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Ask Selina – Walton Bagatelle no2

Home » Help & Advice » Ask Selina » Ask Selina – Walton Bagatelle no2

Dear Selina

I have a question on how to play the harmonics in Bagatelle no2 from WIlliam Walton.

How do I play them?

I have the DVD ‘My life in music’ from Julian Bream and he plays this in the DVD.

At the moment Julian plays the harmonics you cannot see the fingerboard which means I cannot see how he does it.

I have the Oxford University Press release of the Five Bagatelles for guitar, edited by Julian Bream.

The harmonics begin at bar 57 through to bar 61.

Regards
Piet Buis.

Dear Piet

This is definitely a finger aerobic exercise which will take time to master.

Firstly play the top note of each chord as an artificial harmonic, playing the other two notes of the chord with fingers ‘m’ and ‘p’

This technique does take some getting used to if you have not done anything like it before.

Bar 57 — finger the left hand chord with the top ‘G’ at 3rd fret string one, then with the right hand touch string ‘1’ over fret 15 with your ‘i’ finger, simultaneously playing string one with your right hand ‘a’ finger; fingers ‘m’ and ‘p’ play the other two note.

This technique feels strange at first.

The chord then slides, so move your right hand to mirror the movement of the left (as the left hand moves down two frets to fret 1 so the right hand mirrors the left and moves from fret 15 to fret 13 for the ‘F’ and then fret 17 for the ‘A’.

The chords in bar 61 change — Place a half bar at fret 6 covering strings 2,3,4 with your second finger playing the ‘A’ grace note on string 6.

Having played the grace note perform a pull off with the left hand 2nd finger and at the same time play the rest of the chord.

Remaining chord =

‘p’ plays string 4

‘m’ plays string 3

‘i’ performs the harmonic — (string 2, fret 18)

‘a’ plucks string 2

Slide to frets V and III respectively for the next two chords moving your right hand to touch at frets 17 and 15.

Good luck!

Selina

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