3 Ways BACH Will Transform Your Guitar Playing... | Ben Eunson 

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Long ago, I saw an interview with world renowned Cellist Pablo Casals, in which he mentioned that he played all the Bach Cello Suites every day. I decided to do the same thing with the Violin Suites and Partitas, but on Classical Guitar. I did this for a few years, and still do it occasionally. Bach's brilliant music is not very difficult to read, but is deceptively difficult to play well. It reveals every flaw, and weakness in a musician's technical and musical abilities. But when everything comes together, it is glorious, and worth all the practicing. It is such extraordinarily good music, and provides a neverending wealth of insight and inspiration.

Yes reading Bach is very good for jacking up your musicianship. You never get tired of his pieces.

When I was a young violin student I played Bach, of course, because that's what you had to do. At the time I didn't understand Bach's music (I was 12 or 13 years old then), I very much preferred Händel, Beethoven or Schumannn because it was less "brainy" and easier to play. Years later, when I had become a professional guitarist, I had the privilege to go on tour with German Jazz violinist Helmut Zacharias who asked me if I was keen to play Bach's Double Violin Concerto in Dm, with me playing the 2nd violin part on guitar. I said "Yes, of course, just give me enough time to practise it". Then he asked me if there was a way to make the guitar sound like a violin, so I rented a Roland GR300 Guitar Synthesiser System along with G-303 guitar and fiddled around with it (pun not intended) until I got a fairly decent violin sound. I also could transpose the pitch up an octave, which made things easier for me, since the guitar sounds an octave lower than notated. I practised really hard, and although the first couple of concerts went rather so-so I got the hang of it, and to my amazement I started enjoying it more and more. By the end of this 2 months tour I could play it from memory, although I still had my music in front of me, in case I had a blackout lol. This experience made me understand and appreciate J.S. Bach's music a lot more. Each and every composition of his is a Masterpiece. I hope my story wasn't too long-winded, but I just had to let the world know! 😉 Cheers - Charles P.S.: I love your work here on YT, Ben!

bach is eternal. all music will come and go, bach's glory will keep living

I’ve been having all of my Jazz guitar students work on the Sonatas and Partitas. Always good to have this music under your fingers. I will then have them compose an “etude” in the style of a double over whichever tune they are working on. Most of the guitarists I admire most are champions of this music. Pretty much everything is right there in the music.

I’m an intermediate guitarist and a couple of years ago I began playing Bach. I was captivated. I’ve been playing nothing but Bach for two years straight. There are many Bach pieces (besides the solo violin Sonata/Partitas that sound fantastic on guitar. The Duettos for example, which were written for keyboard but sound great on guitar whichever hand you play - and even more incredible if you have a second guitar. I live in a rural area and haven’t got a teacher. Bach has been my guru instead. His music demands things from you that you’d never think to do yourself. It’s a continual challenge to play Bach cleanly and with feeling. But immensely satisfying when you get it right. Along the way you can marvel at his melodies, harmonies, counterpoint, timing… Bach’s music always surprises. He never stoops to musical cliche. Instead he finds new and interesting ways to express his seemingly boundless musical imagination. I’m in awe of Bach, you can probably tell. Every time I pick up my guitar I give thanks to him.

Wow, 2 Bach videos in 1 day! Love it Ben, this is most definitely a high-level discussion! I am particularly interested in Bach's melodic development, like you discussed in the 3rd part of this video. Will you talk some more about this?

Thank you, Ben!!

Wonderful as always, Ben!

Beautiful offering and guidance! 1 counterpoint 2 harmonic progression.. sure.. yet Phrasing? #3..don’t recall this perspective and now, brain spinning with delightful possibilities 🎉 My experience of “Phrasing” was primarily considering it to be more of an interpretation of the written notes, relating to subtle expansion contractions in time, articulation, attack release, other elements of dynamics that go beyond the written marks… The idea that even note sequence would be as part of Phrasing is a new way of looking at things, for me. The example of Question/Answer was a perfect illustration. Playing Bach duets, trios, etc back in school on classical guitar was one of the most enjoyable parts of those years and I’ve missed playing Bach. A relative newbie to Jazz, the thought of adapting Bach composition sensibilities is inspiring! Thank you for this gift of insight!

Great material as always.

Thanks!

Hey Ben can't thank you enough. Your videos and playing have inspired me to start studying and playing Bach.

Amazing 👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿

Excellent lesson and hilarious thumbnail. Thanks Ben

The Allemande from the 2nd keyboard partita would sound great on guitar. You might also be inspired by Rameau Le Rappel des oiseaux played by Celine Frisch or Marcelle Meyer. Rameau’s harmonies are really something, big influence on Debussy, who then influenced Ellington and film music.

Bach develops your technique in balance with the melodic expression.

Hey, Ben. I purchased a couple courses today, including the Improvising with Bach course. I use fourths tuning, and I would love to have a guitar pro file for the transcription so I can adjust it for my own playing. I have developed the ability to read standard tuning tabs and sort of correct as a sight read them, but it's still a bit painful. Not as bad for the shorter examples, but difficult for the entire piece. Unfortunately I have not yet developed my ability to read sheet music. Is this something you could easily provide? If not I will tab out the piece in the course using guitar pro (in standard tuning of course) and mark where the examples are. I can send that to you if you'd like.

This is a delightful discovery, but as a beginner/early intermediate player a little beyond me at the moment. Perhaps, you could suggest some simple Bach pieces to start with. Thanks for this excellent explanation and example. 👍

¨We all suck compared to Bach¨ - Metheny

hi, new subscriber here, can you please tell what software you use to create your notation/tab examples? I would like to make some of my own. thanks for the interesting lesson.

I do some of this when I play George Benson's " Ode to a Kudu" do you know that piece?

Intermediate guitarist here with some limited knowledge of theory. Where do you recommend starting with Bach if the goal is not just to learn pieces but to understand the principles and applications to modern music? Thanks.

04:42 that's a beautiful line. Sound like bebop

Bach wrote his improvisations

Never play three semitones In a row.

I always think it's a shame that fugues as a musical structure/way of approaching harmony went out of fashion! There's so much potential there in terms of jazz fusion polyphony writing too. Somewhere there's an alternate universe where Yngwie left Alcatraz and got into jazz fusion, started writing neoclassical fusion fugues 😭 Thanks for the lesson, very insightful to see how to apply Bach lines to contemporary harmony! For me fusion is a truly postmodern genre in terms of its self conscious attitude towards borrowing from genres or invoking sounds - that goes for baroque motifs too. Ofc, one could invoke Bach in a way where it allows one to craft a line that's seemlessly modern too - I just also like the idea of self-consciously tapping into a different genre in a solo (tho to some this may seem tacky if overdone) I noticed some very classical influenced lines in your amazing improv on autumn leaves that's on RU-vid. Because I shedded some BWVs back in classical guitar school before I lost my classical chops, I sometimes would throw random Bach licks into my improv as a fun throwback. The improvising with js Bach class seems really fun/original :D can't wait to buy it one day. Not specifically the most Bach element and found in other baroque composers more I think tho my memory is rusty, but adding in trills, mordents and other ornamentations is also something that's fun to borrow from baroque