Well, the best I can do is offer my own personal
perspective....

I learned classical violin as a child, gave it up as a
teenager and learned rock guitar, then gave up rock
guitar for classical at 18, learning by sheet and tab,
but mostly tab (once I found Weed's Classical Guitar
Page). I never took lessons, nor did I attempt to
follow any kinda program. After about a year of
learning songs by various composers - Tarrega,
Barrios, Sor, Dowland, Villa-Lobos, Weiss - I almost
exclusively began playing Bach.

Some songs came easy, some didn't - 2-part invention
in Am was a jaunty breeze, as was most of the Lute
Suite in Em, but I never even TRIED BWV 1006. Partly
because I dislike most major compositions, and partly
because well, it looked hard.. as hell. So, I
sympathize if it's taken you a year to get it even
partly done.

I spent many, many, many months trying to perfect the
Chaconne in Dm, on guitar. I could never quite
memorize the Dmaj section though, so I never got it
down pat.

More recently I've been more interested in
transcribing Bach's other non-lute works for guitar,
such as the violin suites and even some of the piano
and organ works. I'm still working on my arrangement
of the Sinfonia in Cm (3-part invention, on guitar,
ouch!) but others, such as that Bach Fugue in Em from
BWV 1003, worked out beautifully. And those songs
required many weeks or months of constant practice
just to get to a decent performance, by no means
Williams, Bream or whatever. (Parkening can suck a big
one.. I don't like his method or his style. But that's
for another day).

Eventually I got tired of the admittedly rather
limited polyphonic options available to one on the
guitar and have been trying to learn the piano for a
year now - exclusively Bach of course, preludes and
fugues from the WTC Bk 1. Now *that* is some hard
s**t. But that's a story for another day...

Jonathan B.

--- Tommie Boy <Dauphinplayer@...> wrote:

> I'm studying for my masters in guitar pedagogy and
> so i'm trying to
> learn an entire bach lute suite for the masters
> recital(Lute Suite
> 1006).  So I'm curious about how far along other
> people are with
> playing bach and any stories they have.  Jeez I must
> have at least
> spent a year alone trying to play the prelude.  The
> first time I heard
> the John Williams version I was like (insert scaredy
> smiley
> here)...but now it's not so bad.....as long as I
> play half as fast as
> he does. LOL.  So any stories would be appreciated.
>
>
>
>
>

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