J.S.Bach BWV 999 - A Guitarist's First Baroque Piece
Hello everybody, today we are going to touch one of the first milestones of every guitarist's evolution: The BWV 999 Prelude by Johann Sebastian Bach! 
We are going to dive into the historical context of that piece, discover fingerings and phrasing and help you to successfully master this piece! 
Find the start time in your time zone by clicking the photo or following this event link:
https://app.tonebase.co/guitar/live/player/bach-bwv999-first-baroque-piece
We are going to be using this thread to gather suggestions and questions!
- What questions do you have on this topic?
- Any particular area you would like me to focus on?
Forum questions will be answered first!
Touching Bach's Music as a guitarist can be a an overwhelming task. In this livestream, we are going through one of the first baroque pieces a guitarist might discover! Historical context, fingering and phrasing and technical execution, this live lesson is going to help you master this milestone!
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Hello, fellow lovers of baroque music, here is a transcription AND the manuscript for today's workshop! I will provide my annotated score after the livestream!
As always, hit me up with any questions you have, I'll tackle them first in the Q&A!
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Hello Martin-
Looking forward to this workshop. I love this piece and (on a good day) can play a decent rendition of it. There are two areas I hope you'll cover:
1) Tempo. You can hear this piece recorded and performed at so many wildly different tempi! From moderately slow to blazingly fast (especially on keyboard). I actually think it works well at many different speeds but I'm curious to hear your insights.
2) The rests in the bass part. I've tried muting the low strings to be true to the score, but to me it sounds better to let most of them ring out. What are your thoughts?
Thank you! Best, Eric K
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as promised, here's the annotated score:
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Hello Martin,
I just watched the replay and want to thank you for this piece. I played it in college and was thinking to revisit it so this was a timely lesson with great tips on tempo and alternate fingerings. I also like the idea of retuning the guitar to play it in C minor. I was recently talking to a local guitarist/luthier who gave the suggestion of tuning the guitar to 336 instead of 440. What do you think about that? Also, did you realize the video ends abruptly? Not sure how much was left.
Look forward to seeing you and the community on livestreams again soon. I am just back from an extended vacation in Amsterdam where the weather was perfect and now I am back in way too hot Bulgaria!
Ciao!-
Debbie Hi Debbie, good to have you back soon and safe travels back to Bulgaria!
De-tuning from 440 to 336 is pretty wild, that's about a minor thirds and will result in some wobbly strings! For that piece, I only needed to de-tune one whole step (since the piece is written in d-minor and I want it to sound like c-minor) and it completely changed the feel of the instrument!
Thanks for the info about the video, I must have trimmed a little bit too much away in the in end, won't happen again!
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Martin Hi Martin. I was reviewing BWV999 in Tilman Hoppstock's Bach's Lute Works V2, and on p149 found the attached figure which gives his harmonic analysis of the complete movement. What are the slashed letters? I have not seen that before and have not found it on line. e.g. The fifth chord is labelled slashed A and does not have an A in it. I think it means an A chord without the root. This kind of 7th/flat 9th chord on the 4th without the root seems to be the most common chord form in the whole piece! Can you provide any insight and/or a reference that explains how this is useful?
Thanks in advance!
Peter
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Peter Hi Peter!
I haven't seen this particular way of harmonic notation as well, but it seems very much related to Functional Analysis where the slash indeed means that the root is not present! I think music theorists like to derive from roots where a stacking of thirds is possible, even when it means counting from a non-present root (though I am not a specialist of harmonic analysis and don't know what Hoppstock is referring to here).
The chord you are referring here is a Diminished seventh chord which has probably the most versatility in terms of modulation and it is fully made of minor thirds! -
Martin Thanks. I understand this now as
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the diminished triad is the top 3 notes of the dominant 7th chord on the root a major 3rd below
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Any diminished triad chord can be thought of as such a dominant 7th. In this case the B#dim7/D can be thought of as A11(b9, omit A) and the 11 is shown as a 4 in the bass.
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Advantages: a) makes the D/T resolutions clear - a key for analysis b) compact notation
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Disadvantage: hard to type
Peter
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
