Mike's Oud Forums

Bach Praeludium on Oud

Mehran - 10-18-2015 at 09:51 AM

I have always thought about baroque music on the oud. Seems i'm not the only one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUbbh3Oy6vU


Solid performance. Played as if it was written for it.

Almelaifi - 10-18-2015 at 11:54 AM

That is nice..

Check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxbgGzbYBBo

mavrothis - 10-18-2015 at 01:35 PM

Thank you for these videos!

That's such a funny coincidence! I just finished learning this prelude a week or two ago, and am considering the rest of the suite, or perhaps the sixth suite to work on next. :)

Of these two performances, the second is definitely more nuanced and lyrical in my opinion, with some interesting variation at the end I wasn't expecting.

We should make a habit of converting all six cello suites by Bach to oud repertoire, why not? Some can be played as written, others transposed depending on what tuning we are using. The oud is a bit like the viola in the small amount of virtuosic repertoire written for it.

Thank you again for sharing!

mav

Mehran - 10-18-2015 at 03:35 PM

Tariq demonstrates a wonderful refined technique in all his playing.

Both wonderful.

Mavrothis - when do we get to hear your rendition ? ;)

mavrothis - 10-18-2015 at 03:50 PM

Thanks Mehran for the interest! I'll work on it and see if I can post something worth listening to.

:)

Thanks again!

mav

SufianSaeed - 10-18-2015 at 05:59 PM

is there a common music sheet of this piece for oud floating around or is it their personal interpretation of Bach cello suite ? i've been interested since i heard Tariq al jundi playing it

mavrothis - 10-18-2015 at 06:28 PM

Hi,

For most any score that is public domain you can use this website, which I have linked to all six of J. S. Bach's Cello Suites:

http://imslp.org/wiki/6_Cello_Suites,_BWV_1007-1012_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)

You will notice as you explore that for each piece, there may be transcriptions and/or arrangements for a variety of instruments. For the Cello Prelude #1 in G major, I used the following violin transcription in D major, which suited my tuning very well: For Solo Violin. Please note for this transcription that on page 2 , measure #2, the second "G" is played natural, not sharp.

www.imslp.org is an incredible resource.

Take care,

mav

Oud Freak - 10-18-2015 at 10:01 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Mehran  
I have always thought about baroque music on the oud. Seems i'm not the only one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUbbh3Oy6vU


Solid performance. Played as if it was written for it.


Both performances are interesting and different one from the other. First one's spirit is closer to Rostropovitch's interpretation, constant in speed and more like cello technique. The camera used seems to disfigure the instrument's sound and interesting frequencies.

Second performance is more like Lute instrument, soundwise and techniquewise, clean and peaceful. Too many changes in tempo for expression purposes. There is also a missing bar before end, but that's unnoticed (and unimportant), unless the score is followed while listening.

antaus - 10-19-2015 at 03:39 AM

Quote: Originally posted by mavrothis  
Hi,

For most any score that is public domain you can use this website, which I have linked to all six of J. S. Bach's Cello Suites:

http://imslp.org/wiki/6_Cello_Suites,_BWV_1007-1012_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)

You will notice as you explore that for each piece, there may be transcriptions and/or arrangements for a variety of instruments. For the Cello Prelude #1 in G major, I used the following violin transcription in D major, which suited my tuning very well: For Solo Violin. Please note for this transcription that on page 2 , measure #2, the second "G" is played natural, not sharp.

www.imslp.org is an incredible resource.

Take care,

mav



Few months back I saw a video of Mehmet Polat playing one of the sonata or a partita for violin solo by Bach but I cannot find it on youtube...

Very interesting website indeed, thank you Mavrothis !

Though, I am looking for a score of the prelude in G-clef but with the same notes (not a fifth higher like the violin sheet). I cannot find that on the website, did I miss it ?

Cello & oud are basically on the same octaves (cello lowest is C2 like oud) so it's playable as it was written originally.

I had begun to rewrite it in G-clef but that is pretty time consuming and not very interesting so if it has been done already, I'd rather skip that part :-)

Personnally, I do not intend to play it well for the moment and I only see this as an exercise, I don't have a full year learning oud so that would be preposterous to think otherwise.

2nd question : do you have other ideas of occidental classical pieces which can be played on oud ?

Microber - 10-19-2015 at 04:34 AM

Quote: Originally posted by antaus  
2nd question : do you have other ideas of occidental classical pieces which can be played on oud ?


The Bolero of Ravel is suitable for oud. Furthermore, it 'accepts' gladly the arabic ornamentations. Which is not the case for the Bach cello suite.
Here is a partition of the melody.

Robert

[file]37156[/file]

mavrothis - 10-19-2015 at 04:44 AM

Hi Antaus,

If you are interested in playing Prelude #1 in G, I would advise you to just take some time to familiarize yourself with the bass and alto clefs. Of course it can be confusing (and annoying when you're not used to it), but once you gain that skill you won't lose it, and my feeling is you will learn the piece even better because of that extra effort.

I honestly don't have a long list of pieces that work for oud off the top of my head, but my feeling is there should a great deal of material we could work with.

Interestingly, unless you are incorporating a lot of fingerpicking techniques, the lute and guitar repertoire might not be as easily transferred to the oud.

However, bowed instruments work well, especially older (Baroque) cello, violin/viola works that do not rely much or at all upon extended playing techniques.

Even though our ouds won't capture the exact sounds the composer intended, we can adjust our approach to be in the spirit of the composition. For example, though we do not bow the oud, and our tunings are very different, we can consider how a cellist would finger ascending or descending passages differently, and adjust where we are picking just as a cellist would adjust where they are bowing depending on the chosen dynamics and register of a given section. We can also incorporate Baroque ornaments.

We should also probably consider works for wind instruments, since they will have single line parts that the oud could capture and even expand upon.

Finally, let's not forget the great virtuosic repertoire left to us by Sherif Muhiddin Targan! Kapris - Kanatlarim olsaydi - Koshan Chojuk - Nihavend Saz Semai - etc.

Take care,

mav

Jason - 10-19-2015 at 06:19 AM

One thing to remember with Bach (or any Baroque piece) is that improvisational ornamentation was a huge part of playing the style. Similar to a Samai, what is written on the page may not be necessarily what the player would play. Things like trills, vibrato, & glissando were all used as ornamentation which weren't necessarily written on the page by the composer.

The cello suites have evolved over time to have a kind of standard way interpretation, but that doesn't mean a player shouldn't experiment. Personally I think much of the ornamentation we use, even Çarpma, would work in some of these pieces.

One other thing to keep in mind when working on the cello suites... Bach was using implied polyphony in most of the lines. You'll notice cellists will often give a lot of weight, and even some added time, to low notes and then a little less weight on the high notes. This will trick the ear into retaining the low note when hearing the higher notes, implying a polyphony that isn't actually there. That's why it can seem like people slow down and speed up when playing the pieces, it is a totally accepted way to interpret those lines.

SufianSaeed - 10-20-2015 at 04:55 AM

i did find this on imslp "Cello Suite No.1 in G major" , am i at the right direction ?

[file]37191[/file]

antaus - 10-20-2015 at 10:04 AM

This is the sheet with F-clef actually and I already have it.

@mavrothis : yes, that would probably be interesting to learn with other clefs but honestly, without being a pure beginner on solfège, I'm still not reading fastly a G-clef so that would be too much on my plate to learn other clefs, or at least, I'd rather spend time learning oud technique than a clef that I will hardly use. It will never be too late to learn it though :-)

About other works, i was not talking about transcriptions (like Bolero) but more monophonic (or mainly monophonic) works like the 6 suites for cello, 6 Sonatas & partitas by Bach or Caprices by Paganini (just examples, those ones being too difficult for me at this time).


Apart from the cello, which monodic instruments have the same tessitura as the oud or beginning just a bit higher ?

- Baritone sax & Bass clarinet
- Trombone
- Tenor sax

what about old instruments ?
- almost all viols
- ...

La Folia theme has been arranged by Maurice Gendron (a great cellist) for cello, it could probably fit for an oud (La Folia theme has probably andalusian roots by the way)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2AxdQmBl-E
...

DavidJE - 10-20-2015 at 10:17 AM

+1 for seeing Mavrothi's video! :)

Jason - 10-20-2015 at 10:27 AM

Quote: Originally posted by antaus  

Apart from the cello, which monodic instruments have the same tessitura as the oud or beginning just a bit higher ?


A lot of viola literature would work. Most double bass solo rep would also work as it is written an octave higher than it sounds on the bass. As you say, many viol pieces would work well on the oud.

But with most pieces you could transpose them to an oud friendly key and work it out. I have seen people do pieces like Czardas on the oud.

keving - 10-21-2015 at 03:07 AM

I found playing lieder or classical songs seemed to adapt a little easier for my skill level than the bach stuff. The modulations the baroque material goes through is so challenging, staying in intonation for me was a lot of work. Good work obviously, but work I don't have as much time as I wish for.

Opera arias or Schubert songs fits relatively well to the oud, the tremolo picking and taqsim possibilities in relation to interpreting the melody line are really fun.

I have some Mahler arrangements for guitar that I tried out on the oud, this one felt pretty good. Interspersing the accompaniment with the sung melody sat on the hand fairly easily. Hope you don't mind the share, my technique lacks the refinement you good folks here attained.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa7-zwl7NnM

the arrangement for guitar:

[file]37203[/file]