Von: Siegfried Knoepfler
Betreff: News, also re Minuet in G
Datum: 17. November 2009 KW47 00:36:01 MEZ
An: cyberpluckers
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And here I come to the proper topic of this post. A really new file on my new Web site is the sheet music with my newest autoharp arrangement of Bach's "Minuet in G" (Menuet BWV Anh. 114). As I told in an earlier posting (a few days ago), I got from the university library the original source and analysed both the melody and the bass line very carefully.
Based on this analysis, I was able to assign chords in such a way that a really accomplished player could play the melody and the bass line of the original (if that player manages to position the thumb in the right place and (ay, there's the rub) the autoharp has also the required strings in the bass area).
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I made compromises where a chord required according to Bach's notes wouldn't be reasonably reachable. Those places are marked in my sheet by a down arrow, pointing from the ideal chord to the more easily playable substitute.
In some places, Bach's notes don't determine a chord unambiguously; I placed e.g. a Bm when it was possible and I didn't see evidence for needing a B7 (I like minors!). In a few places I chose the D7 or A7 where a D or A would have been possible, but in most occurrences the seventh is actually derived from Bach's bass line and therefore required, measures 3 and 24 being examples where this can be seen most clearly if one has Bach's original at hand.
<...> [Notice] measure 26, where both of the _g_ notes in the melody line are set against an _e_ and a _c_ note, respectively, in the bass: so the C chord is for both of them the right one. (There are arrangements that have there a G chord.)
(One chord I'll definitely never play is the G Major Seventh in measure 19, where Bach sets the _f#_ in the melody line against a _g_ in the bass: I don't have a GM7 and do not intend to cut one!)
One last hint: In Bach's original, there are often sequences of 4 or 6 quavers (eighth notes) tied together by one beam. I deliberately broke up these sequences, beaming only 2 quavers, in order to remind myself that I pinch only the first one of these pairs and pluck (with finger only) the second one.
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Cheers!
Siegfried in Cologne, Germany
"The autoharp is the only instrument where the player can achieve instant mediocrity." (reported by Joe Riggs)
(I view this quote as a promise: so far I most often needed thousands of instants for decently mediocre results!)