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Double Bass Bach on Bass

#21
yeah, edgar would play the g major suite in A major. a pain if you're trying to play along, but then again, i have transposing software and i just knock it down a step and play along. i dont have any editions, so i'm learning them by ear and transcribing, but that doesnt always help with the bowings. i guess my question is , what would be the best edition to get to play them at pitch, (not edgars pitch), but with the same fingerings as edgar (sounding a whole step lower ,but in the same positoins)? i guess i'm not sure if he plays them at the origional cello key, or a step above, or some other interval away from the origional key, therefore i'm not sure if the cello version would suit my needs. did i make this complicated enough?
(i guess all i really need is an edition with good bowings because i'm transcribing it anyway..)
 
#22
shwashwa said:
what would be the best edition to get to play them at pitch, (not edgars pitch), but with the same fingerings as edgar (sounding a whole step lower ,but in the same positoins)?
(i guess all i really need is an edition with good bowings because i'm transcribing it anyway..)
Click to expand...

who knows, you can watch him play and still not get all the fingerings! so far as i have heard, he has not issued an edition in print.

for the definitive bass edition, get em from george at Invalid Link Removed. that is too friggin time consuming to transcribe them by ear. to start with a blank slate, you could download them from www.classicalarchives.com with no markings at all.

BTW what transposing software are you using for audio files?
 
#24
shwashwa said:
i guess i'm not sure if he plays them at the origional cello key, or a step above, or some other interval away from the origional key, therefore i'm not sure if the cello version would suit my needs. did i make this complicated enough?
Click to expand...

He just plays them at pitch, meaning an octave up from where the bass normally sounds. It only comes out a whole step up because of the higher-pitched solo strings; if Edgar picked up a bass strung in orchestra tuning, he would put his fingers in the same place he did when he made that recording but the the G major suite would come out in G major instead of in A major. So a cello edition would be perfectly fine for you--just remember to read it an octave up from where you would normally play the notes!
Janos Starker's edition is pretty cool; Pierre Fournier's (International Editions) is a bit heavy on the slurs for my taste (but he sounded great playing the suites, so...). Barenreiter publishes a mammoth critical edition of the suites with facsimiles of the four extant manuscripts (none of them Bach's own, unfortunately for all of us) and a great "blank slate" uber-version with the variations among the manuscripts noted where they occur and no bowings indicated at all. And I guess International also has a bass edition by Mark Bernat that may be useful.
 
#25
I just assumed Edgar kept it in G I didn't know he let it bump up a whole step

that's what I get for not paying attention LOL maybe I should try to play along with records (yeah right)

at any rate, I thought I heard Edgar doing the 1st song in the 1st suite with opposite bows pretty much all the way through...no slurs but I'll have to listen again to be sure (and hear it in A how neat)
 
#26
I was jammin' out to some cuts from Beth Orton that NPR has linked...and I saw a link to Bach Suites on bass by a guy named Hawthorne.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

He plays the first song from the 1st suite more slowly than Edgar does, but it still comes out quite nice I think. It also sounds like he connects lines with slurs here rather than cutting them apart with the bow so much...but not so precise with intonation as is Edgar's trademark

So Rabbath and Ellison have versions of these suites do they have recordings too?
 
#30
Lucky you

Yeah when I was at the concert I could tell pretty quickly that Rabbath had made lots of friends during that week it must have been a blast

I have a recording of him doing Proto's Carmen Fantasy but that was the first time I ever saw him play in person.
 
#32
Speaking of Edgar (again LOL), I've got another link I don't remember having shared here yet. It's Edgar playing something off an album that appears to be out of print...but he's doing vibrato for this song and it sounds very nice:

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

:bassist:
 
#33
just a thought... 1 thing to think about also are that the suites were written "senza basso" which means that we shouldn't forget that they were written with a harmonic structure in mind. In order to show the harmonic structure in the suites, the composer used horizontal harmonic progressions which are used over and over again in different ways which bind the suites together. the 1st three notes of the prelude of the 1st suite set up the harmonic styles of the mvmt. and give the movements their "harmonic" feel also the same 3 notes in the 1st minuet. It is very important to figure out when the feel is harmonic or melodic based on the style of writing in each individual mvmt... (arpeggiated or scaleur). this gives added contrast throughout the suites which is usually overlooked.
 
#34
I'm way late on this thread but felt this needed saying. I think the edition of the Suites by Mark Bernat SUCK!!!! Stay away from them. The bowings are really screwy and he uses tenor clef waaaaaay too much. In fact, the entire prelude from suite #1 is written in tenor clef. What a jerk.
 
#35
fcleff said:
I'm way late on this thread but felt this needed saying. I think the edition of the Suites by Mark Bernat SUCK!!!! Stay away from them. The bowings are really screwy and he uses tenor clef waaaaaay too much. In fact, the entire prelude from suite #1 is written in tenor clef. What a jerk.
Click to expand...

Whoa! now you may hate the sin but not the sinner.....
Of course I have heard the same . I have no idea how he got the contract to do this when he is so low on the bas radar.-OK But name calling is just poor tast and really doesn't prove anything.
I would suggest Clef that you just let go and let Mark.....
Focus on something else. I'm sure he is a nice guy like you....just tryin to take over the world inhis own way....
 
#36
fcleff said:
I'm way late on this thread but felt this needed saying. I think the edition of the Suites by Mark Bernat SUCK!!!! Stay away from them. The bowings are really screwy and he uses tenor clef waaaaaay too much. In fact, the entire prelude from suite #1 is written in tenor clef. What a jerk.
Click to expand...

My thought is that if you don't like tenor clef, then you just need to find an edition that doesn't contain it. But don't dog an edition or an arranger simply over their choice of clef. Either get out and learn tenor clef, or don't. But complaining about it really won't help much. I personally don't mind reading tenor at all.

As far as bowings are concerned, I don't really think any editions contain bowings that we are strictly bound to. My teacher has an edition that contains copies of Bach's transcripts: copies of the originals. In many cases, it is difficult to tell exactly where Bach placed the slurs. In my opinion, it's up to interpretation as to how the bow is applied.

Bernat does make a few changes to the chords I don't agree with though, to be honest.
 
#37
I'd agree that the Bernat ed. is frustrating. Tenor clef is totally unnecessary for most of it. As for bowings, you'd be hard pressed to find 5 cellists to agree on bowings much less I suppose 5 bassists. Adding notes for chords and wrong ones at that is most unforgivable, for example in the Gigue of the 3rd suite. At least the Sterling edition had sense enough to leave notes out in chords, but even Sterling has wrong notes. Something that I've found handy is to consult the Complete Collected Works of Bach which most university music libraries have. While not the manuscript, its a clean printed edition and a reliable enough starting point for notes and bowings.
 
#38
ClassicalBass said:
My teacher has an edition that contains copies of Bach's transcripts: copies of the originals. In many cases, it is difficult to tell exactly where Bach placed the slurs.
Click to expand...

Ah yes, there's the rub. The "originals" aren't Bach's; all four of the extant manuscripts are copies of Bach's lost original in the hand of various different people. The most frustrating one is that which his wife Anna Magdalena did: she was so sloppy with her slurs that's it's almost useless to try to derive bowings from it. Bach's original manuscript is the holy grail for many scholars; maybe it'll turn up someday.

This moment of musicology was brought to you by the letter Q.
 
#39
I never care what clef any piece is in either and the markings are all subject to interpretation anyway. Just give me the notes. Clefs, keys, slurs, markings: that's what Finale is for. When you get done working up the piece the way you want it, print it out the way you want it to look for your own reference. Sideways, on purple paper, in tablature, whatever gets you through the night. :cool:
 
#40
O.K., O.K. Maybe I was a little on the 'hair trigger' side with regards to Bernat. But he did stand up 300+ bassists and musicians at the ASTA conference in Reno a year ago. He was supposed to give a talk on Bach's music for the bass and he was a no-show.

I have actually had good luck with the Dover Edition for cello. I can play it an octave higher with minimal difficulty. With suite 3 I just transpose to G (I use Sibelius) and sometimes just read the key of C as if it were in tenor clef (I hope that doesn't come back to bite me). There aren't too many wacky slurs so I can interperet what I want without visual roadblocks. And so true that you will never find 5 players to agee on the bowings. Whatever gets you through the night. :)
 

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