Hello Amazing Mandolin Cafe Peeps,
I'm putting together an open source / free version of the Bach Cello Suites transposed for mandolin. The final output will be in PDF and MuseScore formats. There will be dots in the beginning of the PDF booklet, followed by tabs. It’s a business up front; party in the back situation. I am looking for some feedback as to how to write and display the notation before I "publish". As an FYI, I am using MuseScore 3 (4 just doesn’t do it for me).
I personally prefer one movement per page, so that I can display it completely on my iPad and avoid all page turns. After sharing some early versions with people, this is not a universal sentiment. Apparently, a large number of people have a condition affectionately referred to as “old” and would prefer the trade-off of larger notation page for page turns. (My wife recently informed me this affliction is quickly approaching me). So I was thinking of putting together two editions as shown below.
* Edition 1 - Compact
* * One page per movement dots
* * One page per movement tabs
* Edition 2 - Expanded
* * 5 measure per line dots
* * 5 measure per line tabs
Other fun things part of the Mando/ Cello Suite book include a "guest book" where people can let me know if they are using the project, and I'll include their handle / name in subsequent updates. Could be fun! I'm not thinking of making many HUGE updates over a long period of time unless people are finding errors. Maybe just an update every few years as needed. I'm also thinking of creating some up-front material on famous recordings on mandolin, reference videos on YouTube, and just educational materials about the cello suites.
Questions:
1. Does anyone else actually care about the compact version? Or am I just the one crazy person that wants it?
2. I’m also interested in volunteers to play through the dots and tabs, and just do some quality checks. Anyone interested?
3. Do folks want the original "slurs" included? To my knowledge, they are less about phrasing, and more about cello bow directions. People tend to interpret them as phrasing marks, and I think that can confuse other mandolinists. So I'm thinking of just deleting them.
Attached are some PDFs for examples. They aren't final; I'm still working on them!
Bookmarks