Bach Cello Suites

[Shmelbee]

Hey,

I play classical double bass, and all last year, my teacher, David Murray, was having me play a lot of the Bach Suites. I was watching a movie and playing some tapping nonsense, when I thought it maybe would be a cool idea to play these suites.

I youtube searched around, and saw lots of people playing them, but none of these guys were tapping.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is if it's even remotely possible to do them that way. I came up with some cool tricks for scale runs in the first half of the first prelude, so that gives me some confidence...

What do you think?

[Michael Manring]

It’s certainly possible to play the cello suites using tapping, Shmelbee! Bach’s music has proven to be wonderfully adaptable over the centuries and if you feel you have a new interpretation to add to these beautiful masterpieces I say give it all you’ve got!

[Shmelbee]

Thanks for the encouragement, Mr. Manring!

I showed my jazz professor at school and he really liked my idea for doing the diatonic runs, which I worked out as skipping thirds in each hand. He said it added a nice visual/aural illusion-ish effect. I'm glad it looks cooler than I thought it did.

Thanks again, and maybe I'll youtube it for some more input...

[Jamolah]

Hey Shmelbee,

I don't think there's a whole video, but I'm sure that on the bassplayer.tv website (www.bassplayer.tv, natch) has a clinic with Stu Hamm where he plays a snippet of the first Cello suite using taps. You might wanna have a quick peek at that for some inspiration.

Cheers,
JP

[Dave Grossman]

This guy does some Bach tapping:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=bentorrey

I don't:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=...ossmanSoloBass

- Dave