So I played this not to oolong ago at an open mic, and I absolutely butchered it. All good, I learned tons. I learned that with complex Stick pieces and playing live, luck favours the prepared!

So I spent the first week after the open mic just going over the piece, taking notes as to where the really troublesome spots were. You know, those sections where one is distracted the easiest, spots that I repetitively screw up, and identify WHAT the mistake I keep making is, and try to figure out WHY I keep doing it.

The next week, I spent re-learning the piece. Getting fussy with my fingering, and really memorizing every note. Burning it into the 'ole DNA as it were...

Anyways, I've kept at it with various strategies until yesterday I split it up into 3 sections, Phase one where I play each measure starting from 40BPM up to 80 bpm, one measure at a time. Once that was done I tried to play the whole piece to the metronome 3-4x. Lots of crash and burn - which was fine, as speed isn't my objective - familiarity and synchronization is. Phase two had me doing the same thing, only two bars at a time. Same deal, 40 BPM to 80 bpm. Once that was done I played the piece 5x without a metronome, and then another 5 with a metronome, but this time at a much slower tempo, 50 BPM, and I worked my way down to 42BPM. I know, super slow, right? OK, then Phase three had me doing the same thing, but with 3 measures at a time, and a fixed tempo - 50 BPM, and I did each group of 3 measures a good 10x. At the end of it all, 10x with and without the metronome, when working with the metronome I worked backwards again from 50bpm to 42bpm.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do for tonight's practice, but I will think of something! Anyways, it's a lot of work but I feel like I've really learned a lot working this out, and at every stage of my study (sight-reading to memorization to dissection) I've collected new skills and insights. Thanks, J.S.!

Now, keep in mind that this is my "project piece" and really soaks up the most amount of time in my allotted Stick practice. I'll be working on tempo probably later next week and perhaps post a video (I could post a video right now, but I thought I'd try something new and wait until I've polished it a bit before sharing...) And yes, I do practice other stuff hahaha

So a question to the other Bach Invention No 1. practitioners out there, what did/do you do to get your "Invention performance" ready on the Stick?

Dammit, here's my score, sorry about the chicken scratch all over it...

Haven't done any inventions but I have done a few Bach pieces over the years and a decent handful of baroque and classical pieces as well. I take a note out of piano pedagogy and do a lot of hands-separate practice with very specific fingerings so that when I go hands together I'm not trying to figure out rhythms AND fingerings all at once. That, and taking it in 4 to 16 bar chunks does it for me.

Looking forward to hearing the result.

I kind of go whole hog with"hands together" lately, maybe next time I'll try some "hands separate" again. I used to spend a bit of time with it, but it just didn't feel like it was really helping the "hands together" aspect, so I just said screw it and kind of do a hands together thing all the time now. Might be worth re-investigating, to be sure. Can't hurt!

Yesterday (which was a day after a big gnarly practice session) was not as fruitful I would have liked, but I've found that my brain needs a day to kind of digest what it is I've assimilated. Today, of course is a new day so I look forward to seeing if I can hack my way through this a bit better... funny thing is that if I can even slightly see the score I seem to perform it better. Might be the markings... hahaha Anyways, Yesterfday's performance of the piece (even though it was private) sounded like a pregnant yak, no lie lol

I usually go a bar at a time for memorization/practice. Sometimes down to a beat at a time depending on how busy the music is... memorizing 4-16 bar chunks at one time is pretty impressive, I usually solfegge the piece I'm working on too to get a clearer ida of what's going on. I'll try and see if I have enough RAM to memorize that much music in one shot!

Man, if one wanted to play a really, really EASY Bach song, what would you recommend? I love Bach and I used to play it when I first started learning to read music on piano. Maybe I should just trawl for easy-peasy Bach piano pieces and just adapt them to Stick.

The Mirrored 4ths tuning tends to lend itself to Bach, and Classical in general I hear.

But I love that you guys tackle these hard Bach pieces. Keep at it and keep sharing your results. You're all doing the Lord's Work here. You go, JS Kerr!

I am thinking that the minuet in Gmajor, and minuet in Gminor are probably two of the easier ones, although Ithink those ones weren't actually written by Bach, but definitely in the "style".

Reading through the Inventions has exploded through my playing - and as a pretty much monophonic player on my previous instruments, I felt I had to do something to really get thinking in two voices, get the hand independence happening, and of course absorb some of that Bach melodic and harmonic influence.

Memorizing this one piece has taught me something new every day that I work through it. It's helped in every aspect of my music, and it sounds cool. I love it... total time sink, but totally worth it! In my opinion...

Steve, I bet you'd absolutely rock any of that keyboard music on the Stick! Not sure if any tuning is more or less suited for any particular style of music, but I will say that mirrored 4ths has been really good for me in all aspects of my own playing so far!

Fun...

What Scott said. 200% agreed.




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Ive been looking at this one. It takes way longer in my opinion to learn a Bach piece (or any other piano piece) than to do an arrangement of a tune. I just work on 8bars at a time. I will do the last 8 then the 1st 8 and work my way to the centre of the piece. It’s definately a big challenge. I have to keep thinking that it’s all both hands together rather than two separate hands . It’s how you look at it I guess. I have to get it to the point where I don’t think and that it flows without thinking about it. As soon as I start thinking I mess up. Practice is programming the brain to work on autopilot. Hit the button and away you go. You ve spent time laying out the dominoes and if you line me up right they all fall down. The dominoes take lots of time to set up but if you are careful they all go down perfectly.

What a great thread. Performing Bach, my stars have I learned some hard lessons playing Bach. Hey Scott, I'm pretty certain I am reading "Bar of ugliness, HAHA I win Bach, fuck you Bach" in your manuscript. That is rich, truly.

There are few things I enjoy more than arranging Bach for the Stick. I'll just ramble for a bit if that's okay with you

To start, I am motivated and passionate about arranging Bach for the Stick. I do this in between time with my family, my work and my family work.

I'm not trying to play the music as is written for the harpsichord (or lute, cello, etc.), I'm trying to make it sound beautiful on the Chapman Stick.

Also, not a big triller. That sort of decorative playing is reserved for people who have been playing this music for a LONG time. It's not for me and part of that is simply because it is not as natural on the Stick - which is not to say that it cannot be done - I've seen Mad Monk play pieces written for harpsichord that were beautifully interpreted to the note.

One of the sources I have learned a lot from is the Alfred Masterwork Edition of Willard Palmer's J.S. Bach Two Part Inventions. Many of my handwritten notes have been added here and they are as any bit as valuable to me as any recorded performance. These are my thoughts as they occur while I am learning and arranging. I treasure them and am equally amused by them (and yours as well now).

Finally, and to your question, you need one thing to perform Bach. Confidence. That's it. Don't try to be funny, fancy or clever - put yourself out there with all the confidence you can muster. You cannot have any trace of doubt. It needs to be hunted and destroyed with fire. Usually, this takes the form of attacking a specific part with repetition and patience (often, swearing). I like to refer to those parts as "my new favorite part".

For me, specifically, I find that I have a lazy left hand. My left hand does not move with the same fluidity and control that my right hand does so I find myself hampered slightly when learning new parts for the left hand. I am naturally right handed, AND I am also lazy. I know that my left hand is capable of such endeavor as a minuet or a more ambitious Invention, but I need a challenge and Bach fulfills this SO perfectly.

How to fix this? For me playing Bach on the Stick has required that I lead with my left hand. My most precious moments of discovery have almost always come when the left hand has successfully performed at the same level as my right. In technical terms, the left hand's ability to move vertically in a fluid manner (with confidence), is always my short term goal when approaching a piece.

I liked hearing about your work with the metronome. I have a lot to learn about how to consistently use a metronome. Do you have one or do you use your laptop, tablet?

Well, a bit long winded . I'm really enjoying hearing about your experience, thanks so much for sharing it.

Without a doubt, the inventions are monsters. They are a lot of work, but I have learned so much from reading through them, and now getting No 1 memorized, and polished up is really doing wonders for every aspect of my playing. Awesome, I love it. I have nothing but good things to say about what I have gained from studying it. I can't wait to memorize them all, actually.

I like what Gene said (yeah, it was a long post but dammit it was a good one!) and there are more than a few things I bet we all do differently in regards to how we approach this thing, and things like it. Gene's version of the piece has been very, very influential and inspirational to me...

Like you Gene, I could care less about having a final product that will make a fussy classical fan happy. Nope, this is about me messing around with a piece of music so that I can assimilate and draw from (be influenced) by someone who's music I adore. Am I doing the mordants? Yes. Are they perfect enough for a classical historian to deem my rendition of the piece "listenable"?

Don't know, and don't care. Lol the 8 YouTube fans I have will let me know what they like and dislike about it, and I will still have vastly improved my compositional abilities, 2 part harmony, rhythmic displacement, hand synchronization, reading, ear-training, improvisation, physical technique, etc etc. Whether they love it or hate it. The folks I play it for at a live venue will likely politely be waiting for an Ed Sheeran tune while I play this (and that's fine) but it has value and meaning to me. I couldn't even think of an approach to going through this music 4 years ago, and now here I am pounding my way through it while simultaneously reading through every piece in the book. I am NOT a classical musician, but I like classical music a lot...

It's not easy (Bach), (or everyone would be doing it) and as Gene says - there is a real balance required to get in the practice time needed, while still living one's life. Family, friends and fun are very, very important in my opinion. Just as (and more) important as not being terrible at my not-so-new custom tapping instrument I spent all kinds of cash on...I spent quite a bit of time coming up with a way to be able to practice in much shorter timeframes and still have noticeable forward momentum. Sure, it takes time and a piece like this is going to soak up a majority of the practice time I have available for the instrument. The end result is totally worth it, to me...

The metronome is a real test, for me, as to how stable a piece of music is in my memory. If there are any weak points I am not aware of, or think I can get away with, playing with a metronome brings me back to reality and exposes that issue while giving me a means to correct it. Developing speed, working on accents, endurance and solid meter are just a few of the benefits. 90% of my practice is done with some sort no of timekeeping device (I prefer my Seiko Quartz metronome). Not everyone's bag, but I love metronome practice.

I mark my scores up when I am memorizing music from them. You should see the stuff in my Paganini Caprice book... (what's left of it, dammit I gotta go get a new one I think...) Having something simple, and somewhat humorous (from my point of view) helps me place a kind of intangible 'marker' in my memory of the piece. Some of it is musical, and some of it might be a curse word or two... whatever works. Nothing personal to Bach, I know he wrote every note for the greater glory of god (or was it to get paid and fed on a regular basis?)

Last thing, Gene said "confidence" is a requirement, and I agree 100%. A couple of other things lend to getting that confidence up (not just with Bach, but any music); Focus. Understanding, etc...

I think that at the end of the day I am practicing towards "knowing the piece better than anyone else (of course, there's other people who will know it way better) but to what lengths am I willing to go to to ensure that I have a familiarity with this piece of music that breeds that kind of confidence? What kind of attitude do I need to have in the practice room to ensure consistent execution at the level that I expect of myself? And what practices must I employ to ensure that kind of development, and also, how can I achieve this in a timely, efficient manner? How can I make it fun?

That's the stuff I ask myself when I'm working out a piece - here's to hoping that when I unveil this little guy that other people might enjoy listening to what I did as much as I have enjoyed the practice time and effort employed...

Anyways, now it's time to go play the piece a few hundred times haha have a good one, guys!