One of the foremost scholars of J.S. Bach's pedagogical and creative approach, Derek Remeš deconstructs the C Major Prelude, BWV 846, in the first of a three-part series dedicated to "reverse engineering" Bach's Preludes.

Remeš's approach to understanding the work's structure and harmonic configuration is Bach's own: that of so-called "thoroughbass," also known as "figured bass." Far more than an accompanimental practice, thoroughbass was core to Bach's understanding of musical composition writ large. For Bach's students, the main skill to acquire was a facility with recognizing and realizing the many voice leading conventions embedded in these shorthand basslines. Think of Remeš as Bach's teaching assistant, 300 years after the fact: he shows you a path towards understanding the X-Ray of the C Major Prelude, so you may internalize its structure with the goal of reconstructing the music in your own voice.

In this second lesson of a three-part series dedicated to "reverse engineering" Bach's Preludes, Derek Remeš examines the F Major Prelude, BWV 856 – transposed to C major, for ease of discerning harmonic relationships.

Applying the same "thoroughbass analysis" as he did in the previous lesson on BWV 846, Remeš shows how the surface of Bach's music can deviate from the chordal reduction. These idealized realizations nevertheless reveal the connective tissue and bloodflow behind the "skin" of the Prelude, and by studying the work's anatomy you will discover the formulae Bach utilized to generate its light and joyous surface. Remeš then adds more practice strategies to your tool box as you practice this musical X-ray of the work, to aid in harmonic perception and facility in improvisation.

In this third and final lesson of a three-part series dedicated to "reverse engineering" Bach's Preludes, Derek Remeš examines the G Major Prelude, BWV 860 – transposed to C major, for ease of discerning harmonic relationships.

With the right hand cartwheeling between octaves, it may not be evident on first glance how this Prelude might be generated from the same family of voice-leading conventions Bach employed in the C Major and F Major Preludes. As Remeš demonstrates, they are still very much operative, even if the chordal reduction sounds more and more remote from the audible surface. After recommending more practice strategies for extemporizing your own composition from the thoroughbass skeleton, Remeš offers guidance on how to utilize even more 18th-century voice-leading conventions so you may begin improvising without a given bassline.