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Thread: Bach E Major Prelude fingering

  1. #26
    Registered User Hany Hayek's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bach E Major Prelude fingering

    Why not do the picking like in Munier's methods. When moving from one string to the other you use Down strokes even if it means doing 3 down strokes consecutive. When you are on the same string you'll be going DUDU. When you have high value notes it's always down.
    I am not saying this is how it should be done, but just wondering. This is how I played the prelude and it sounded good even to my teacher (a viola PhD teacher and soloist).
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  3. #27
    Registered User Hany Hayek's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bach E Major Prelude fingering

    Just to clarify, I did not play this prelude but the one from Bach Cello suite 1 and 2. I too come from the violin world and up and down seems more logical. Oud players do the same picking that I explained.
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  4. #28
    mando-evangelist August Watters's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bach E Major Prelude fingering

    Quote Originally Posted by Hany Hayek View Post
    Why not do the picking like in Munier's methods. . .I am not saying this is how it should be done, but just wondering. This is how I played the prelude and it sounded good even to my teacher (a viola PhD teacher and soloist).
    Good point -- there's more than one good way to approach this. If you go back another century to music composed for mandolin in the 18th century, you'll see lots of consecutive strokes in the same direction. I don't interpret these as exceptions to alternate picking, as much as temporary interruptions. At any rate, I think that considering different possibilities for pick direction (once you've mastered alternate picking) can help us to explore the possibilities. The 18th century methods of Leone and Gervasio are great for this.
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  6. #29

    Default Re: Bach E Major Prelude fingering

    Whoo-Hoo!! Thurs., Dec. 1st, 7:36 PM PST, made it through the entire piece, start-to-finish!!

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  8. #30
    Registered User Chris W.'s Avatar
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    Default Re: Bach E Major Prelude fingering

    Quote Originally Posted by bratsche View Post
    Just out of curiosity for anyone who plays this, in the part from measures 17 to 28, what picking pattern do you find works best? (I played this on violin at least 40 years ago, but have always been daunted by the prospect of picking such passages, which seemed so easy to bow at the time.) Thanks for any input!

    bratsche
    I was in a class with Caterina Lichtenberg and asked her this very question. She uses DDUD. It helps to play the first 4 notes of bar 17 DUDU, then start the pattern on the 2nd beat. I really like it. Basically every third note is an upstroke and the rest are downs. The D string notes can be accented more this way as they are all downstrokes.

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  10. #31
    MandolaViola bratsche's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bach E Major Prelude fingering

    Yes!.... I like that, too! Why didn't I think of it? I've used very similar patterns in other string crossing passages, but just not this one. Tried it, and it's like a lightbulb came on. It's much more natural (for me) here than always DUDU. I appreciate the suggestion!

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