Sarabande 3

This page is a guide to learning Sarabande 3 on a tapping Instrument such as the Chapman Stick or the acoustic Dragonfly DFA .

You don't need to know how to read music. In fact, you can get 90% of the way there just by watching the videos and referring to the Fretboard diagrams, and playing the song on the Musecore web page. The videos to go along with this piece are at this youtube playlist Sarabande 3 tappetizer playlist

Background

This song is by the famous iconoclast French composer Erik Satie. And part of a trio of sarabande's that were very influential in french music in the late 1800's
Take a listen to a few versions of this piece.
- A wonderful version by Harpist Rebecca Roth

Musescore score + tabs

The Score (and tabs) to go along with the diagrams below is available Here Look for the ones with names that start with the Sarabande3. This is the authoritative one which is for twelve string Matched reciprocal tuning

There are a lot of enharmonic notes in this song. Don't let that freak you out

Fretboard Diagrams and Instruction Videos

Note:

Each of these diagrams is in 12 string matched reciprocal tuning. It will have link to a .fbjson file that you can download and then use in conjunction with the Fretboard diagammer web app
You can read the file into it and change the tuning in the tuning configuration drop down and it will make a (simple minded) try at converting it.
You can click on any diagram to get an enlarged version.

Elemental Structure

This song is in Bb minor, (Db Major scale). and , like all Sarabande's, it is in a 3/4 time with a slow tempo. 50-60 bpm works well at first. One can speed up it up once you get feel for how you want to play it.

Most of the barioque dance suites, which included a sarabande, followed a what is called a binary form which is comprised of two sections, A and B , that are usually played twice giving you:

A A B B

Sarabande no. 3 loosely hints at this format, but the general feel of the piece is so ephemeral, it's not very recognizable.

The note names and chords in Bb minor are i Bb Tonic Bbmin Bb - Db - F ii* C supertonic Cdim C - Eb - Gb III Db mediant DbMaj Db - F - Ab iv Eb subdominant Ebmin Eb - Gb - Bb v F dominant Fmin F - Ab - C VI Gb submediant GbMaj Gb - Bb - Db VII Ab leading note AbMaj Ab - C - Eb

Of course, this is Satie, so this piece is far afield of the sarabandes of old harmonically.

It has a pretty big range, so if you are using a different tuning than 12 str matched reciprocal. you will have to do a small bit of arranging in a few places. I have already done a bit of arranging of this piece to get it to fit into range of typical tapping instruments (nothing major though, mostly just one 4 bar section dropped down an octave)

.fbjson file

By Section Material

Section p

Section p and Section q are:
-- A series of descending lines that move from the melody side to the bass side,
-- Followed by a couple measures of block/poly chords