The Guitar Player's Resource
Welcome back! Hopefully, you checked out the last lesson and had a chance to think about what I was saying, about having an open mind and not always listening to guitarists all the time. The goal would be to transcribe other instruments from other genres of music. Maybe you started doing this since the last lesson, and hopefully it is working out great for you. Also, it is very important to play music and not always exercises.
Now for this lesson, I would like to give you a little more of the J.S Bach, Cello Suite No. 1.
After playing this piece I'm sure you realized how popular it is and how beautiful it sounds. It is fairly easy to play and most of it lies nicely in the second position, with a occasional shift to the first or into the third position. Later on, it does move up the neck, but we will be just covering the first couple of sections. The beauty of learning this right off the recording, or from the manuscript, is you have the freedom to play this how you want and any where on the fretboard that is comfortable for you. If you are always learning from tab, you will more likely play it someone else's way and you won't develop your ear. Even though this lesson has tab, you could play this anywhere on the fretboard that works for you. The point of this lesson is to show you how you could take a cello piece and play it on the guitar. You may want to follow the suggested fingerings in a few tricky places. Most of this lies nicely in the second position, so the fingerings will be obvious.
Some of the things you can do to learn from this piece is, analyze the progression. Even though there is no chords written above the music, there is an underlining progression that Bach was hearing when he wrote this. Also, Bach was a master of musical mathematical patterns and counterpoint, and he constructed many pieces with many different patterns. You can get many ideas that you can apply to your own music and going through some of these pieces will help expand your ears. Like I said in the last lesson, start slowly and learn one bar at a time and then play it up to speed.
MP3 - Bach Cello Suite No. 1, Part 2, Slow
MP3 - Bach Cello Suite No. 1, Part 2, Fast
Ok, that is it for now! I just started you off, so try to learn the rest of the piece on your own. Also, I will be releasing a new CD called "Chameleon", be sure to check it out at mikecampese.com.
Mike Campese is an all-around music performer, session artist and teacher competent in many musical styles, electric and acoustic. He has studied at G.I.T. (Honors Graduate), and with Paul Gilbert, Norman Brown, Stanley Jordan, Scott Henderson and Keith Wyatt.
