{"id":27,"date":"2022-06-21T11:30:23","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T11:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterdanstrup.com\/?page_id=27"},"modified":"2022-06-25T13:31:11","modified_gmt":"2022-06-25T13:31:11","slug":"bass","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/peterdanstrup.com\/index.php\/bass\/","title":{"rendered":"Bass"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I play mainly acoustic bass guitar or electric bass guitar. My acoustic bass guitars are built by luthier Kenneth Br\u00f8gger.<\/a> They have Fender bass mensure (scale length) and I had the privilige to participate in all vital choices: wood, finger board, rosette etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I practice (and struggle with) J. S. Bach’s Cello Suites every day. It has helped me to build up technique, overview, sound and touch of my instrument as well as it has opened my mind and improved my skills as a composer. If you play bass and have time and patience enough I strongly recommend this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bach on Bass: Suite II, Pr\u00e9lude<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve made a couple of videos on how to play Bach\u2019s second cello suite, and I realize that I with that join a world of fast talking, not so trustworthy people that are eager to tell you about how to do it almost without practicing. You may wonder why I do it then\u2026. But I think my take on it is a little different, although I know that mastering Bach\u2019s music is not something you do after watching a video. Actually, I don\u2019t believe in YouTube teaching \u2013 unless of course you will get inspired to practice and understand that playing any instrument is a lifelong task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what is my special take? It is the camera angle! All instructional videos I\u2019ve seen are shot from the spectators viewing point \u2013 I\u2019ve found a way of filming it as you, the player, see it, as if you are playing yourself or looking over the shoulder of your teacher. I combine it with \u2018artistic\u2019 performance with the usual camera angle as part of an audience. I have combined it with the music in the bottom of the picture with fingering and string indications \u2013 no TAB, as I\u2019ve never understood the big idea behind it. Why learn a system that omit the rhythm and that is never used in the professional world? If you want the music on paper, you can download it on this page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the video I try to briefly explain what I\u2019ve done to the original score from the descendants of Bach (we don\u2019t have Bach\u2019s original score – nor do we know who he wrote it to, but it must have been a master musician). I have followed some simple dogmas: I keep the original key, and in the case of the 2nd<\/sup> suite, I play it an octave lower of idiomatic reasons (the bass sounds good and natural in D minor) and as a consequence of that, I must play some \u2013 not many \u2013 sequences up an octave. Some places I have omitted a note in a chord, and in the last 5 bars I\u2019ve added a scale run as I find it hard to believe that baroque musicians played those 5 bars without improvising a bit. There is a whole science here, that I unfortunately don\u2019t know enough about: did Bach really mean that<\/em>? It derives from the fact that in Bach\u2019s time, composers and musicians had a lot of congenial understandings on how to interpret the scores, so the composers didn\u2019t have to be too precise \u2013 because everybody knew what to do. This goes for tempos, phrasing and \u2013 interestingly \u2013 in that context: playing quavers as triplets. We know it from jazz scores today: we write eight notes but they are executed as triplets. We also know that improvisation has disappeared from classical music, and the cadences were open for the musician to play freely. That is why I take the liberty and play a single run on one of the chords. I might get killed for that.<\/p>\n\n\nBach-on-Bass-Suite-II-Pre\u0301lude-download<\/a>\n

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