jsinjin - Posted - 08/27/2024:  08:27:59

I am certain this has been done but I undertook the challenge manually. There are countless online views of people playing the broken chords of the prelude in D from well-tempered clavier on banjo and guitar so this is nothing new.



But for me, I did the manual work to take each chord:



Cmaj, Dmin/C, G7B, Cmaj, Amin/C, D7/C, Gmaj/B, Cmaj/B, Amin/7, D7, Gmaj, Gdim, Dmin/F, Fdim, Cmaj/E, Fmaj/E, Dmin, G7, Cmaj, C7, Fmaj7, F#dim, Abdim, G7, Cmaj/G, G7sus4, G7(tritone devil chord), Adim/G, Cmaj/G, G7sus4, G7,Fmaj/C, G7/C, Cmaj



And convert each to the fret and strings of my banjo in C tuning. I made a few mistakes initially but at the end after a long night I could hear every single set of the broken chords played. I don’t have them memorized in any way but if I play the classical piece (meaning play it on a YouTube video) from piano I can absolutely hear every part in it in the way I can hear it played on the banjo. It took me 16 pages of my notebook and lots of scratch outs as I had mis counted different jumps in frets or the fingering would have been impossible the way I selected it.



At the end I can now completely see how I can play this with a clawhammer style using drop thumb on the transition of each of the second notes in the treble clef portion or what I have learned is the right hand of the piano (it’s been so many decades since I took piano and I only took it for 6 weeks so I remember almost nothjng from that summmer)



The whole transcription is currently handwritten in my notebook but what is nice is that the chord translation makes so much sense now after doing the exercise. I think after a few weeks of playing it, the tempo and uniformity will sound good and I’ll have my first song completed on banjo!!!

Edited by - jsinjin on 08/27/2024 08:28:55

Pix5String - Posted - 08/27/2024:  09:57:18

Sometimes we find an in-depth effort pays off as a way of learning. Glad it worked. It’s all about spending concentration as well as time on your subject matter. For me it is immersive playing and listening, when I have the chance to spend HOURS picking out the sounds and listening to the tune and seeing how others (teachers) are doing it. At the risk of being repetitive, it’s not just spending the time, but the concentration. I think concentration comes from interest and enjoyment. You can’t but help to learn if you have that. My time doesn’t allow that level of concentration very often but when it does, I take advantage of it and look to make more time when I can. I recently ordered John Bullard’s books to wonder down the trail of playing classical music to broaden my playing field and learn something to help my playing and knowledge (never mind that music is super cool too)!  I fear never learning all that I want to learn, makes me want to quit my day job to pursue the music!    ;-)

Thanks for the post John.



Willie

jsinjin - Posted - 08/27/2024:  12:03:01

quote:

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Originally posted by Pix5String

  I fear never learning all that I want to learn, makes me want to quit my day job to pursue the music!    ;-)

---

I've been fortunate that my day job has allowed me to always do very difficult and innovative things, so much so that I bring it with me everywhere to have the chance to do it.   For me music is an interest like sketching or writing; I enjoy it for the learning but unlike a lot of other people, music isn't in my soul or life.  I think that of all the courses I took in college my least favorite and most "just get it over with and get the grade" class was music appreciation.   That's not a condemnation of all the amazing people for whom music is a passsion.  I just know that I don't listen to music much.  My family didn't have it much at all growing up, during driving, running or rowing I listen to podcasts of science and math seminars or economics sessions or books on tape and always have.  I don't listen to music at home and I would fail one of those "name that tune" sort of exercises with most music besides overplayed pop or things that appear in movies or popular symphonies.  

trapdoor2 - Posted - 08/27/2024:  14:51:02

Interesting that you did all that manually...esp in this day and age of free instant downloads and free tab conversion/writing software.

Almost every Bach piece has been digitized. In two minutes, I can download the prelude in C and convert it to banjo tab. Several clicks to change tuning if I thought it was necessary. It would take me a few more minutes to go through and fix the fingering to suit me (it is almost never usable above the 7th fret...but the algorithm is much better than ever).

Of course, some massaging is always needed to get it looking good on the page.

I've done that for the Cello prelude #1 and a bunch of other classical works. I really enjoy orchestrating for several banjos...

I'm not saying either method is better. I work better on the computer where I can have it play the piece back to me as I work on it. Just a different sort of immersion.

It is nice to have it publisher-ready when I'm done though.

mmuussiiccaall - Posted - 08/27/2024:  15:04:46

quote:

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Originally posted by trapdoor2

Interesting that you did all that manually...esp in this day and age of free instant downloads and free tab conversion/writing software.

Almost every Bach piece has been digitized. In two minutes, I can download the prelude in C and convert it to banjo tab. Several clicks to change tuning if I thought it was necessary. It would take me a few more minutes to go through and fix the fingering to suit me (it is almost never usable above the 7th fret...but the algorithm is much better than ever).

Of course, some massaging is always needed to get it looking good on the page.

 

---

here it is done that way

banjohangout.org/tab/browse.as...p;v=27351

jsinjin - Posted - 08/27/2024:  16:56:16

Yes I agree. The point for me is the exercise of learning all of the chords and the transitions. I love the homework and the manual effort. I’m brand new to music and want the benefit of learning the notes, the frets and the notes and the half and whole steps and the conversion. Every day at the end of the day I pull a song and do the conversion for the practice. There are solvers for integration, organic chemistry, matrix algebra and astrophysics but it’s always been hard for me to appreciate what I’m doing without pen and paper to solve things.

So this wasn’t an achievement for me so much as a way to see how the broken chords unfold on the banjo. There was also the benefit of learning a little bit about the piano keys which I had no idea about EGBDF and FACE as acronyms and how the whole thing was put together. I sit with “The musicians guide to theory and composition” that a professor in the music college gave me when I asked about this topic and I work through this exercise every night with a new song. I didn’t even realize that the Bach Prelude was a series of broken up chords until I started and read it on a site about the analysis of the piece.

I do realize there are tools that take the work out of transposing and shifting but for me this was an exercise of learning music theory. I’ve told a few people, my goal in playing the banjo is to learn music theory and reading music and even though it’s not a typical way to play it, this is actually something I’m enjoying a lot.

janolov - Posted - 08/27/2024:  23:57:10

I agree that it is very good exercise to make your own transcriptions.



I don't understand why you shall clawhammer this piece. It seems very impossible to play a note by note transcription with clawhammer style,  three-finger is much better. However, the chord progression is interesting and with some creativity and fantasy it may be possible to make a good clawhammer arrangement but I am afraid it will be far from the original Prelude.

jsinjin - Posted - 08/28/2024:  04:14:41

I didn’t think very much at all about instrument, type of playing or any other particulars. I bought a fairly nice banjo that I liked the look of, I purchased an online plan to help get started and I selected clawhammer because when I got everything home I didn’t know you needed picks for any other type. Until I picked up my banjo this summer, the only other introduction I had to music at all was a single summer at age 10 or 11 taking piano as a kid (I’m 53 now). I don’t have a passion for music although I have wanted to learn why and how music works for a long time. The selection of clawhammer was just a coin toss for me. I’ve pointed out in the clawhammer section several times that I don’t know very much about music and certainly not music with banjo. I think before I started I knew callin Baton Rouge by Garth brooks, don’t drink the water by Dave Matthew’s band and this song on as Christmas album of ald lang zyne by the lonesome travelers. Plus the occasions but rarely give attention episodes of hee haw in the 70s.

I devote a lot of time to practice, I don’t have any goals of playing with groups or focusing on any type of music. I just enjoy practicing and hearing the instument. I’ve followed the stuff on brainjo website but my least favorite parts have been trying to learn to play by ear or even learning songs. My joy has been the deep theory of the music and although I sit. Have a piano I have loved learning the structure of the music on a sheet of piano music being translated to a banjo. I think I would enjoy that on any instrument but since I picked up a high end open back it’s what I’m working with. And I really enjoy the learning regardless.

Joel Hooks - Posted - 08/28/2024:  05:39:30

I am curious why you are working in TAB and not standard notation?

Tim Jumper - Posted - 08/28/2024:  06:44:06

For note-for-note clawhammer transcriptions of Bach, check out Michael J. Miles's recording of two of the cello suites. It would seem to be impossible -- but he did it.

jsinjin - Posted - 08/30/2024:  16:22:57

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joel Hooks

I am curious why you are working in TAB and not standard notation?

---

I know almost nothing about music.   I'm learning on about three to four months so my choices are basically shooting random.  I selected a banjo on a total whim with the only thinking being that I thought it looked nice and was by a Texas luthier.   I knew no banjo songs and the only reason I picked clawhammer wa that I didn't know that Scruggs style used picks and I didn't have any of those when the banjo came in.   So my only experience has been what I've found online for songs and that happened to be tab.  I am a professor so I got a faculty member in the music department at my college to recommend a theory book and I started working through it.  I literally know nothing about music and this is sort of a whole brand new area I'm trying to learn.  So I just picked a song and picked tablature and off I went.

Joel Hooks - Posted - 08/30/2024:  21:58:59

I hear this a lot. I thought that one learns about music while they study an instrument. It would be weird if one needed to be knowledgeable about music before they could start playing an instrument.

I recommend the “Mel Bay Banjo Method” by Frank Bradbury. Not for the music in it, but as a method to learn to play. This will give you all you need to know AND teach you to sightread notation for banjo. It is a complete course of study.

neuronz - Posted - 08/30/2024:  22:46:49

I have worked up a transcription of this piece using a different approach a few years ago: I employed what is known as "scordatura tuning". I lowered the 4th string to a B and played the piece in the key of G. I found many of the arpeggios readily "fit" on the fingerboard without too much jumping around. I had to transcribe measures 16 and 17 up an octave to get it to work, but the rest didn't require that much jumping around. One unexpected pleasure of this transcription is that you can end it with a G chord harmonics.
I submitted this to Banjo Newsletter a while back; part of it was published. It was apparently too long to publish the entire piece.
Mike Stein

Bach Prelude BWV 845 transcribed for banjo in the key of G

 

neuronz - Posted - 08/30/2024:  22:48:30

Note: should be BWV 846

jsinjin - Posted - 08/31/2024:  16:21:30

Very impressive piece of work. I’ve never heard of scordatura tuning. All of mine was done in a notebook with pencil and ruler. I try to transcribe one song each day before leaving the office and play a few parts of it to make sure that it sounds correct (independent of timing).

Was yours played with picks in a Scruggs style?

neuronz - Posted - 09/01/2024:  09:54:06

Scordatura tuning is also known as "alternative" tunings. Guitarists use it extensively; an example is the "dropped D" where the 6th string is tuned down from E to D. Bach's 5th cello suite was originally written in scordatura with the A-string tuned down to G. Nowadays, most cellists play it in "standard" tuning.



I usually play it without picks, but there is no reason it couldn't be played with picks. If you look at it, the arpeggios in the C major prelude are Scruggs style "rolls" with 8 notes.



BTW, a friend of mine, Pete Pardee, transcribed this into a PDF document from my original paper and pencil version. He changed around some of my fingering; there are other ways to get the notes. As an example, measures 5 and 7 could be played as barre chords; measure 13, I found, was too hard a stretch to try to play as a barre chord and so that's how I play it Others with the ability could do it using a barre chord. This version should be used as a guide. If you can find an easier or better way to play it, go for it. Playing Bach on the banjo demonstrates the timelessness of his music.

Edited by - neuronz on 09/01/2024 10:20:37

jsinjin - Posted - 09/01/2024:  20:25:29

Fascinating! Thanks for this!