Sorry I'm not adding to the "critique me playing Bach" thread my computer won't let me hear mp3 files (it's a company software thing)...but I would like to talk about Bach on bass!
I've been working on the first cello suite just to work on my intonation and get accustomed to different fingering patterns so far (it's the Rabbath version I'm doing). I've gotten to see several people (kids, yeah!) perform it in masterclasses and do nice jobs, but some of the fingerings I recall them using aren't what Rabbath cites (e.g., using the thumb on the A string for the G rather than leveraging the open G).
Vance does this sort of thing, using open G in between stopped notes played around the heel, quite a bit in his method books that's where I first encountered the idea. I wouldn't have ever thought to do that myself because of, again, the bowing challenge. Getting a clean open G for me requires a certain bow draw that the other notes don't ask for...plus going for a lower note on a higher string twists my brain it's so counter-intuitive for me LOL. What a provocative idea wow!
But I think I like this Bach cello suite thing the best because so much of it has wider intervals, which makes hearing the piece in tune from the outset much easier than, say, pieces that run almost exclusively in scales and use chromaticism for spice. As I learn more about bass in jazz, I'm learning that it's not unacceptable to "walk" lines such that they outline the chord progression and reinforce the center of the song to free the leaders and solos up for exploration around (perhaps away too?) it...and so I'm starting to feel excited about jazz as a means through which to explore the things I cherish most about music also, which really are the basic building blocks themselves. What the visionaries of music are able to construct with them are of course amazing and wonderful, but I'm good with leaving that work to them for now and just striving to give them the best tools I can.
Which brings me back to Bach. There's so much talk about the Bach cello suites as songs that need to be made meaningful, as though they are the pinnacle of songwriting. I don't now and wonder that I may never see them that way. Maybe as I keep working on them and get better and more comfortable with them I'll start seeing them differently I do have a long way to go for sure...but for now they are simply a standard by which much of the tools we utilize in Western music are judged.
When we play Bach and we play it well, that's the message I hear.
I've been working on the first cello suite just to work on my intonation and get accustomed to different fingering patterns so far (it's the Rabbath version I'm doing). I've gotten to see several people (kids, yeah!) perform it in masterclasses and do nice jobs, but some of the fingerings I recall them using aren't what Rabbath cites (e.g., using the thumb on the A string for the G rather than leveraging the open G).
Vance does this sort of thing, using open G in between stopped notes played around the heel, quite a bit in his method books that's where I first encountered the idea. I wouldn't have ever thought to do that myself because of, again, the bowing challenge. Getting a clean open G for me requires a certain bow draw that the other notes don't ask for...plus going for a lower note on a higher string twists my brain it's so counter-intuitive for me LOL. What a provocative idea wow!
But I think I like this Bach cello suite thing the best because so much of it has wider intervals, which makes hearing the piece in tune from the outset much easier than, say, pieces that run almost exclusively in scales and use chromaticism for spice. As I learn more about bass in jazz, I'm learning that it's not unacceptable to "walk" lines such that they outline the chord progression and reinforce the center of the song to free the leaders and solos up for exploration around (perhaps away too?) it...and so I'm starting to feel excited about jazz as a means through which to explore the things I cherish most about music also, which really are the basic building blocks themselves. What the visionaries of music are able to construct with them are of course amazing and wonderful, but I'm good with leaving that work to them for now and just striving to give them the best tools I can.
Which brings me back to Bach. There's so much talk about the Bach cello suites as songs that need to be made meaningful, as though they are the pinnacle of songwriting. I don't now and wonder that I may never see them that way. Maybe as I keep working on them and get better and more comfortable with them I'll start seeing them differently I do have a long way to go for sure...but for now they are simply a standard by which much of the tools we utilize in Western music are judged.
When we play Bach and we play it well, that's the message I hear.
hope to be able to play them.
