Wed, May 24 2006 3:11 pm
Post by Andrew SchulmanPost by Arthur NessNow if you bring up that note about 3/4rds of the way through BWV 999,
I'm going on strike!! I can't make up mymind. Either one is possible. I
checked the critical notes in the NBA (new Bach edition), but can't remember
what the situation is. --ajn
Yes, at measure 23 I play the F natural in the bass (this is of course
the note in the Kellner autograph of BWV 999 although that is in Cm and
on guitar it is played in Dm); easy to do on an 8-string guitar as a
bar, the F is on the 8th string in that position. The 6-string
solution, playing the F an octave higher doesn't work well at all in my
opinion, nor does grabbing the F at the 6th string-1st fret for a split
second....
I just came across this topic, so my contribution is belated-
I, too, am a "multi-string" guitarist, and am able thereby to play the
low F. I agree that it is preferable on six string simply to continue
the E, though I have heard both the solutions you allude to in recorded
versions.
But, just for laughs, here is what I worked out for that measure and
its preparation in the previous meaure for a student not too long ago-
not seriously proposed for performance, but fun to fool around with,
and it does relieve, if only minimally, the split-second grab (copy and
paste the tab below to notepad, or some mono-spaced font to resore
legibility):
m.22
use l.h. 2,3,4 (not a bar), and slide 2 down to fourth fret on third
string
|-----------10----------0-----0-----0--|
|--------9-----9-----9-----------------|
|-----9-----------9--------4-----------|
|--------------------------------6-----|
|--------------------------------------|
|--0-----------------------------------|
m. 23
slide 4 from fifth to eighth fret,
then use 1 and 3 for first and third strings,
reach around with 4 for the fifth string F. # then slides to
seventh fret in the next measure and
normal fingering resumes.
|--------5/(8)-5-----5-----------------|-----------7--------
|-----4--------------------------------|--------6-----6-----
|-----------------8-----8-----8-----8--|-----7-----------7--
|--------------------------7-----------|--------------------
|--------------------------------8-----|--------------------
|--1-----------------------------------|--0----------------- etc.
Post by Andrew Schulman...The F makes harmonic sense of course as the root of the F dominant 7th
chord which is the harmony at the point. But the disruption of the E
pedal is obviously what bothers people that don't like it, especially
keyboard players who play it in C minor although some do like it (in
that case, an Eb). But the disruption of the pedal also bothered me
somewhat....
Before I had an 11-string I, too, convinced myself that I was
"bothered" by the disruption of the pedal- but I found my distaste for
it vanished once I actually had some choice in the matter.
Below is an excerpt from a draft of some writing I was doing on the
design of my tuning, why I have it set up the way it is (High A,
basses stepped downward diatonically from the low E to low A but
ordered so that the low B is adjacent to the low E). I went way off on
a long tangent about this piece and about the meaning of this spot in
particular. This excerpt may finally may have a place of relevance
here. Hope it is interesting to read and criticize. (My sense of the
theoretical sophistication of my targeted reader varied considerably as
I was writing this) :
"....Finally, having the low D and C strings means I don't lose access
to at least some of the notes between the low E and B when I move to
upper positions."
"Every guitarist who does his own transcriptions is familiar with the
problem alluded to in this last point as it exists analogously on the
six string guitar. We've all wished at some time, while availing
ourselves of the upper reaches of the fingerboard, to have an extra
finger or two with which to reach back for a low F, F#, G. or G#, which
are the fingered notes between the two lowest strings and available
only on the four lowest frets. A famous example is in a piece known to
any classical guitarist familiar with the basic intermediate
repertoire, one of Bach's "little" preludes. This particular one is
often referred to as the "little prelude in c", because when played as
originally written on a keyboard instrument, it begins, apparently, in
c minor. It ends in G, the dominant of C, though by the time this
happens there is no vestige left of a C centered tonality and G has
become the tonic- so it ends in a key other than that in which it
began, which is unusual (in any key, the "dominant" is chord which we
hear as having a tension and inherent tendency directed towards the
tonic or "home" chord as the most likely chord to follow and satisfy or
"resolve" that tension. 99.99% of all pieces written end with a
harmonic movement or "progression" from a dominant chord to the tonic).
In the guitar transcription this piece has been transposed up a whole
step, so it begins in d minor and ends in A, but nevertheless has still
sometimes been referred to in guitar programs as the "little prelude in
c". "
"There is a long section in this prelude in which on the downbeats of
several successive measures there is a constant reiteration in the bass
of the same note, while chords change above it. This sustain or
constant repetition of a bass note while chords change freely above it
is called a "pedal point" because when organists wrote it into their
works it typically was a note that was held down with their foot on the
pedal keyboard. So long as the chords at the beginning and end of a
pedal section are chords that include the note that is being "pedaled",
the chords in between do not have to "recognize" that note, and in fact
can be chords which if played out of the blue with that note in the
bass might sound horribly wrong. Yet in a pedal section the listeners
ear accepts and understands what is going on. The compositional effect
is that of an extremely intricate and elaborated version extended in
time of the chord with which one enters and leaves the pedal section."
" In this "little" prelude the "pedaled" note is the dominant of the
key in which the piece ends, which in the transposed guitar
transcription is E. It is the length and insistence of this long
sustained dominant E with its expected but deferred resolution to A
which makes A sound convincing as a final tonic, and pretty much
obliterates any aural or "sound-sense" expectation that the piece will
work its way back to d minor and end there. The chord succession above
the pedal point here is not a very complex one as pedal point sections
go, it begins with a simple alternation back and forth between E
dominant seventh and A minor chords. This simple back-and-forth does
not mean it is boring or monotonous though, because the voicing, or
order in which the chord tones are vertically organized, is arranged so
that with each succesive chord there is a dramatic rise in pitch to a
climax on one of the dominant chord voicings, at which point it turns
around and begins a descent back to the chord and voicing with which
the pedal section started- and then continues its descent beyond that
point. This continuation past the return to this chord seems to evoke a
hushed quietude which serves to intensify the overt drama of the rise
and fall which has preceded it, which further supports the point being
made that E is the true dominant of the piece, and the structure can
end nowhere else but on A."
"A centerpiece to Bach's compositional argument as to the true
tonality is encapsulated in one particular measure in the midst of this
process, the measure in which is effected the change in direction after
having attained to the climactic dominant and the descent begins. If
Bach had adhered to the pattern of harmonic alternation that he had
established up to that point then the chord in this measure would have
been another A minor chord, such as the one immediately preceding the
climactic dominant. An interesting experiment is to try substituting a
repetition of that preceding measure in place of the one that Bach
wrote to follow that climax. This results in a continuation of the A
minor-E dom 7 alternation which has characterized the section up that
point with the same melodic rise and fall- only now it seems shallower
in effect, even insignificant, and arbitrarily constructed."
"The chord that Bach used instead at this juncture is an augmented
sixth chord, a special type of chord which seems as insistent upon
resolving to a chord understood to be a dominant as is a dominant to
resolve to a tonic- perhaps even more so because often dominant chords
resolve to chords which turn out themselves to be dominants, or have
alternative resolutions to other areas of the tonality, whereas
augmented sixths are usually pretty specific about where they are
going. The use of this dominant presaging chord particularly at this
dramatic moment intensifies the "dominantization" of E in a more
profound and eloquent fashion than simply repeating the E chord in its
dominant form over and over again would have done. It is notable that
it is only after having used this clarifying chord in which the status
of E as a dominant of larger than local significence is confirmed that
Bach then varied from his harmonic alternation, and instead of A minor
chords in some places he used forms of the dominants own dominant. To
have done so before this point would have been slightly disorienting as
E would not yet have been sufficiently confirmed as the dominant of
greater structural significance than one used for local effect."
"A salient feature of Bach's writing of this augmented sixth chord is
that as originally written he breaks the pedal point- for this measure
only- and, in the key of the guitar transposition, the bass note would
be F, not another E. F is one of the components of the augmented sixth
chord most intensivly directed towards E (the other is D#). This
breaking of a pedal point only to resume it immediately is another
unusual feature, but it does show that Bach really did intend this
chord to be heard as especially significant. In fact, the emphasis as
a dominant that the F in the augmented sixth chord places on its note
of resolution, the E which it has replaced, serves not so much to break
the pedal point as to reinforce its meaning."
"To return to the point about guitar stringing from which I entered
into this lengthy tangential discussion- this bass note cannot be
played on six string guitar! (at least not in a wholly satisfactory
fashion, though there are various solutions-more on this below). This
is because the notes of the chord being sounded above this bass note
are located on the eighth and tenth frets, and the tenor motion entails
a note usually played on the twelfth fret. There is no way to do this
while at the same time accessing the low F on the first fret, and
provide for sustain of all components to achieve a continuity of
texture with surrounding measures, or indeed a texture similar to any
other measure of this piece. Therefore guitarists usually content
themselves with simply re-iterating the low E. This doesn't mean that
the transcription is a failure; what happens is that the pedal is
maintained literally throughout, rather than recieving the
re-inforcement of upper neighbor F in the bass in this measure. The
augmented 6th quality of the chord does finally become realized when
the tenor motion descends to the F on the second to last note of the
measure to form the augmented 6th interval with the D#, the repeated
note in the upper chord tones. It is, however, a loss that the effect
is considerably less overt, and deferred to the very end of the
measure, than if this bass F were possible...."
Last year I tried something, I played the bass on the
Post by Andrew Schulmandownbeat of m. 28 as a D#! I love it, there is then a symmetry of a
half step above the pedal at 23 and a half step below at 28, and the D#
fits the harmony there as does the F natural at 23.
Kinda neat! (Did you mean to refer to m.25 in the above?)
A fun thing to do with this piece is to play each measure as though it
were two meaures alternating between 6/8 and 3/4 (or 6/16 and 3/8) -
suddenly its Latin American! Luis Bonfa wrote a wordless vocalise
using this piece as an accompaniment, which he recorded with a singer a
long time ago, and which I "lifted" from the record so my wife and I
could do it- sorta like the vocalise of Villa-Lobos' "Bachianas no.5"-
but he didn't do this rhythmic re-interpretation- too bad, it would
have been right up his alley that way.
Johh Bigelow