First of all, Bach developed music from vocal music to instrumental music, which made instrumental music playing skills develop to an unprecedented peak. Before Bach, the music was mainly vocal music, and musical instruments were rarely used as accompaniment. Instrumental music has no independent status. Bach gave full play to the playing skills of the ancient piano and invented the fingering of playing the keyboard with five fingers. Before Bach, the keyboards for playing organ and clavichord did not use thumbs, but only used four fingers. Bach invented thumb fingering, which laid the foundation for today's piano fingering. After the invention of this new fingering, the skills of keyboard instruments are very developed. Pure "music" is the art of "sound" and has nothing to do with literature and poetry. Of course, vocal music cannot be used to perform "singing", and instrumental music must be used to perform "beating". Therefore, the development of instrumental music means the formation and development of pure music. Bach developed instrumental music, making it a brand-new and independent art form, liberating music from the shackles of other arts and becoming a free and independent art, so Bach is also known as the "father of music" in the West.
Secondly, Bach first applied the 12 average scale in composition. "Twelve Average Scales" is to divide the intervals of a scale into twelve equal parts, one of which is divided into semitones and the other into whole tones. This music theory was initiated by larmor, a French music theorist. But this is just a theory and has never been put into practice. Bach was the first person to apply this music theory to composition and achieved satisfactory results. The use of average rate makes mode modulation (fixing the composition of one tone and changing it to another tone halfway) very free, and the fugue of polyphonic music is very developed. The fugue usually consists of three parts: the presentation part, the expansion part and the reproduction part. The basic feature is to use imitation counterpoint method to make short and distinctive themes appear in all parts of the music in turn; Then it enters the interlude developed from some motives in the theme, and then the theme and interlude appear repeatedly in different new tunes; Finally, the theme returns to the original tune, often ending with an epilogue. The development of fugue has a great influence on the development of sonata form later. The application of average rate also leads musicians to use chromatic harmony very freely, which makes the effect of harmony more novel and rich. Bach himself wrote chromatic fantasia with chromatic harmony.
When Bach was alive, his works were not understood by people. He has neither a prominent position nor won social recognition. It was the great Mozart and Beethoven who first discovered his valuable value. They were shocked by the profundity, perfection and impeccable of Bach's music. When Beethoven first saw some of Bach's works, he couldn't help exclaiming: "He is not a stream (Bach's name is Devin Bach, which means' Stream'), but the sea!" 1829, Mendelssohn revived Bach's The Passion of Matthew in an epoch-making performance in Berlin. Chopin practiced Bach's works before the concert, and Liszt adapted some of Bach's organ works for the piano. Schumann is one of the founders of Bach Society, which undertakes the heavy responsibility of publishing the complete version of this master's works. Today, Bach's music can be heard all over the world Many of these works have long been listed as compulsory teaching materials for cultivating students in art colleges and entries in major international music competitions. Bach is known as "the unparalleled master" and even as "the father of modern European music".