WEEK 3: Heavenly Harmonies of J.S.Bach! 
Welcome to the Main Thread for the third week of the J.S.Bach Challenge! This is the place to post submissions of the third week!
- Make sure you've read the guidelines before replying (<- click)
- Watch the kickoff livestream for help with the first section!
If you want to describe your process (optional), feel free to use the following template.
- Things you found easy:
- Things you found difficult:
- (Optional): a video of you performing it!
- (Optional:) questions
↓ Reply below with your submissions and questions! ↓
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Here is my first attempt of the Loure from the violin suite in E. I didn’t quite know how to approach this piece (you don’t hear that many Loures). I try to emphasize the 1st and 4th beat to give it pulse, but it’s hard to keep going with all these ornaments,. And I think those are essential in this score. Anyone ideas on this? First I planned to play the 1st time without, but when recording I forgot about that idea.
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joosje I appreciate that you've introduced me to a "Loure"! I've never even heard of those before. I must've been living under a rock - or maybe I've been living under rock 'n' roll!
This is great. Thank you! -
Steve Pederson thank you Steve. Yeah, this stuff isn’t really rock n’ roll, or drum n‘ base.
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joosje Like Steve, I honestly had never heard of a loure. The pulse is there in your playing, and your ornaments are exquisite. It’s great to hear these pieces I haven’t heard before. Beautiful!
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joosje beautiful! I can’t help you, let me investigate ;) wow your thrills!!!!
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joosje that’s really lovely Joosje. I am also unfamiliar with a loure. Time to investigate. You’ve done a great job with the ornaments that you added and the pulse sounds authentic. Keep playing this piece and it will be perfect in no time!
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joosje i am impressed Joosje...your musicality is incredible ! and your ornaments sound already so clear and in tempo with your music...you are doing really a great job with Bach...
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joosje Wow! As said Nora, your musicality is impressive, you're very expressive, and the trills are perfect! Thank you!
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joosje I'm not familiar with this piece, however. you are approaching it in a very musical way. The more I learn about Bach and current practices ( including webinars on Tonebase), the more convinced I am and agree that the interpreter(performer) has more freedom to decide how to communicate the music--and not worry as much about being a purist regarding "period accurate" performance practices. We are playing on modern day instruments and we should maximize its capabilities in conjunction with our own artistic expression.. I don't know if you feel this way, but this has opened the door to more freedom of interpretation and expression and less worry that we may be violating certain principles. It encourages us to play more Bach music.
As usual, I always enjoy your playing and musicianship. Thanks for posting!
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Barney thank you. Yes, I agree with this idea of freedom. As an performer you must find your own way of communicating with ‘ your audience’, indeed. That’s sometimes the problem: playing for ‘experts’ or for inexperienced listeners does not feel the same. Of course, there is education as well as spontaneity. The way to musical expression is not a straight line.
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Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring - from Cantata BWV 147
After I practiced "Air on the G String" in the first week, I started practicing this one for 2 weeks. My playing is not good, but it's almost the end of Bach's month, so I think it's time to share my practice result with the community.
Things I found easy: The arrangement I have is a simplified version, so it's not too difficult, but still challenging to me.
Things I found difficult: Again, keeping the flow was very difficult when recording this piece. After starting the first note, those non-stop triplets were like water running down the hill, every tiny mistake would interrupt the flow of the music. I misplaced my fingers so many times when playing this piece, and kept re-recording it again and again.
Another difficult point was cross-string trills, this was my first time playing cross-string trills, still don't know what it should sound like.
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Wai That sounded great, Wai! The triplets flowed very well. The tempo slowed a couple times, but not too badly. I really can't do cross-string trills either. My right hand just doesn't seem to be able to make that fast motion.
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Eric Phillips Thanks Eric, you are always encouraging. I am still enjoying listening to your playing of Sinfonia in the first week of Bach's Month. I would like to try that piece next.
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Wai That's great, Wai! It's a beautiful cantata and easily within your ability to play. I used a transcription in G major by Bradford Werner. It can also be found in A major (which I find a bit more difficult, but still quite playable).
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Wai beautiful Wai. You Sound very good. Thank you for sharing this
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joosje Thank you joosje.
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Wai very nice played Wai!
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Wai beautiful sound Wai!
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Wai This was fantastic! I appreciate what you've done. Now I have a model to go after!
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Nora Torres-Nagel Thank you, Nora!
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Emma Thank you, Emma~
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Steve Pederson Thank you, Steve. This piece was harder than I thought, my fingers always fell into the space between strings when playing those triplets...
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Wai Bravo! The flow is sounding great! In fact, I think that this is a hard piece to play, mainly in the choral part, is not easy to make sense of a choral part playing on a guitar, but you did a great job! Thank you for sharing!
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Moyses Lopes Thank you, Moyses. Yes, you are right, the choral part is also one of the challenges of this piece, but I was too busy avoiding playing wrong notes, did not pay too much attention to the music.
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Hi, friends! For this 4th week I did something different (for me, at least). I listened to some pieces for clavichord and choose one to transcribe for two guitars.
…And the Oscar goes to... BWV 930 Prelude!!
I didn't find any recording with guitar or guitar duo, just pianos and clavichords. Maybe that is the WORLD PREMIERE of BWV 930 for guitar duo...
Most recordings are at 90 BPM. To be honest, I prefer a bit faster, 100 or even so 120, but I followed the crowd.
I discovered that is not easy to record a guitar duo video... Anyway, the result is below. No ornaments, just experimentation. For me, it was like a playground!
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
