Bach’s Sonata for Solo Violin # 1, Presto is by no means a beginner’s piece. It requires a keen sense of timing, a great deal of dexterity to hold various barre chords and a great deal of alternate picking and sweep picking skill (though the piece can be played entirely with alternate picking). It also has us paying close attention to phrasing. The combination of these techniques presents the guitar player a tremendous challenge and the payoff is readily seen – in a matter of weeks you will notice significant improvements in your technique, regardless of whether you are a beginner or an advanced player.
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If you made good progress on part 1 of the guitar lesson then you should be well poised to take on this next section. In this section you see that there are several main phrases that require careful attention. I will touch on them below.
Above is the tab for measures 21-54. The part of the piece we are focusing on now starts at measure 25.
As I did last time, let me make an important point about not getting caught up
in the tab. The way I tabbed it is based on various sheet music arrangements I
have come across as well as personal preference. So if certain sections are problematic
for you, then experiment with other fingerings (this time around I did not indicate
the fingerings...). Ok, now that I made my disclaimer, let me provide some tips:
As before, let notes ring to the maximum extent possible. This will mean
choosing fingerings that allow note ringing. The ringing of notes is perhaps
the most challenging part of the piece overall. I find that sometimes I am
making great progress on the piece (working up to tempo, etc) but then my
classical teacher will point out the fact that I need to work on letting notes
ring through.
As before, use alternate picking to the maximum extent, as it lends itself
better to consistent timing.
Play at an even tempo! Sure, some of the lines in this piece can be played
at high speed, but you don't want to be slowing down and speeding up depending
on the difficulty of a line. Maintain consistency and work the piece up to
tempo. If you try to jump into the piece playing at a quick tempo then it
will sound, for lack of a better word, aweful...
Focus on phrasing. There are some key parts in these measures that require
attention to phrasing.
25-28: Thouh not normally played this way, I find that
it is a really nice touch to let the 3rd note in each of these measures
ring. To do so requires fingerings that allow the notes to ring.
35-42: Note how there is a recurring pattern here (descending
scale run followed by pivot note phrase). Essentially, you want to let the
first note of measurs 35, 37, 39 and 41 ring for the duration of the measure.
This will require care - trust me. In measures 36, 38, 40 and 42 you want
to let the so called pivot note ring as much as possible.
47-50: Here is the last major phrase of the this section.
It is essentially a pattern of ascending third intervals, where the first
note of each measure is held for the entire measure.
We are done with the first major section of the piece. Next time we will begin
the next major section and break it into parts as well.
Note: The audio and MIDI contain measures 1-54. At about 21.5
seconds in audio file is where this excerpt of this piece picks up.
Lessons
