are a variation on harmonic structure as opposed to melodic variations which is traditionally what most composers do. So the Aria establishes the basic chords and each variation mostly adheres to the same choice of chords while texturally changing on the surface.
Variation 2
A light and steady march to balance the more-intense first variation. I’m probably going to say this over and over again but it was incredibly challenging to put together. As with playing Mozart, Bach takes no prisoners in that this music is so transparent that unwanted accents, uneven passages, or anything shaky stand out like (no pun intended) a sore thumb. The LH has a steady eighth note pulse while the RH balances a conversation between two voices. I’m learning to play without pedal which leads to lots of finger substitutions and different fingerings than I’m used to. That said, it’s upbeat tick-tock character makes it so fun to play. I especially enjoy the passage near the end when each RH voice holds a quarter note while the other plays 16ths.
Variation 3
Variation 3 is the first of what will be a canon every 3rd variation. I continue to marvel at his genius; to make a canon on every interval up to the 9th while continuing to maintain the same harmonic structure throughout and make each one stylistically unique… 🤯 The two main challenges in this variation for me were showing the independent voices in the right hand and maintaining steadiness and breathing in the continuo left hand part.
Well, Mr. Maus, it’s finally arrived!
What is Improvising?
To improvise means to make music up on the spot and can be intimidating for beginner musician and seasoned professional alike. While all the great composers were known for their abilities as skilled improvisers, the tradition of classical music really doesn’t give us the space to explore it today.
Who hasn’t been impressed by someone who can sit down, open up a book of music at any spot, and start playing as if they’d been practising it for weeks?
Sight reading is the ability to read music at first sight. That’s right, music you’ve never seen or heard before.
So today me and my assistant, Mr. Maus, are going to be teaching you about the three pedals on the piano, aren’t we Mr. Maus?
-*Squeak* Yessir!
I am happy to announce that my piano studio is now opening up a second room for lessons!
Practicing piano doesn’t always mean sitting down and playing the piano.
They say that life never moves in a straight line. Although I’ve always been an industrious student, I’ve never really had a clear sense about where I was going when it came to a career. At one point in time I wanted to become a pilot, I even did the ground school for it. But for some reason that, like many things, never materialized. In my final year of high school it came time to decide what to do next.
Of course, there was always music. I had played piano most of my life, and when I wasn’t Continue reading
Image: Mon Shop Vintage
Musicians don’t always come from musical families. My uncle Leif, on my mother’s side, was a trained baritone, guitarist, and music teacher, so I knew the music gene was in there somewhere. But my parents were not trained musicians, though they liked listening to Elvis, John Denver, and the 3 Tenors, and my mother did enjoy singing and playing the autoharp.
This fact didn’t hinder my dad, when they met with a new piano teacher who wanted to know more about the parents.
During my mid teens, I remember performing Mozart’s Fantasia in D minor for the grade 9 piano category in Guelph Kiwanis Music Festival. There was a good handful of students in this class. I didn’t have a lot of experience performing in competition, so as with many young performers, my nerves got the best of me.
Something that I don’t mention in my personal bio is my experience with my first piano teacher.
When I was 5 my parents enrolled me in a local music school which they had thought was an extension of the Royal Conservatory of Music. Though the name was similar it was everything but, as we discovered over the next couple of years.