Bach on the Banjo - Bourée II

Listen to Bourée

Bouree II by J.S. Bach comes from Suite IV for Unaccompanied Cello (originally in E flat, transposed here to D). Bach wrote six suites for solo cello which are primarily based on dance forms from the Baroque Era. The Bouree is one of these dance forms, usually found in pairs. If you listen to a recording of this on cello (which I strongly urge you to do) you will hear “Bouree I” played before “Bouree II” and then “Bouree I” returns without repeats. This is one of the Baroque forms used by Bach in these wonderful suites.

This is a great piece to use for getting a feel for playing classical music on the five-string banjo. It is not difficult and yet it contains some very important musical concepts often found in classical music.

The first of these concepts is a compositional technique called counterpoint. This piece is actually two lines of music being played at the same time; each is independent yet supportive of the other. In this piece the top line is the melody and the bass line is written to accompany the melody. When performing this piece, try and maintain separation and independance between these two voices. The first step in doing this is to hear the two parts so that you can determine which notes belong to each voice or part. You can hear that the lower notes of what you are playing form the bass line and the higher notes the melody. There are a couple of places where it gets harder to hear but I think repeated playing of the piece, up to tempo, will make the distinction evident. Once the two voices are recognized, how can we keep them distinct?

There are two good techniques for doing this. The first is to try to play the lower voice mostly with the thumb, and the upper voice mostly with the first and middle fingers. This creates a subtle difference in the timbre or sound quality between the two voices. Doing this also helps you have a physical difference for each voice which helps you think of them as different - which is a really important step in this. If you can just think of them as separate they will come out sounding separate. The other trick to doing this is to try and play most of the notes of the lower part on the fourth string. Since the fourth string is wound it has a much different sound than the other strings. Hearing most of the lower voice played on this string helps differenciate it from the other voice. The suggested fingering should accomplish this where possible. Keep in mind that fingering is somewhat subjective and trying alternate fingerings is always a good idea.

The other important musical concept that we get to work on in this piece is the quality of playing legato. The term legato means to play without any real separation between notes. Playing legato means trying to keep the lines flowing smoothly in a very continuous way. If you listen to a cello version of this piece you will hear it played very legato. Of course it is easier to get a legato sound from a bowed instument like a cello than it is from a plucked one like a banjo or guitar. Here again the most important part of this process is to think legato in your mind and your playing will tend to follow. Secondly, be careful with your left hand. Leave your fingers down until they have to move to another note. Try not to cut any notes short by leaving the fret too early. In some cases you will be leaving one finger down to retain a note while putting another down to fret the next note. Try to think of letting the notes kind of bleed into one another.

It may seem contradictory to talk about keeping the two lines seperate while keeping everything smooth and flowing. Working on these concepts is a constant challenge for classical guitarists and one we face when trying to play classical music on the banjo.
      --John Bullard

John Bullard