Bach courante and recording practice
I have not been back on this practice forum for a while. Not knowing how to share my practice routine in a coherent manner. Or how it would work for me personally.
I want to practice recording and editing the sound. Martin’s Tonebase recording course was great but I was just too ignorant and didn’t have proper equipment. Recently bought some basics and now I want to work on that.
I chose a new piece - Bach, 2nd cello suite courante - to work on that piece and on the recording quality at the same time. The courante is not too difficult, so I can divide my concentration.
this is the first, slow reading. LH fingering organized,. I noticed that RH needs more organizing as well. Next step.
My phrasing is purely intuitive (following my known cello versions), my 16ths are too rigid (metronomic). This needs more work, ‘educated decisions’, follow up step.
tempo must go up, after previous steps….
on the side of recording: I managed to enhance the sound with noise reduction, some reverb. I think it’s a little too much reverb but it does add some salt and pepper… I will fine tune that and experiment. For now, I’m using Audacity (more intuitive, maybe more basic than Reaper).
I failed to join the sound track with the smartphone video. I’m using Movavi, but I will have to follow their tutorials to find out how that works. For now the sound track only…
-
This sounds great, Joosje! I'm not as familiar with this second suite. I like the sound, mostly because your great sound starts with your hands.
I have been using Audacity as well, mostly because I can figure it out. Reaper is just intimidating (maybe it's the name). I have not tried Movavi, but instead use DaVinci Resolve. It's sometimes a struggle for me, but I can usually figure out some way to get what I want done on it. The manual for it is huge (over 1000 pages, I think) so looking up how to do something is impossible. What do you think of Movavi?
-
Eric Phillips thank you so much. I agree, the audacity tools are a bit simpler to handle. But I need now to experiment and learn. And follow some tutorials. But I prefer playing guitar…
-
-
Joosje, that was beautiful. Your tone and phrasing were excellent. I listened to Petrit Ceku and John Feely and they play the courante quite fast (which is nice) but I found your tempo actually quite effective. Your recording quality is also very good (to my ears). There is a a fair amount of reverb but it sounds like you recorded it in a cathedral. (Maybe you could claim you recorded it in St. Thomas Church in Leipzig where Bach had been the music director.
)-
Jack Stewart thank you Jack. That’s the idea of the reverb? I like the idea of playing in the Thomas Kirche. We were there a few years ago, but I didn’t bring my guitar then.
-
-
Very beautiful, joosje! Do you remember once I asked you what mic you are using? After you told me you are using CM4, I bought a pair for myself and I love them very much! I am also planning to practice more Bach music in the future and just bought an interesting version from Amazon, which was arranged by a guitarist named Lily Afshar. I have listened to her record, and her version uses more cross-string playing, very beautiful, but I don't know if I can handle it.
-
Thank you Wai . This recording was with my old Roland sound recorder. I’m now comparing all possible ways of recording. Combining software/hardware and editing is still a giant struggle for me… Its a learning process. As for this music, I have only basic versions and my reference is the cello. The bow makes these fast movements sound so smooth and natural. Maybe more cross string solutions might be an answer. I’ll work on that as well. Thanks!
-
-
I started this piece and promised myself to work on it more consistently, at the same time learning skills of recording and editing,. Here is my follow up. Is the first time I try to explain what I’m doing. I hope you can follow my considerations.
I am quite a good sight reader, so the arrangement I have seemed to work quite well at first. ( But then I dived a bit deeper into the music. Now I realize I will be working on this for a longer period. I’ll share some of it in this forum. If anyone wants to provide me with some advice, most welcome!
-
joosje This performance of the A section was beautiful, Joosje. I am completely convinced by your tempo. It is very stately and elegant. It was also watching your 'deep dive' into arriving at your musical decisions. I am very envious of your ability to achieve such technical proficiency to enable you to consider the range of musical options. Thanks for this very insightful video and performance.
-
Jack Stewart thank you Jack.. Bach’s music is always such a great adventure into the unknown . I found another arrangement of this suite and it will take some time to explore, I’ll get back soon.
-
-
joosje Very beautiful post and great playing! It's very interesting and inspiring to follow you in this path of learning, so please keep us updated! With your playing I got interested to search this beautiful suite! Finding out the interpretetions of Steuart Pincombe & Hidemi Suzuki was a great gift... I wish I had some knowledge to share regarding this piece of music or Bach in general, but unfortunately I don't. Though I will try to share couple of thoughts after listening to your playing.
Since my comments are not based in solid background, I'm very hesitant to express them, but I will, wishing they will appear of any help. So, if I were to start practising this piece I would most probably consider to highlight the high voice as you also chose by keeping it alive a bit more, but at the same time try to avoid as much pedal as I can and eventualy I would choose the fingering that would make me feel the safest and most relaxed for the faster final tempo. The idea of the barre is nice but since I would aim for less pedal, I would try LH fingers 321 in that same position.
One last thing is that I'm not sure of the rubato, although it's very charming and sweet at times. I think I would try to keep things a bit tighter in rythm.. I would consider keeping the upbeat shorter and avoid relaxing to much in the 3rd beat. Since the arpegiated chord would bring along a natural rit, I would avoid adding anything extra.
I can't wait to listen to your progress! -
a difficult piece and phrasing to convey. i play it in F (Capo1) and there are a few jumps that i need to modify to make it work. Joosje - very good job, it is coming along very well.
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
