From BNL July, 2009

There’s nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
—Johann Sebastian Bach 1685-1750

Playing Bach on any instrument is a lifelong endeavor and many interesting musical challenges arise when tackling Bach on the 5-string banjo. When arranging a traditional bluegrass tune these challenges may not show up, yet many of them are applicable and transferable to many other musical undertakings. What follows is a description of my process in sourcing, learning and arranging aBach composition on banjo. There are many ways to approach arranging this material on the banjo, and each artist should find the way that works best for them, and maybe some of these steps will help you find yours. With the goal of deepening my musicianship, I have found that sourcing and arranging something myself is much more educational than finding someone else’s tab of a Bach piece and memorizing it. And while the tab is provided, my hope is this is a springboard for your own arrangements. The process can be as important as the performance.
First I will find a piece that catches my ear. This is important because if you’re not interested in it musically, you’ll never put in the requisite hours to pull the piece together. In general, I use a computer quite a bit in this process (midis, tab programs, iTunes).Bach’s pieces usually have many recorded versions (sometimes more than 20) and find a few I like and buy them using an online music store. Since many of Bach’s pieces have similar names (he wrote dozens of partitas, sonatas, preludes, etc.), it is helpful to search using the “BWV” number (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis or Bach Works Catalogue). The associated tab here is BWV 998, which includes the Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro for Lute in Eb. (email me for tab)

I like to tab out the piece, as it makes it easier for me to learn and retain both right- and left-hand fingerings. Understanding and utilizing standard notation is helpful, but I’ve found that there are so many variables on a banjo to playing a line of music that arranging it in tabl is easiest for me. I prefer to start by finding a midi file online (try www.classicalarchives.com) and import it into a tab program (I use the notation program Sibelius, though Finale and Tabledit and many more will work), and arrange it from there. In Sibelius, it’s a simple as copying and pasting the notes into a banjo tab staff. From there I can drag the notes around to find the proper fingerings to play. For this particular piece, when I imported the midi into the program it separated into a treble and simple bass line. I found the treble clef stood alone quite well (as some of Bach’s keyboard pieces often do). The tab included here is just the Allegro’s A-part, which has a B-part in addition to a bass line not included.

A large challenge is the range of the banjo relative to the other instruments this music was written for. Many keys are not well suited for the banjo in standard G tuning with no capo, so sometimes the key will need to be changed. Searching for pieces that work with little to no transposing (changing the octave of certain notes) can take time, but many pieces only require a few notes to be changed if set in the right key. This is where a computer comes in handy, as in a couple of clicks you can change things easily and try several keys. The ability to use some open strings is helpful, and those only occur in some keys on banjo. Using open strings can be very helpful to facilitate the larger melodic leaps to be played at quicker tempos (and those open strings tend not to show up as often in some of the keys such as A major, Bb minor, or C# major). I chose to keep this piece in its original key of Eb because in standard G-tuning, four of the five open strings are in the major scale. Personally I also wanted a deeper exploration of the key of Eb on 5-string banjo (yet this piece in its entirety [AABB] also goes into Bb, C minor, E major, and other shifts). One could arrange this piece in the key of G, which may be easier in some sections, and more challenging in others. With Bach’s music, there are literally endless options, and many things are a trade-off. One has to make choices, and work with those.

Many players today strive for a seamless integration of single string, melodic style, and rolls. The lines between these particular “camps” are becoming more and more broken down, and many modern banjo techniques are combinations of these techniques. In the Allegro tabbed out here, one will find all those techniques are integrated in a myriad of ways blended into one piece. Playing this music also requires a series of unorthodox techniques and ideas. Part of the appeal of learnnig Bach is that to sequence the notes on the banjo as Bach wrote them requires novel left-hand positions, interesting position shifts, and areas of exploration that one may not encounter just playing bluegrass tunes. And the right hand will need to perform all sorts of gymnastics, crossing the thumb over the index in single string passages, playing across all four strings in a row (sometimes played TITM), and other challenges.

Specifically in arranging the right hand, I strive to use the thumb on the downbeat when I can. I chose not to do that at measures 27 to 29 in order to capture the ascending counter melody with my index and middle. After trying several options, I found it easier to accent the melody using index and then middle. When possible, I try to incorporate a roll, though occasionally it makes more sense to play the passage single string for the continuity of tone or depending on what comes next. I try to use open strings when available, yet at measure 19 I needed to use a closed position D note in order to get the subsequent melodic style passage to lay out. Many of my choices made sense to me in order to either maintain the pulse of the piece, to anticipate what comes next, or to maintain the continuity of a melodic phrase. There is much more to music than just playing the notes in sequence. And getting a feel for these choices comes from listening endlessly to both the recorded versions and your own playing.

There are many ways to finger any given passage, and many banjoists enjoy spending a lot of the time trying new fingerings, keeping ones they like, tossing ones they do not. The tab below is after many drafts (over five), and I could still re-finger it to get it smoother or to accentuate other parts of the melody. If some of these right or left-hand fingerings do not work for you, find something that does. What is most important is that you enjoy the process, stick with it, and enjoy the music. Over time, as each time you play it will reveal more of its complexity, its beauty, and its depth