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"JS Bach wrote some of the most undeniably beautiful music there is," says Paul Gilbert. "His compositions tend to be more interesting melodically than rhythmically, but I favour melody as a listener, so that suits me fine."

Paul's assertion that Bach focuses more on melody than rhythm is true here, as Prelude in D major is an onslaught of 16th notes using alternate picking. This will help develop your picking accuracy, but the piece will also improve fretting hand dexterity.

If you've ever played or studied Bach before, you'll notice his command of modulation (changing keys) and variation. Although the piece remains in and around the key centre of D major throughout, it also delves into several different keys, so you'll never find yourself staying in the same area of the fretboard for very long.

Whilst this makes it harder to memorise the main bulk of the piece, the melody retains its basic shape al the way through, so you should see a phrasing pattern emerge from the beginning. There are no obvious sections to practise due to the constant semiquaver rhythm, so it may be useful to learn it in digestible 4 and 8 bar portions.

Since it's quite difficult to 'see' the keys as you're travelling through them and therefore latch onto any obvious scale shapes, there'll be a strong element of muscle memory and pure repetition in order to memorise the piece in its entirety.

The freetime ending is loosely based on the original, with an extravagant cadenza solo section that is quite common in classical music. The faster arpeggios are based around diminished 7th shapes that include extended notes fretted with picking hand taps.

This is quite an advanced technique, so if you haven't studied combining tapping with sweep-picking, then improvise with one of the diminished 7th shapes first off.

Last thought: Paul plays this at 125bpm but some pianists play it at around 150bpm. What are you aiming for?

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