Hi, everyone.

I've been too busy at the start of my semester to post much. As some of you know, I have made a small contribution to Bach on Stick on YT. His music works particularly well on an SG12 with a mirrored 4ths tuning. I'm a total amateur with no illusions of grandeur and I was able to do the 1st Invention pretty well, considering. I worked with a friend of mine with a Master's Degree in music from that period. He plays piano and has a pianoforte in his living room.

Bach never had a modern piano (!) and when he finally tried one late in his life he hated it. He wrote for harpsichord and clavichord. The Stick works well with his music partially because of its percussive nature that reminds some of a harpsichord.

I always love hearing Bach on a Stick and I'm looking forward to more from everyone.

-Eric

Hey Eric,

I'd like to thank you for posting the occasional defense of standard notation and of our chosen tuning. For some time now, there has been just you to remind people that reading on the Stick is possible. Please continue.

Good work on your transcription as well.


Mad Monk.

Keep going on your transcription; it's an awesome project! (Not that you need any kind of endorsement from one such as I...)

Post a link to your Invention? I'd love to see/hear/learn from it! I'm mostly a rock guy, but I do love some classical stuff, particularly Bach...

Here's the post where I shared it and the story. Warts and all I'm still happy I could play it like that.

http://www.stickist.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8183

-Eric

Hey man, I thought it was great! Thanks so much for sharing! I am working on that one too, I'm about half way through and believe me when I say that it is a damn massacre hahaha It has taught me so much, though.

Thanks for the nice comments! I think I learn so much when I learn a Bach piece. My hand strength and independence improved dramatically with that piece. I did a bunch of reading about the Inventions and Bach scholars believe he wrote them to help his students gain better hand independence. That sure helped me. It took me many months to get it going.

Keep going, it's so satisfying to play the whole thing.

-Eric

Thanks for the recommendations, Brett...

In my humble opinion, any student of music (and let's face it, we ALL are) should spend some time with Bach, irrespective of personal musical taste. To listen to, study, and/or play his music is to get to know Music better, simply because of the impact he had on the art form.
Not just a genius of counterpoint, a prolific composer (10,000+ works?!) of the most sophisticated music in existence, he was a champion and major authority on the development of Equal Temperament, i.e. the modern tonal system! and, possibly most significantly, the epitome of 'work hard to achieve success' - he knew that mastery only came from application, and he practiced more than most, as a composer and a keyboard player & violinist.
I think much of his compositions work great on Stick, the 2/3 part counterpoint pieces, the well tempered clavier, or even the single line Cello suites work are great for us.

Can you tell I think he is the master of all things music?!

Oh, and one more promo to Johann's genius.......anyone who can IMPROVISE the following piece has to be pretty special:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUHQ2ybTejU[/youtube]

Yep! A single line of music that works both forward and backwards simultaneously!!! .......IMPROVISED!!!!!

Go listen, study and play some Bach guys!!!!!

P

Learning Bach is a great technique exercise. For example, his melodies are loaded with 4ths and dominant 7ths, which, because they are on different strings at the same fret, require movement outside of learned scale fingerings to execute smoothly..

As I watch Stick players improvise, I often see them omit these specific interval movements. It's like not using the letter "s" when you speak.

Learn your scales, but learn the intervals, too...all of them.

hahaha. dem's da ones we gots to work on