| I play a lot of classical (and pop for that matter) as solo music on the electric bass. Faure's Pavane is a beautiful piece. I did a quick Google search and there are websites which have free downloads available of various arrangements since it is in the public domain. One site, IMSLP.org, has a reduction for solo piano. Most of the main harmonies between the violin and viola parts are in thirds and are written in the treble clef, standard pitch. This might be an easier way for you to approach coming up with your own arrangement.
In my experience, arranging for the bass, or for any single instrument for that matter, is a compromise. I haven't written an arrangement for bass for this piece yet, but looking at its original key (F# minor) the highest note is an F# above the treble clef. On a 4 string Fender style instrument with a 20 fret neck, the highest fretted note is an Eb. In order to play an arrangement on the bass so that the melody and harmony can be played in the upper octave you will need to have an instrument that goes up that high, compensate by using harmonics (artificial or natural) or transpose to a different key such as D and use a drop D tuning. Actually, the more I think about it the piece might work very well in D minor.
Also, it looks as if without doing two-handed tapping, it would be difficult to mimic the bass part in its entirety. It might be easier and more musical to just use the main bass notes and skip the arrpegiations.
Again, everything is a compromise, either for musical or technical reasons. Since our favorite instrument is pitched so low with some intervals tricky to work with down in the lower registers, I often find it best to scale a piece down to its bare bones musical skeleton, maintain those elements, and then judiciously add back the necessary harmonies which suggest the "color" and "flavoring" as it were.
Another approach might be to see if you can find a guitar arrangement then adapt it for bass. Often times half the work is already done for you. I'm pretty sure I have recordings of John Williams or perhaps Segovia, playing this Pavane.
Good luck and have fun.
Cheers,
Dennis
Edit: Oops, I reread your post and see that you are using a looper. Most of my comments still apply, but you probaly have the bass arppegios going. I arrange so that a piece can be played without looping or multi-tracking so that it can be played using a standard instrument and standard equipment i.e. a cord and an amp.
Last edited by biobass : 06-19-2010 at 12:57 PM.
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