Effective Fingerings in Bach (Mar 24) Questions / Suggestions
Alright everyone! Following the will of the people (
), I've scheduled another Bach livestream - this time focusing on the topic of crafting effective fingerings for Bach's music.
I will be using three pieces from the standard Bach repertoire to demonstrate my fingering methods: the first Lute Suite (BWV 996), Prelude, Fugue and Allegro (BWV 998), and the first Violin Sonata (BWV 1001)
Want to submit your own difficult passage for me to create a fingering for, in real time? Use this thread to tell me what pieces to be looking at!
Feel free to submit either a score excerpt, or the name, movement and section you'd like me to look at, or even a recording! (If you have time to make one until tomorrow.)
We will also be looking at all leftover questions that weren't answered in our last Bach livestream from a few weeks ago.
Find the start time in your time zone by clicking the photo or following this event link:
https://app.tonebase.co/guitar/live/player/crafting-fingerings-bach
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 us to focus on?
In this livestream, we will be learning how to craft effective fingerings for the music of J. S. Bach. To this end, we will be taking into account motifs and their meaning in Baroque tradition, polyphony, ornamentation, phrasing, articulation, and playability. tonebase instructor Mircea Gognocea will be using examples from three pieces from the standard Bach repertoire to demonstrate: the first Lute Suite (BWV 996), Prelude, Fugue and Allegro (BWV 998), and the first Violin Sonata (BWV 1001).
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Hi again Mircea! Nice to greet you! This passage is not from Fugue bwv 1001 but from bwv 1000. My question is regarding bars 91 and 92. In 92, I'm totally in favor of having the bass of C and D on the 6th string for the continuity of the half notes, but it does seem difficult to reach those notes with the 4th finger. Any tips on achieving that effectively or what would you have as an altenative fingering? Thank you very much, hope you are great.
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Diego Arboleda This is a great spot! Thank you for the suggestion, Diego - I will talk about this tomorrow.
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I will begin this livestream by answering questions previously sent in by Igor and Giuseppe Gasparini who posed excellent questions for our previous Bach-related livestream that I did not get to answer.
I will also feature some questions from the previous Q&A, which can be seen in the screenshot below.
To everyone else:
There is absolutely no need to have watched my previous Bach-related livestream in order to watch this one.
The previous livestream focused on general concepts, while this one will be focusing in on fingerings and other practical advice. We will be using the same three pieces detailed in the opening post, however, they will be analyzed from an entirely different perspective.
The reason why these particular questions by Igor and Giuseppe will be answered in this upcoming livestream is that they relate to this topic more than the previous one.
Hope to see many of you there!
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Mircea
Igor's question:
Last week I took Fugue 998, just to review it. I´ve already fingered it and this is my question: when there is more than one interesting voice, do you have a "pecking order" of the voices you want to hilight? I know some guitarists prefer to sing the higher voice, others look for the main theme whichever voice it is in, etc. The fact that this fugue has a Da Capo gives us a chance to seek for variation, I think. Thank you very much. HAVE FUN.
Giuseppe's question:
Hi Mircea nice initiative, I wanted to propose Fuga 1000 in A minor edizione Delcamp, already in the first 15 measures I went into crisis with the fingering, to keep the polyphony Thanks
Q&A:
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Hi again, Mircea. As usual lately, I won´t be able to join today. I´ll see you tomorrow. Now: I wanted to comment on two ideas that came up in the previous live stream:
- Let me start by saying I was trained in Tiorba, Vihuela and Baroque Guitar. When we think about the need (or not) for "historically informed performance", in my view this isn´t a matter of aesthetics, but a matter of effectiveness. The reason for every rule is SOUND. So, just as an example: I´ll always play figueta on early music instruments (not least due to double courses and low tension) but not on my "modern" spanish guitar, where it sometimes sounds quite feeble. That said, I´ll keep using the middle finger on the downbeats and index on the upbeats in order to put accents in the correct places. So I think we should aim for effectivenes wichever instrument and style we are playing, instead of following some rules blindly.
- As for parallel octaves (Russell´s start on the Chaconne): sorry to disagree with you, Mircea. In my view the problem with parallel intervals only arises when, because of them, the parallel voices loose independence. But, if you get a good voice leading, even if one of the voices appears in two octaves (as happens all the time in bass notes on double course instruments) there´s no real problem. However, Dowland started playing unison basses to avoid octaves.
Maybe you are right. THANK YOU!!
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Sorry I can't watch tonight as I'm working but will catch up tomorrow.
Hi, I've been playing through BWV 998 Prelude (the Koonce Publication in D). My question is quite a generic one relating to the use of the right hand. Although the thumb plays the lower voice and fingers play the upper voice there are quite a few times where the higher voice plays across three strings (e.g. strings 4 3 2) which feels more comfortable using a p i m playing (assuming no other lower voice is being played). Of course we could use i m a but the hand is in a 'nicer' position for p i m.
There are also instances of the upper voice being played on strings 4 and 5 and I've found using p and i alternating feels more comfortable. What do you think about using the thumb in the upper voice - would the purists have a 'breakdown' over this? Since it is likely the pieces were not written on a Lute does this matter as we are creating on a modern guitar? My view is that if it sounds ok then it must be ok - but would a guitar concert performer accept this?
Kind Regards
Dennis
