WEEK 2: The Depths of J.S.Bach's Music! 
Welcome to the Main Thread for the second week of the J.S.Bach Challenge! This is the place to post submissions of the second 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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BWV 1007 Courante
Just getting this in before week 3. Here is the current state of the Courante, which for me, is the most difficult of the 7 movements of the Cello Suite. At this point, I am still focusing on connecting several phrases more evenly. More isolated practice of the some of the quick shifts will continue as will seeking to eliminate some of the fingernail noise - but there's a lot happening in the right hand!
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Eric Phillips Many thanks. It moves along quickly so I am hoping to get more confidence with it in the days ahead.
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Jack Stewart Many thanks Jack. It is delight to play this one.
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matt Thanks for listening. I'm recording these with two Line Audio C4 mics, Audient ID44 audio interface, into Reaper. I've been on a learning curve the last few years with audio production and Martin has been a huge inspiration and help here!
The arrangement is based on Jeffery McFadden's wonderful transcription that he recorded for Naxos.
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Debbie thanks so much for listening and the encouraging words!
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Rick Lord A inspired interpretation, Rick. Colors, tones, timbre, all great. Thank you for sharing!
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Rick Lord Amazing! Way to bring this to life Rick! I love to watch you play because it looks like you enjoy it so much.
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This week got away from me a bit. I didn't get a chance to do a video, but I did get a lot of work in on the prelude to the cello suite IV and the minuets for cello suite I.
For the minuets I've been mostly just trying to memorize them and doing some metronome work to get them cleanly up to tempo in the 90bpm range.
For the prelude I've been doing a lot of metronome work on the single note runs in the middle. I feel like this is the virtuoso part of the piece and is probably above my skill level to really hit cleanly and in time. After watching my video from last week I see my left hand is pretty wild in this section, so also working on minimizing all my finger movements and keep everything closer to the fingerboard.
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I was on holiday (without guitar) all of week 1 and lots of other things going on over week 2 so not had chance to post a video. Just been watching some of the wonderful videos that have been posted. No time to put individual comments on them but there has been some great performances. Well done to everyone. I have been working on BWV996 the Allemande, Sarabande and Bouree. Will hopefully post at least the bouree this week.
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
