Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?

Subject: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: Acorn4
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 01:51 PM

Having been studying the 5 string banjo for a number of years now I am struck by the mathematical nature of the many licks and rolls caused by the position of the fifth string.

Bach's music is often said to be mathematically based, so would he have perhaps enjoyed sitting on his back porch inventing banjo tunes?

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 01:59 PM

No question - JSB was a good ol' frailer!

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 02:21 PM

Bach never had a back porch, but he did enjoy writing for instruments with irregularities and limitations. He could actually play the lute, which however went out of vogue during his lifetime, so his compositions for it were but few.

Yes, he may have enjoyed the challenge to compose for banjo, but only few banjo players would enjoy practising his music. Those who double as guitarists may well try his lute music (which takes some slight tweaking).

The idea of "mathematical music" has fascinated many people for millennia, but I think it is too vague a concept to be of any use. To be sure, writing fugues atc. requires some elementary mathematics, but Bach and other great composers have a lot more to offer.

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 02:28 PM

On YouTube, "Bach banjo" has many entries (like "Bach" with all other instruments and household devices ...). If Bach had known the banjo, he would have written slightly more idiomatically, but probably not what we call "licks and rolls".

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: OlgaJ
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 02:36 PM

Mmmm

How would he have felt about a ukulele?

Think I'll get my coat and leave now!

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: Sooz
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 02:42 PM

He would have loved it, Olga!

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 03:00 PM

Beethoven probably would have done - he was deaf!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: Kim C
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 03:05 PM

Bach was an innovator. I think he would have loved the banjo.

Funny you should mention that. I was at my Irish fiddle lesson the other night, and my teacher had a book of Bach stuff propped up on his keyboard. And he said, I wonder what Bach would think about Irish music?

Well, he would have LOVED it, of course. ;-)

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: Mark Ross
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 04:11 PM

Here you go;


Classic Banjo Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: Artful Codger
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 05:31 PM

If he did, he would design a well-tempered one that had a hope of playing in tune.

Seriously, though, I think he'd spend his time instead developing whole-body interfaces to synthesizers, such that his new works, performed through a sort of interpretive dance, would trigger such a transcendence of our previous conceptions that we'd split our mental chrysalises and emerge as new forms of life, able to finally intuitively understand the deeply metaphysical language of dogs.

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Jul 13 - 08:30 AM

Well, JS tolerated the impure sound of the pipe organ (the instrument which, after the saxophone, wobbles the most around a given pitch.) He wrote for harpsichord, which sounds like somebody is playing piano with a scrub brush.

He probably would have like the crispness of the banjo. And if he didn't, one of his kids probably would.

Somewhere I have a piece by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach which sounds like 1950's rock and roll.)

Thanks for the link, Mark.

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST,Tim
Date: 18 Jul 13 - 10:34 AM

If you get the chance to see a guy called Howard Yates, banjo player extraordinaire and his brother Steve, stunning Bach, classical guitar and Banjo...

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 28 Jul 13 - 08:13 AM

Iain MacKintosh once played a Bach tune on the banjo, during a set with Brian McNeill. It sounded really sweet until they turned it into a jig (or reel - I can never work out which is which).

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 28 Jul 13 - 11:28 AM

If the modern day banjo had been in existence during Bach's day, he'd have made Alison Brown and Béla Fleck look like a couple of amateur parkin' lot pickers.

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST,c.g.
Date: 28 Jul 13 - 11:31 AM

Bach was a professional musician. Of course he would have played the banjo - if you'd paid him enough and given him a couple of days to learn it.

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 28 Jul 13 - 11:58 AM

Give a listen to by Bach Partita as performed by Bela Fleck. There's a link to it in the sidebar of the posted link.

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 28 Jul 13 - 12:51 PM

c.g., Bach indeed needed whatever money he could earn. He even complained that the weather was so healthy that only few Leipzigians died and earned him money for the funeral service. Nevertheless, he occasionally refused jobs he did not like. In other jobs he sorely lacked "customer orientation" - among the few extant documents, a large part are complaints. Thirdly, he composed pieces that he knew would never earn him a pfennig, but rightly assumed to keep his fame alive for centuries. Thus, to convince him to compose for the banjo, it would have taken money and some persuasion as for the cultural relevance. The fifth string however, as mentioned in the OP, would have posed him a welcome challenge.

Bach is still a model of meticulous artistic work, putting those to shame who compose by copy-and-pasting "licks and rolls".

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 29 Jul 13 - 12:22 PM

Here's the URL for Bela Fleck playing Bach:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tohpjnUIJU

I think the tone is good but Fleck is playing too fast. Much of the beauty of that piece lies in the intervals, and he's going so fast I can't savor the intervals.

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jul 13 - 12:28 PM

A classical guitar player Richard Durrant plays Bach on banjo very well. Nice how mandolins appear in quite a bit of classical music. would Mozart have played the swanee whistle do you think.?

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jul 13 - 12:47 PM

How bela fleck learned Bach on the banjo http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MmHH11duF7I

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: John P
Date: 31 Jul 13 - 09:30 AM

Isn't all music mathematical?

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: The Sandman
Date: 31 Jul 13 - 01:13 PM

no

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 31 Jul 13 - 01:25 PM

Of course he would and did. Isn't he the composer of "Air on the 5 String" ?

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 31 Jul 13 - 04:02 PM

Of course he was! Why didn't we think of that before? Keep in mind that he was a church musician, so after he composed it he played it on the pipe organ, using the Banjo stop.

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 31 Jul 13 - 05:06 PM

Right and he also used to rip on Bavarian Mountain Blues.

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 31 Jul 13 - 10:27 PM

Actually, gillymor, he would have been closer to the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, a beautiful spot which I visited myself a few years ago. More people ought to know about them.

Let's see if this works:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfgangstaudt/6666542481/

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Aug 13 - 12:31 AM

He would have come into contact with the guitar and would have known people who played it. So if the banjo had existed he would have encountered it, unless he had a prejudice against street instruments.

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: Ernest
Date: 01 Aug 13 - 01:36 AM

Bach played the ukulele, so he was familiar with re-entrant tuning

Subject: RE: Would J.S.Bach have played banjo?
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 01 Aug 13 - 06:27 AM

Lovely mountains, leenja. Bach's "only forgotten son", PDQ, seems to have had an affinity for the banjo. Check out Black Forest Bluegrass with Bill Keith.