This was an amazing technique workout [Video with Mark Smith/Bach Prelude] – with TUTORIAL

by Ari • 20 Aug 2020 — 2 minute read

Bach Prelude Number 2 for 2 Basses with Mark Smith!

Mark Smith of talkingbass.net approached me a while back about doing a Bach piece together. And he happened to suggest one of my favorites, the C minor prelude of the Well-tempered Clavier! I have played this piece (on piano) since I was a wee one and always loved it. It’s a technique workout no matter what instrument you play it on. It was a pleasure to be Mark’s right hand on this one.

I picked my six-string Marleaux so that we would get a nice separation of sounds between the basses. Plus, there is a high A in there, and bending that note on a four-string bass just sounds atrocious. I recorded my part and sent it to Mark. There are a few tempo changes in the piece so a couple of count-ins were needed. Mark went with all my ebbs and flows beautifully!

Happy to present to you the result – the Bach Prelude Number 2 for two basses – enjoy!

Watch my tutorial below!

For Four-string as well as six-string, complete with TAB and drills!

Get the six-string PDF

Get the four-string PDF

Want to play some easier Bach?

If you’d like to start a bit easier, here are a couple of videos to get you going. Pick a part, and play together with me in the video.

I have TAB for both of these, here and here for the waltz!

Lots of easy Bach in this blog post!

Bach for Two Times Two

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Bassist, author, educator.

Groove enthusiast and learning nerd.

Joined by 15,000+ Bassists

Your Instructor

Hi. I'm Ari.

As a bassist, I have toured/played/recorded with a variety of rock, Jazz, and funk bands, I have worked with some incredible producers (Keith Olsen) and musicians (Paul Hanson, Muriel Anderson) and I toured Brazil with Stu Hamm as a duo.

As a bass teacher, I have taught at London Bass Day, Gerald Veasley’s Bass Boot Camp, SBL, Truefire, notreble… I even ran my own music school for a few years before gigs took me back on the road.

One thing to know about me is that I teach because I am absolutely fascinated with the learning process. And I am obsessed with helping others realize their musical potential.

When I started playing bass, I excelled very quickly because I had an amazing teacher who taught me using a powerful method. This method transformed my playing so quickly that I passed a bunch of high-level university auditions and even tested out of entire classes at university even though I had been playing for only a very short time.

That’s what, many years later turned into one of my books, co-written with Wolf Wein, called “The Pattern System for the Bass Player”. I created entire systems of learning based on some of these ideas and wrote books and created courses together with Wolf. Our bass books have sold over 30,000 copies and garnered rave reviews.

I started teaching online in 2009 and have embraced technology as a powerful learning tool since then, never losing sight of the importance of providing feedback and personalized guidance to learners.

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