Playing out of tune - on purpose

September 1, 2007 at 5:12 AM

So I've gone off the beaten path and I'm now on the road of Bach's 5th Suite in the scordatura tuning. After trying and failing to play the piece well in traditional tuning, I re-tuned my A string down to G and tried it. OMG! The resonance! The ease of playing the chord and double-stops! It was like removing every technical difficulty there was with this piece by simply de-tuning one string. My viola starting singing to itself like it never did before on this piece. I could feel the sympathetic vibrations under my chin.

Bach was a genious!

From Terez Mertes
Posted on September 1, 2007 at 1:41 PM

Ooh, this is intriguing!

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on September 4, 2007 at 6:08 AM

It certainly is intriguing. Please tell us more. Was the piece originally scored for viola? Do violists often tune their A strings down to G?

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