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Comment by lmcnish14 | Hacker News Reader

I love seeing this on HN! I'm particularly fond of Bach's cello suites but I'm probably biased since I'm a cellist. http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-1010/

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My background is more on the singing side, and I absolutely adore his choral work (along with Haydn et. al). Over the years my voice slid down rather than went for a hard break, before finally settling in to a lyric bass-baritone range, so I've had the opportunity to sing pretty much every part over the years.

There's a long running joke amongst Altos that you can tell when the composer's wife was an alto, because you get melodic lines. Bach's choral work tends to include as much intricacy as his instrumental work, across all four parts. Bass still tends to get the "walking the root notes of the chords", but not to the same degree as with other composers.

BWV232, Bach's Mass in B Minor is a favourite of mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY1w3EhXqwo

I'm a tenor, but used to be a bass-baritone. So, the opposite of you.

The B Minor Mass is a favorite of mine, as well. I do enjoy Herreweghe. But have you ever listened to a one-on-a-part version? This is a landmark recording:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9myyCGSkvfw

May I ask why you love it to be on HN? Sure, there have been lots of posts on HN over the years that I thought were borderline OT but for this I really don't see the connection to HN... But, in order to avoid tons of downvotes, I'd be happy to accept a good argument for why this should totally be here and not just, say, on Reddit.

Others noted a similarity between Bach's pieces and parallel programming. The way he managed to interplay tunes to create perceptions astounds. I'd suggest reading Goedel, Escher, Bach (sp?) for more. Also, organs have some relationship to transistors. I believe how they were engineered to handle air flows acts very similarly to a transistor.

For me, personally, Listenimg to Bach helps. His pieces are complicated in ways that stir my mind to creative thought and logic, at the same time.

My favorite for cello are the Bourrées in C. I'm not a pro, but I remember messing around with playing a (probably simplified) version of it on my bass guitar, everything an octave lower, and thinking I wish I had a lower C string.

The tapping on the fingerboard is quite audible, which isn't something I've noticed before. Is it normally muted (perhaps by mic position) in recordings?

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