My First Fugue

I wanted to write a fugue. I had never written one before so I wasn't quite sure how to start. These is a simple, unambitious firt try. It could have been developed in a million interesting ways, as the theme is simple enough to be easily manipulated but I stuck with straight transposition.

my first fugue - may 2001.mp3 - 1.76MB

there are a lot of harmony issues (like when the 3rd voice comes in).
the score, unfortunately, is a bit annoying to read. is there any way you could post a MIDI instead? or better yet, a PDF?

In the first staff, near the last measure, if I recall, I noticed some parallel 5ths. They were "disguised" and COULD, if one wanted to be very liberal, be dismissed, but I did hear them, and generally, parallel 5ths properly disguised should not be audible (there are actually numerous examples in Bach's music of disguised parallel 5ths... the audible result however is that you don't hear the 5ths at all).

There are more egregious errors, like at the entrance of teh 3rd voice, where not only is the harmony not clearly identifiable, but there are parallel 8ves with the alto.
At the 4th voice entrance, the harmony is too indestinct, and then promptly resolves to a 2nd inversion (including some more parallel octaves between alto and bass).

I think you have a bit of work to do in counterpoint before attacking something as ambitious as a fugue. But trust me, the work WILL pay off in the end. I think counterpoint is the one course I regret the least of all my years of musical study. Even in music that is not strictly "tonal", it still has principles that apply and help keep cohesiveness.

It sounded good, but as qc said there are some technical problems, But I did like it, I though you could have expanded the peice, length-wise. keep up the good work.

Originally Posted by QcCowboy

there are a lot of harmony issues (like when the 3rd voice comes in).
the score, unfortunately, is a bit annoying to read. is there any way you could post a MIDI instead? or better yet, a PDF?

In the first staff, near the last measure, if I recall, I noticed some parallel 5ths. They were "disguised" and COULD, if one wanted to be very liberal, be dismissed, but I did hear them, and generally, parallel 5ths properly disguised should not be audible (there are actually numerous examples in Bach's music of disguised parallel 5ths... the audible result however is that you don't hear the 5ths at all).

There are more egregious errors, like at the entrance of teh 3rd voice, where not only is the harmony not clearly identifiable, but there are parallel 8ves with the alto.
At the 4th voice entrance, the harmony is too indestinct, and then promptly resolves to a 2nd inversion (including some more parallel octaves between alto and bass).

I think you have a bit of work to do in counterpoint before attacking something as ambitious as a fugue. But trust me, the work WILL pay off in the end. I think counterpoint is the one course I regret the least of all my years of musical study. Even in music that is not strictly "tonal", it still has principles that apply and help keep cohesiveness.

Thanks very much for the in-depth feedback. It's more or less what I expected (parallel fifths and eights, murkiness at a couple of points) but I appreciate the way you've described the technical shortcomings of this piece. I was pretty proud of it at the time since I had no real training in what a fugue (or even a parallel fifth) was and people seemed to like the way it sounded. In essence, I just winged it.

Have you had a chance to listen to some of my more recent stuff? I posted a brief choral piece I wrote only a few years ago (that for some unknown reason I posted it the chamber works area). I'd love to hear your thoughts on it since you obviously have an excellent ear and top notch technical knowledge.

Also, since you appear to have a strong understanding of counterpoint, I also posted some canons.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by blm22

It sounded good, but as qc said there are some technical problems, But I did like it, I though you could have expanded the peice, length-wise. keep up the good work.

Thanks! I'm glad you like the way it sounded despite the technical shortcomings. I too wish I had expanded on it especially since the subject is so easy to manipulate (such as inversion) without having to take liberties with intervals to retain the intended musical character. I always felt taking too many liberties with intervals (deviating from precisely measured canonic variations) defeats the purity of a fugue (or canon).

needs moar planning

Forgive me, but did you write this seven years ago? That seems to be what the title would suggest.

In terms of criticism, you've captured a the right sort of atmosphere in this composition, but more harmonic planning is required. It's all very well filling in the fugue subject and then contorting a harmony around it, but unless you've decided quite what chords it's implying, the general end-product is usually a dissapointing ramble through keys chosen more or less at random.The best way to do this would be to write the bass part immediately after filling in the relevant countersubject. That was how I did this little snippet, which I think is rather similar to this composition. I wrote it in an evening about a month ago, but never finished it.

I'd also note that in terms of structure it's very unusual to have the subject simultaneously in all voices until the final stretto passage, or at least until a final set of middle-entries.

I bought a book a while ago called Gradus Ad Parnassum, by J.Fux. This is arguably the most helpful book for the study of counterpoint. It's a few hundred years old, but has been studied in full depth by J.S.Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. This will make a huge difference to anyone interested in writing counterpoint.

Hope this helps you as much as it helped me!

Originally Posted by Zetetic

Forgive me, but did you write this seven years ago? That seems to be what the title would suggest.

In terms of criticism, you've captured a the right sort of atmosphere in this composition, but more harmonic planning is required. It's all very well filling in the fugue subject and then contorting a harmony around it, but unless you've decided quite what chords it's implying, the general end-product is usually a dissapointing ramble through keys chosen more or less at random.The best way to do this would be to write the bass part immediately after filling in the relevant countersubject. That was how I did this little snippet, which I think is rather similar to this composition. I wrote it in an evening about a month ago, but never finished it.

I'd also note that in terms of structure it's very unusual to have the subject simultaneously in all voices until the final stretto passage, or at least until a final set of middle-entries.

Yes, it was written 7 years ago. Thanks for your informative comments. Highly appreciated.

Originally Posted by angushay

I bought a book a while ago called Gradus Ad Parnassum, by J.Fux. This is arguably the most helpful book for the study of counterpoint. It's a few hundred years old, but has been studied in full depth by J.S.Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. This will make a huge difference to anyone interested in writing counterpoint.

Hope this helps you as much as it helped me!

What the fux? Sorry ... couldn't resist. Thanks. I've never read that one.