Electric Bach

by Mats Hedberg

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  • Hi ya'll! J.S.Bach (1685-1750) has always been one of my favorite classical composers! This piece is called inventio 4. Inventio means "idea", Bach wrote it in 1723 as studies (15 inventios) for left & right hand independence on the piano, yes it's a piano piece!

    If you find a recorded version of all the 15 inventions (2 voices) & 15 sinfonias (3 voices) recorded by canadian piano player Glenn Gould (1932-1982) buy it! It's incredible stuff!

    On the spaceship that search for other life in our galaxy, the "well tempered clavier" (J.S.Bach) played by Glenn Gould represents the music of our civilization!

    Anyway, the beauty of almost all music and studies from Bach is that it actually sounds like beautiful music! Even these ideas (inventions) are very beautiful, so learning them by heart is more easy, instead of learning just an exercise! Bach has influenced loads of modern musicians from Mozart, Bela Bartok, Charlie Parker (jazz bebop inventor & alto saxophone player) Dave Brubeck (piano player) to Yngwie Malmsteen, Frank Zappa just to name a few!

    I suggest that you divide the whole piece in three parts:
    1)part 1-4 = measure 1-16
    2)part 5-8 = measure 17-34
    3)part 9-12 = measure 35-52

    You should begin studying part 1, measure 1-16, for the first week and learn it by heart! At a good tempo 40-60 bpm!

    Then the week after you study part 2, same thing, then third week part 3 when you learned the whole piece. You put them all together at the same speed (40-60bpm). You can also do it faster (depends on how much else you have to study). Then memorize it all, when you've memorized it, start building up more speed til you get to your preferred Bpm.

    This piece can be played from 60-120 depends on your taste! I played this inventio at 120 bpm (fourth note beat) and a slower version (film part 13) at 90 Bpm so you can choose the version and speed you prefer!

    The meter is 3/8
    The bpms are on the backtrax:
    Counting fourths
    60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120

    Counting eights (double)
    120, 140, 160, 180, 200, 220, 240

    On the backing trax you have 2 measures of count-in (1,2,3 1,2 3,). Then 2 more bars of click to keep you close to the beat, on the original inventio 4 there are 2 measures of just the right hand alone while the left hand doing a pause! And our part is the right hand. I put a click in there to help you out!

    The key is D minor and the scales involved are the D minor, D harmonic minor scale, A melodic Minor and the A Harmonic minor scale!

    A lot of string skipping and alternate picking!

    You will have a lot of fun with this one, you can steal phrases and use them in your playing, but best of all, you learned a piece of classical music that you can play alone without rhythm or left hand backtrack! This is also a cool piece to play with your bass player friend in your group!

    He will play the lower part (left hand part on piano) then you can also switch and play each others parts!

    Best wishes and good luck with it!

    P.S I think that all serious guitar students should learn something from J.S. Bach. Most important is to maintain the same beat from beginning to end, no matter if played slow or fast!

    If you want to buy the score for piano : inventionen, Sinfonien
    Urtext by: G. Henle Verlag is the best buy!

    There you have the bass and treble (guitar) part separated (piano) though, you need to read music!
    No tabs there!

    Good luck!
    Mats

    Additional Guitar Pro Exercise Download

    aharmonicminorscale.jpg

    dharmonicminor.jpg

    dminorscale.jpg

    amelodicminorscale.jpg
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