Arranging BWV 527 for piano (part I)

In my last post, I mentioned that I will be arranging the third movement from Bach’s Organ Trio Sonata III for solo piano. Here is a sneak peak of my progress so far:

Fig. 1. First 8 bars of my piano arrangement of BWV 527.

Fig. 1. First 14 bars of BWV 527, Johann Sebastian Bach.

There isn’t much to see yet, but there are some interesting issues I would like to address. The first thing you might notice is that the bass line has been transposed down an octave. At first, it seemed like an arbitrary decision, but upon repeated listenings, I realize the pedalboard notes sound an octave lower than written anyway, so it appears to be a reasonable choice.

Interestingly, at a few points later on in the piece, the upper two voices diverge such that they are unplayable using the right hand alone. Sometimes, I overcome this by transposing the left hand an octave up (or it finds its way to that register some how) and then it is able to play both the pedalboard notes and some of the middle voice. There are times when the playability of the arrangement “hangs on by a thread” but in general, I would say it is playable.

The organ and the trio sonata form

Vid. 1. Music animation video constructed and produced by Stephen Malinowski.

I came across this piece of music earlier this year. Up until that point I had not heard much organ music. But this particular movement from Bach’s Organ Trio Sonata III caught my attention immediately. The harmonic progression of its principal theme is very resolute, starting off fairly stable, and then changing more frequently in its second half. The minor tonality gives it a very sophisticated air, and at the same time, the upper melodic lines work together to bring across a justified tone.

The trio sonata form, I discovered, is a piece written with three distinct parts: they are often comprised of two melodic lines and a continuo part. It then became clear to me that pedalboard notes could take over the continuo part, thereby freeing up the hands to take on very intricate melodic parts.

Incidentally, I have been working on and off on a piano arrangement of this piece. The process has been an interesting one, as it challenges me to think outside the box and in terms of a different keyboard instrument. I plan to present this arrangement at the SFU Recital Society workshops and performing it at the semester-end concert. I will also post the PDF on my website when the arrangement is complete, so you can too download it, should you wish.

Ordering food ... online

I don’t eat pizza often, let alone place orders for pizza delivery. My brother decided we would have pizza tonight so he asked me to check out Pizza Pizza’s website. Keep in mind that I seldom visit websites of fast-food establishments, simply because I mostly browse the websites of design firms and magazines for web design inspiration. So you could imagine my surprise when I found out that one could place an order for pizza through the internet.

What I find fascinating is that the interface combines some of the standard GUI elements with context specific ones as shown below.

It didn’t immediately occur to me that one could customize the pizza to have different combinations of toppings on each half of the pizza. While it took me a few seconds to realize this, the interface made sense to me eventually. You can choose to apply a topping to the left half (by selecting the left icon), the right half (by selecting the right icon), or both (by selecting the middle icon). Part of my confusion might have been because I don’t order whole pizzas on a regular basis, so it may well be the case that this interface is in fact intuitive for its target audience.

Déjà vu ... or just being lazy

For those readers of this blog who have been following my writing for more than 2 years, you may remember this entry and this entry where I promise to blog more frequently. But as my schedule was constantly changing, I could not find the time (or motivation) to write on a regular basis.

As you may recall, I had mentioned that I have been doing my practicum at a public health evaluation/IT company. The 8-month full-time work term ended at the end of August but I am staying on, indefinitely, as a part-time employee both because I very much enjoy working there and also because my work is hard to transfer to someone else.

Remember that university course I mentioned that required me to keep a regular blog? Well, because I got accepted for the practicum, I had to drop that course and take it at a later time. And coincidentally, that time happens to be now. So this time around, it looks like I will be blogging more regularly—on an average of 1 to 2 posts a week.

So stay tuned.

Vincent Lo - Violin Concerto no. 1 in A minor draft