Cover of JS Bach’s Prelude in C Minor tuned to Eb standard. This piece was originally recorded as part of German Schauss’ Shredding Bach series.
JS Bach Analysis
The beginning is great alternate picking exercise that runs through a myriad of pedal tone chord shapes. The real key here is to focus on the clarity and tone of each note as it is picked. The pedal tone chord shapes cycle twice (in most cases), so it gave me a chance to really hone in on the sound each note was making depending on my pick angle and the placement of my palm. The real fun hits about 2 thirds of the way in, as we’re treated to a delightful ascending run of minor arpeggios that span 5 strings. This is the trickiest portion of Bach’s piece, and this picking pattern has found its way into my daily practice routine. We’re almost forced to do a Steve Morse style alternate picked arpeggio sequence here, which, even at a mere 120bpm, is still fairly tricky. From then on the piece really picks up speed, with a nice little bit variation between the up and the down beat.
The Gear
As always, I recorded and double tracked using Positive Grid’s awesome JamUp Pro app for iPhone. The amp simulator I used was the Fireballs EL34 high gain amp that comes with the Bias app, if you have access to that as well. One track uses a single coil from both my humbuckers (a Suhr Doug Aldrich bridge, and a Seymour Duncan Jazz neck) ran in series, and the other uses the Suhr Doug Aldrich bridge pickup by itself.
The End
Check out the video below and let me know what you think! This was a really fun piece to get under my finger-tips, and I look forward to shredding more Bach!