Bach Fugue from Sonata in G Minor TAB

[Mstewart]

Hey guys,

This is my first post on the forums here at Mandolin Cafe. I've been checking out the forums for about a year now and figured I'd share something for whoever is interested. Here is a tab I made last night for Bach's Fuga from the Sonata No.1 in G minor.

I hope someone finds this useful,

Cheers!

[JFDilmando]

very kind of you to share.... good bit of work there.

[jetsedgwick]

Thanks!

[avaldes]

I played a guitar arrangement in Am for a time, and it was probably the hardest piece that I played. I believe Segovia did the original Am arrangement, and most guitar scores you see are based on that. I have not played it in a long time, however. Thanks for the arrangement. I don't know if my mandolin skills are up to it.

[Littlef]

MStewart, Great work, thanks. I've been searching for this. I can't sight read standard notation, so I though I was going to have to transcribe it into tab. I've never tried to do that before. This was a lot of work. I appreciate it. Now to start working on playing it. - which will be even more challenging.

regards,
Littlef

[Mstewart]

No problem! I've been working on it myself and I find it quite difficult, moreso than I thought it would be anyways.

[billykatzz]

I'm working on polishing the Bach Violin Prelude in E Major. This will be my next Bach project.

I love playing Bach on mandolin. Bach is a fantastic challenge in terms of fingering, tone, and fluidity. The music is timeless.

[John Dough]

Hey guys,

This is my first post on the forums here at Mandolin Cafe. I've been checking out the forums for about a year now and figured I'd share something for whoever is interested. Here is a tab I made last night for Bach's Fuga from the Sonata No.1 in G minor.

I hope someone finds this useful,

Cheers!

This is awesome.
Would it be correct to guess that the fingerings are mostly or completely identical to what a violinist would play?

[bratsche]

I agree that Bach music is timeless, and am all for whatever people do to get as many people to play Bach on as many instruments as possible. Kudos to the OP for doing this. However, as to fingerings being "identical" to a violinist's - ain't no such thing, I'm afraid. Or, these may be the same as "a" violinist's fingerings, but who knows which violinist that might be? (I can't read tab, so can't speak to them personally.) But that's because if you get 10 violinists (or violists, cellists, etc.) together in a room with one Bach piece, you will find 10 different sets of fingerings, no two exactly the same. Our hands and brains are all different. ;-)

bratsche

[John Dough]

Chris Thile's recording of this suite is absolutely impeccable.

[JeffD]

Chris Thile's recording of this suite is absolutely impeccable.

But his fingering choices are only perfect for him.

[JeffD]

However, as to fingerings being "identical" to a violinist's - ain't no such thing, I'm afraid. Or, these may be the same as "a" violinist's fingerings, but who knows which violinist that might be? (I can't read tab, so can't speak to them personally.) But that's because if you get 10 violinists (or violists, cellists, etc.) together in a room with one Bach piece, you will find 10 different sets of fingerings, no two exactly the same. Our hands and brains are all different.

This came up in a conversation I had with a master classical mandolinner - as to whether the finger positions annotated to many classical violin scores are appropriate for mandolin, and if so, whose do you chose for this or that Bach. The answer was a very emphatic "in depends".

In general I guess the better annotations are all worth studying, but ultimately it comes down to one's own musical intuition guided by a metric ton of experience. He gave us some over-arching guidelines, which I find really helpful. But its the hardest part of my classical journey - figuring out if there is a better way, or if I just have to cowboy up and practice it.

[bratsche]

He gave us some over-arching guidelines, which I find really helpful. But its the hardest part of my classical journey - figuring out if there is a better way, or if I just have to cowboy up and practice it.

I would guess you'll find the answer in a given situation to be sometimes one, other times the other, and occasionally both.

Shoot, I've taken certain Bach passages (not from this Fugue, which is still on my to-do list) on mandola, applied my best viola fingerings, and practiced them to death, but finally concluded with the question "Do I want this to always sound this tortured, just because the mandola scale length is so much greater than the viola's, and my hands aren't quite big enough to play it comfortably?" And you might logically say, "Then use a shorter scale mandola!" - to which I'd stubbornly respond, "But I like the sound of my 17" mandolas the best!" LOL So, the solution for these things has been to think quite outside the box - sometimes re-voicing a chord to make it playable, and other times playing something up the neck where the frets are closer, which a violinist or violist would likely never have to do. If you can play it so it sounds good, I think that's better than trying to be too pedantic about having every note exactly as written, or every fingering the same as some or another violinist would do it.

Heck, musicians take far bigger liberties with the Bach sonatas and partitas on other instruments, especially the non-stringed ones. Somehow I don't think JSB would mind such small discrepancies in the slightest.

bratsche

[Barry Canada]

I find that Bach pieces often require sustain. As a rule there is not much tremolo in Bach pieces however rules are made to be broken! Generally I will try to choose fingerings that will enable selected notes to maximize sustain. For example: If we begin this piece in third position fingering the D with our first finger and holding it while plying the next few notes on the D string we will have some sustain. I find this really adds a nice effect when playing Bach on the mandolin. Maybe this is sort of a chord melody concept! Just a thought.

[John Dough]

I found an error trying to play through it; measure five, the first b natural note is actually supposed to be a b flat.

That kind of stopped me in my tracks and I didn't check for other errors.

If it's available in a midi file it would be easier the check by listening.

[Bruce Clausen]

Good catch. I get the feeling the staff notation was generated by the tab, rather than the reverse. So mistakes in the tab show up in the staff copy. The staff transcription doesn't look like what we're used to seeing: no recognition of the different musical parts in the fugue (usually indicated by up and down stems for different parts), and quite a few mistakes of spelling (eg Gb for F# in 4, 5, 54, etc.).

Still a useful project. I hope the OP will give us a corrected edition at some point.

[maudlin mandolin]

I find that Bach pieces often require sustain.

Good point. One of Mike Marshall's tips for playing Bach is that very often there will be a nice countermelody in the bass notes; so if you can identify these passages and find fingerings that allow the bass notes to ring out you will add a whole new dimension to the piece.

[Bruce Clausen]

Right: playing with a pick instead of a bow gives lots of opportunities to sustain voices that the violinists are obliged to drop. For example, the upper notes in bar 2 (and similar places) can be held as quarters, as they would be on a keyboard instrument. And bass notes in arpeggio passages (eg from 42) can be held through, and so on.

[Eugene]

But that's because if you get 10 violinists (or violists, cellists, etc.) together in a room with one Bach piece, you will find 10 different sets of fingerings, no two exactly the same. Our hands and brains are all different. ;-)

Well, you might actually find 7 to 17 depending on the day.

[Cheryl Johnson Strauss]

Thanks so much for your undertaking. Fair beginner am I ... moving from learning to read notation from P. Carroll’s ‘Irish Mandolin’ book to learning some of Bach’s Inventions , Minuet etc... This should keep me busy:—)
C. Johnson Strauss

[fatt-dad]

something to work on!

thanks!

f-d