Engine

If were going there (Bach on guitar) then we need some Andres Segovia up in here.

__________________

Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.

Burning Down

I can play some really basic classical guitar, and those videos are making me want to start practising it more! I'd like to buy a nylon string guitar first though.

Engine

Yeah, I've tried fucking around with classical and baroque music on my steel strings too - but for it to sound right (and play easier) you definitely need to use an actual classical guitar.

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Like an arrow,
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Burning Down

The nylon strings are also easier on the fingers!

Engine

played by Gustav Leonhardt

__________________

Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.

Zaqarbal

BACH is GOD!!

About 15-20 years ago, I saw, at home, a thick book titled Gödel, Escher, Bach. I just leafed through it, but it didn't attract my attention. Perhaps I was tired at that moment, or maybe it seemed to be too complex to me. Or maybe I was too young then. I don't know. The thing is that I forgot about the book...... until now.

This thread. A "mental chain": Bach --> guitar --> the picture I posted --> loops and fractals --> that old "weird" book. Like a sudden spark activating hidden memories.



Human brains work in mysterious ways. Even a f**ked-up one like mine. Funny, because somehow the book refers to that too:

I've just got a copy of the book. I haven't read it yet, but it seems to be really interesting. And also........ complex, certainly. But this is a fascinating issue.

Bach's Musical Offering:


OMG, there are so many things to learn! And so much music to listen to! "I know that I know nothing."

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Engine

I'm pretty close to agreeing with this statement but I don't believe in gods. JS Bach's music has invaded and permeated my soul, I know that much.

The reason I replied is because I wonder what you or anybody thinks of any of the other Bach family composers?

I seem to have heard a lot of one or more of his sons' work on my local classical station and loving it without knowing who they were. The station DJs always say something haughty like "of course it sounds nothing like JS because he was dead for blah blah years before this Bach started composing music blah blah blah" but I wonder if anybody here knows anything about any other Bachs. I don't but I think I should.

__________________

Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.

Burning Down

In 4 or 5 years of listening to classical music, the only music I've heard from one of Bach's children is that of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. I like his music. It's a great fusion between the Baroque and Classical periods. If there was music to go with the Rococo visual art at the time, it would be his.

VEGANGELICA

That book looks interesting, full of intriguing, playful concepts to work through, Zaqarbal.

I agree there are so many things to learn...and not enough time for it all...so we are doomed to look only through our small window at everything, no? But it is nice to even have a window, and I like how you are trying to see and appreciate as much as you can of your view.

I'd never heard of a "crab cannon" or the "table cannon," both of which J.S. Bach used in "The Musical Offering" as shown by your second video, and which are described by Douglas Hofstadter in Gödel, Escher, Bach. Wikipedia says:

Learning about these methods of ordering musical compositions makes me better appreciate the creative mental challenges with which Bach and other composers must have enjoyed engaging themselves.

I like the idea of a single piece of piano music that creates a duet by being read right side up and upside down at the same time...since it has no "right side up" or "right side down." That's efficient and clever composition!

I had no awareness that one of J.S. Bach's kids grew up to be a famous and accomplished composer.

The article about Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach makes me interested in hearing his music (which I'm now tasting, thanks to Youtube). It isn't easy to exist in one's father's giant shadow, I imagine, but he seems to have emerged in his own right, composing music creatively and enjoying a passion for it that he was able to pursue...a good life, I'd say.

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Engine

And so many more notable Bachs! Look at the Bach Family Tree.
Exciting stuff.

__________________

Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.