The Necessary becomes Magic

I've written about the Bach Lute prelude BWV999 before. It is a really nice piece, suitable for beginners yet has depth that suited Segovia and many other masters.
I have been playing it almost every day that I pick up the guitar, often more than once. It is a perfect warm up exercise. In the past, I used it for speed. Lately I play it more slowly, eliciting as nice a plucky tone as one can get from a 12-string.

Today I'd like to concentrate on one of the early difficulties in this piece, measure 15. As you can see below, it requires holding the lowest f while barring the top 3 courses of the 5th fret. This is difficult on a classical guitar, very difficult on a 12-string guitar, and now, for me with arthritis or something in my left hand, almost impossible.


One day a light went on behind my eyes - why not let the octave strings do the work?!

A little work, and I came up with this:


Much easier.