Now that warm weather is back, I went out to the American River Trail and practiced by the river this afternoon. Here's some more Bach.

A thought on all of the Bach that we've been playing, in light of the discussion of fiddle music elsewhere: the Baroque era was the infancy of stand-alone music and the idea of concerts where music was the focus. The vast majority of music being produced by European composers back then was still either church music or dance music, and increasingly dance music found its way into instrumental interludes in the church music. So when composers started to write music for its own sake, much of it was still tied to dance in some way, even if the composers were beginning to stretch the limits of dance forms. Sometimes it's much more obvious, such as in the movement titles in Bach's violin sonatas and partitas, cello suites, and orchestral suites. But even where it isn't expressly stated, I feel that Baroque music should always have a bit of a dance-like feel to it. In general, I like to treat Bach's instrumental music like a sort of solo dance: with a clear sense of rhythmic pulse, but also with some freedom to stretch and compress beats for musical expression, because there is no need to cater to other dancers.

Happy birthday, Johann Sebastian! Born this day in 1685 (March 31 under the modern Gregorian calendar).

After which my audience changed seats from the couch to the viola case...