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Background: I returned to play piano last year, after a long away for more than 2 decades. During the second decade, I have touched a piano maybe just for once or twice.
My current situation is that I cannot play piano every day and for many reasons I can't go to any piano lesson.
By all the other things I tried, the best method is Bach. It helps to improve the finger control.
The benefice: The benefice of this method is that the risks to hurt the hands are minimized and it is extremely easy to notice what is wrong.
As Bach left us many short pieces, even few minutes is enough to make a little step.
Can be interrupted at any moment.
Best way I have tried to take back the finger control.

The method: just take one of the Bach Books and start from the first piece (in case of Suites, just study an entire suite). Try to practice it until you are satisfied with yourself and move on the next. Record them sometimes to check where to be improved.
Struggling to find your own fingering is very important.
Make sure first practice with hands separately and very slowly.
Make breaks if you are bored, this method doesn’t require every day practice. It is very good to take some days off.
Really take time to study.
If you are bored or it doesn’t improve enough your piano skills, please change method.

track progress:Post your record here. As we are not pro, so some errors are absolutely expected. You can also put some opinions about this piece.

Some notes:
Should return gradually, make sure no more than 2 hour per day. (1 hour per day would be ideal)
You can also spend 10-15 min to study an easy Mozart or easy Beethoven or something else aside. It will be a very good reference to control the progress.
I think it will take a lifelong to learn Bach perfectly.
Follow your feeling and don’t think too much. Just focused on what you want to play.


Some Bach Books:

The difficult rank is indicative, maybe someone has different idea.
This list is maybe partial.
Easy: Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach , little preludes and fugues
Medium: 15 inventions, 15 sinfonias, French Suite
Difficult: English Suite, Well tempered clavier (WTC) I and II, Partitas
(there are other difficult Bach pieces like Concertos, fantasia and fugues…..)

Example:

WTC1 C Major Prelude and fugue:
The C Major prelude is a very challenging piece for me, it will be a long term improvement.
The C Major fugue is the first fugue of this series. I have spent a lot of time, but still cannot do it completely right and even.
Any way I am satisfied myself for the moment.

I get the idea, but it's not really true that you can't injure yourself playing Bach. I almost did.

This is a very important point. It just reduces risks against Hanon, Czerny, Liszt, Chopin... The risk always exist.
It should be done gradually and following the feeling, make rest and take time are extremely important.
Never overdue anything.

One could, except possibly for a beginner, apply the same approach using almost any great composer. But limiting one's study to a single composer is not a pedagogical good idea.

Actually, Bach has a lot of weird finger substitutions etc. People also get very particular about how long each note just be held etc which increases the number of awkward positions. If you try to do all of those and don't relax your hands properly, they will become more tense than if you were playing something ergonomic by Chopin.

This is not for pedagogic purpose, this is just for people who are returning to play

As I mentioned in the post: as no pro, don't try to get the Bach completely right, but comfort is obviously the most important.

For those returning to play, any great single composer could be used if one wanted to. But I don't think it's a good approach for anyone whether one considers it pedagogical or not.

Why limit yourself to Bach? Schumann, Mozart, Beethoven, and many others also wrote many short pieces of different difficulty levels. Diversification is a much better strategy.

Bach's great, but I would get bored pretty quickly. And I've learned plenty of Bach pieces over the years. Playing Bach exclusively is not going to help you play the Romantic period piano composers, or Haymozoven (Haydn/Mozart/Beethoven), or jazz or blues or pop. It's a matter of learning the different styles and typical patterns and so forth.

Sam

I used to focus on Bach more than other composers. After getting a teacher, I got assigned pieces by Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, etc. Any piece that looks playable and happens to be in the repertoire book eventually get assigned. And I also got into pieces in a repertoire book with arrangements of Jazz & Blues.

Out of all the works written by Bach (1080 total), only a fraction were written specifically for keyboard (excluding organ). Still enough to keep you playing for years including preludes & fugues, French & English Suites, partitas, concertos, Goldberg Variations, Well-Tempered Clavier Book I & II, and his last 2 Musical Offering (1079) & Art of Fugue (1080), etc.

Some of the pieces in the Notebook for Anna M. Bach were by other composers copied into the notebook by Bach's 2nd wife Anna. My last 2 Bach pieces were not originals but arrangements for piano. The first is "Arioso" in an Adagio tempo from the slow movement of the concerto BWV1059. The second is from a Bach oratorio in a slow Andante tempo. There are also Bach's arrangement of Vivaldi concertos & the Adagio from the concerto in Dm by Marcello.

The last piece I worked on is an arrangement of "Autumn Leaves" by Joseph Kosma. I'd play an advance and intermediate piece side by side to make sure I don't overstress my fingers.

Many Bach pieces but not all need finger substitutions for holding down long notes while playing others. If you hold a long 8-beat note to its full value while playing others finger substitution is unavoidable... unless you release a long note early. Using sustain (damper) pedal isn't a good substitute for holding down a long note.

This is just one of many solutions for specific conditions and for specific people. You are free to write down your specific approach if you have any. Especially if you think your approach is unique.

Yes.

I played the Bach invention and a couple of sinfonia but once you have mastered two lines there are plenty of other music you can try. There are plenty of other options for fugues I played these two. Are you not tempted to try another later composer?

I see. Maybe we misread the OP post. They said Bach centric so not just one composer and clearly if can manage a fugue could work. I think if you want to regain finger control some classical composers is good idea. I found some baroque and classical focus is improving left hand and also rapid scale passages.

it depends on personal situation and objective. It's great if this is the case.

Bach technique is a specialist thing. I'd go with music written for the piano mid-19th century at the earliest.

I like Bach very much, and I agree that his music and polyphonic music in general is the best for developing finger independence. But I'm not sure about the safety. I think safety is more about how you play, than what you play, and notionally it seems that polyphonic music is not very safe if played with tensed hands.

If I was returning to piano I'd begin with training and relaxing the wrist before training finger independence, because the tensed wrist is the cause of most long-lasting injuries. I would begin conventionally with playing pieces with much non legato, then the pieces requiring simplest wrist movements.

More than two decades away is not really a long time for someone who can 'just study an entire [Bach] suite'.
What were the other things you tried?
Using the fingers in non-polyphonic pieces with a good cantabile line should work better as the errors can be heard more easily and clearly.
Is there any basis for any of this or is it just hypothesis? I think it's misplaced.

I wonder who the post is aimed at. If this post is aimed at other returners with ten or so years experience but with twenty or more years away I think they'd come up with something better. I did after a fifteen year hiatus. Actually I think most people returning to play would come up with something better.

This in itself is why such an approach falls at the first hurdle.

I have tried Chopin, Liszt etudes, Beethoven for some days in the beginning, I could probably play the entire melody by use some brute force. But I stopped because I started to have some wrist pain. By switching to Bach, I really feel very comfortable, and I feel I can play for hours without any problem especially compared to other composers, just put hands on the keyboard and minimize the movement. So this is probably a good way to get my hands relaxed.
I agree probably the safety is the way how to play piano, but I believe also less than one hour per day also improves the safety.
I think in some how I was quite fortunate, because I am using fragment time, my piano teacher probably taught me the correct technic in the past and take many days off.
Probably the most important for returning is a "lazy returning".

well, tell me your approach and we'll find a way to compare