That was interesting. Thanks for posting that. I've always felt that Bach's music can be adapted to modern instruments and numerous musical styles given an understanding of the complexity of his compositions. Bach wrote quite a lot that could be transposed to guitar without losing anything, and especially to classical Spanish guitar. Michael Fix is clearly a master of his instrument and showed great respect for the source.
The guitar isn't really modern. It predates the piano and organ by many years in one form or another. (Guitars with any number of strings also isn't new.)
The guitar is just the name we call that family of "chordophones", but they go back to Byzantine times (at least). For a while, it was reasonably popular to use a turtle shell as the body of the instrument.
But, it's just what we call it today. Pretty much every culture figured out that you could mount a string between two fixed points and pluck it to make a noise. They further figured out that there was some math behind it, like dividing the string in half raised the note one octave. Some folks have been adding frets for almost as long.
I suppose you might say that it's a 'modern guitar', but no... No, the concept has been around for at least a thousand years, quite likely much longer. It's a pretty simple thing.
It's quite likely that Bach was being played on plucked/strummed instruments even while he was alive. Only the big churches had pianos or organs and traveling minstrels brought stuff like that to the masses. At the time, transporting a piano and/or organ from village to village was not going to happen - though they did develop smaller 'organs' that were powered by much smaller bellows.
Hell, even calling it a 'modern guitar' would be suspect. There's still a ton of variety among them, with no particular instrument being precisely that.
If I had to guess, first came the drum, and then either plucked strings or various wind instruments came second. Both are pretty simple concepts.
Also, a bit of trivia, long before guitar strings were made of metal (really taking off around WWI time) they were made from organic material. Like catgut, intestines dried and twisted, etc... You can still buy organic guitar strings, but they mostly get used on (very) antique guitars.
What's with the LOL? And what's with the condescending lecture on ancient musical instruments like I'm some sort of child?
To begin with, I wasn't talking to you. Secondly, I was talking about the arrangement, style, and execution of the music, and expressed my respect for how well he transcribed music for a large church organ to a very different musical style.
I called the guitar he was playing a modern guitar because it was built in our era, as opposed to being an ancient instrument from the 16th or 17th century. I wasn't talking about the concept of a plucked string instrument.
You apparently have little idea of who JS Bach even was. He came from a family who had all been musicians for generations. JS was the brightest star among them. Four of his sons were notable musicians and composers in their own right, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christian, Wilhelm Friedemann, and Johann Christoph Friedrich.
Pianos did not exist during Bach's time, and the small portable organ, called a positive organ, wasn't Bach's kind of instrument, although he certainly could play it. He held the position of organist at a few protestant churches during this life. He traveled extensively to play organs around Germany and Austria and was known as a master musician and composer. In addition to playing the organ, he was highly proficient with the harpsichord and clavichord, violin, viola, and cello.
The modern guitar is related to the cittern, an instrument that resembled a bouzouki and was the few metal strung instruments in the Renaissance era. The cittern is also related to the English guitar and the Portuguese guitar.
That still wasn't the point of my first post, which was about Bach's genius and how his music can be adapted to modern instruments and praising Michael Fix's transcription of this notable piece from organ to guitar. You were the one who started talking about guitars and going on a tangent about how guitars aren't "modern". I didn't necessarily disagree with what you said, I just took exception that you misunderstood something I said and wrote a comment to lecture me about something I never said. So go ahead and get the last word, I don't care.
[ + ] Lost_In_The_Thinking
[ - ] Lost_In_The_Thinking 2 points 2 yearsApr 19, 2023 20:52:03 ago (+2/-0)
[ + ] TheRealBuddha
[ - ] TheRealBuddha 0 points 2 yearsApr 19, 2023 21:59:45 ago (+1/-1)
The guitar isn't really modern. It predates the piano and organ by many years in one form or another. (Guitars with any number of strings also isn't new.)
The guitar is just the name we call that family of "chordophones", but they go back to Byzantine times (at least). For a while, it was reasonably popular to use a turtle shell as the body of the instrument.
But, it's just what we call it today. Pretty much every culture figured out that you could mount a string between two fixed points and pluck it to make a noise. They further figured out that there was some math behind it, like dividing the string in half raised the note one octave. Some folks have been adding frets for almost as long.
I suppose you might say that it's a 'modern guitar', but no... No, the concept has been around for at least a thousand years, quite likely much longer. It's a pretty simple thing.
It's quite likely that Bach was being played on plucked/strummed instruments even while he was alive. Only the big churches had pianos or organs and traveling minstrels brought stuff like that to the masses. At the time, transporting a piano and/or organ from village to village was not going to happen - though they did develop smaller 'organs' that were powered by much smaller bellows.
Hell, even calling it a 'modern guitar' would be suspect. There's still a ton of variety among them, with no particular instrument being precisely that.
If I had to guess, first came the drum, and then either plucked strings or various wind instruments came second. Both are pretty simple concepts.
Also, a bit of trivia, long before guitar strings were made of metal (really taking off around WWI time) they were made from organic material. Like catgut, intestines dried and twisted, etc... You can still buy organic guitar strings, but they mostly get used on (very) antique guitars.
[ + ] Lost_In_The_Thinking
[ - ] Lost_In_The_Thinking 1 point 2 yearsApr 20, 2023 11:28:13 ago (+1/-0)*
To begin with, I wasn't talking to you. Secondly, I was talking about the arrangement, style, and execution of the music, and expressed my respect for how well he transcribed music for a large church organ to a very different musical style.
I called the guitar he was playing a modern guitar because it was built in our era, as opposed to being an ancient instrument from the 16th or 17th century. I wasn't talking about the concept of a plucked string instrument.
You apparently have little idea of who JS Bach even was. He came from a family who had all been musicians for generations. JS was the brightest star among them. Four of his sons were notable musicians and composers in their own right, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christian, Wilhelm Friedemann, and Johann Christoph Friedrich.
Pianos did not exist during Bach's time, and the small portable organ, called a positive organ, wasn't Bach's kind of instrument, although he certainly could play it. He held the position of organist at a few protestant churches during this life. He traveled extensively to play organs around Germany and Austria and was known as a master musician and composer. In addition to playing the organ, he was highly proficient with the harpsichord and clavichord, violin, viola, and cello.
The modern guitar is related to the cittern, an instrument that resembled a bouzouki and was the few metal strung instruments in the Renaissance era. The cittern is also related to the English guitar and the Portuguese guitar.
So, LOL indeed.
[ + ] TheRealBuddha
[ - ] TheRealBuddha 0 points 2 yearsApr 20, 2023 12:39:01 ago (+0/-0)
Pianos were around in 1700...
"I wasn't talking to you!!!" (How cute! You're adorable. It's even funnier that you think I don't know who Bach was.)
And the modern guitar is related to a zillion other plucked and strummed chordophones. Trying to pick just one is plain silly talk.
[ + ] Lost_In_The_Thinking
[ - ] Lost_In_The_Thinking 0 points 2 yearsApr 20, 2023 14:38:07 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] TheRealBuddha
[ - ] TheRealBuddha 0 points 2 yearsApr 20, 2023 15:14:12 ago (+0/-0)
Okay then! Carry on...