Click the player above to hear the next track in the Virtual Master Class Project. This is a recording of the Prelude from the Bach Suite No. 1 in G Major. Leave criticism, advice, practice tips, and the like by clicking on the ‘comments’ link below. We welcome your comments! Please take a moment and offer a bit of constructive advice for this musician.
Bass News Right To Your Inbox!
Subscribe to get our weekly newsletter covering the double bass world.
Overall your Bach sounds alright. You have a good sound. Your playing out of tune alot, it does not have resonace. Work on getting it much more seamless, your playing is choppy. It need some phrasing, it is not an etude. Every note should sound beautiful, every note of Bach is important.
Try exercises like only playing the open string of the notes that you are playing. It will help the right hand catch up because right now the bow sounds forced when it should be effortless as can be.
Also (and I’m assuming its a problem) just go between the open strings by shifting the bow as little as possible to get to the next one. That will clear things up greatly.
A lot notes proceed the next on the next string without shifting so practice those hand positions. Once your hand gets locked into the right spot the intonation will come very easily. Those positions have to be sculpted to the point where you can just lay your hand down and do whatever you want in that position.
Overall it sounds good though. Keep up the good work.
I don’t like it, personally.
Too flaws. The question is that there’s no sincronysm beetween right and left hand. The left hand press after string has been played. And much more.
But the main problem, in my opinion, is this one. Fingerings has to be changed or to see them again. I think there are simpler fingerings. Bur, my god, this is a very hard piece.
I think that, when practicing these bach suites, it’s important to remember that if you have focus, dedication and some musical talent, the only other thing a person needs is time – be patient. You won’t be able to play this thing beautifully by tomorrow, even if you practice 14 hours today. But if you relax, and keep working at it steadily, then maybe in a year, or two, or five… who knows? You might sound as good as anyone else, or better. And the other thing – SLOW DOWN! 🙂
Pablo Casals took 12 years to work on the suites before performing them. Edgar Meyer set his metronome at a sixteenth = 50, and I would go so far as to speculate that he probably kept it there for quite some time (weeks or months) before moving it up to sixteenth =52, and repeating the process.