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  1. I'm not sure you have read all the previous comments, because you are over-lecturing me. But I'll put the blame on the bad quality of my 'pastiche'. I have admitted earlier that my episodes were short or absent. And that I have neglected the general check up. Because of that, I will delete this post once we've closed the discussion. As for the motive itself, it has a degree 4# in bar 3, which I interpret as a short modulation into the dominant. Otherwise it would just be an altered chord (IV#). So I have assumed for the last bar of the motive a Tonic: I / dom: IV-I. Please, let me know what you think of my choice. Back to your comment: At bar 6(7) we have {Sop,Bass} = {A,F}-{G,G}-{A,A} = F:I / C:IV. But what do you mean by V-IV? Or did you follow the (wrong) numbering in the score? At bar 5(6),{Bb,G}-{-.E}. This is F:vii6, followed at next bar by F:I / C:IV. The last two crochets of bar 7(8) are {D,A}-{Bb,G} = d minor: (ambiguously) i or iv. And the next bar is d:V. The key of C is at 6(7), {C,E}-{G,E}, the tonic chord of the dom key in the end of the motive, as I've just explained. I'll not explain for the other bars (12, 16). About Bach's 2-part inventions, I mentioned (in a previous comment) that Bach's faster rhythm (3 or 4 notes to a beat) is a good asset for handling unessential tones (compared to my 2-notes to a beat). But this motive has a constant, fast rhythm and has only quavers (or semi-). It doesn't leave much room for maneuver of the counter motive and trying to avoid dissonances or ambiguous chords with the motive. And I didn't want to accelerate in the counter-motive. On the contrary, I used 'augmentation' (slower rhythm applied to segments of the motive) in the counter motive. Thank you for your time.
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  2. only listen to this if you'll listen to it all the way through
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  3. Since this book is a fairly comprehensive text in harmony, you should keep what you've learnt from this book in mind - not only for these counterpoint pastiches you're writing, but for everything you write from now. The reason why I'm mentioning this is: 18th-century counterpoint (which is what the Goetschius book deals with) and all of the counterpoint-employing music that comes after, is completely interwoven with harmony. All of the harmonic devices/features you have learnt so far, you should find readily in these inventions. And so with this in mind, you can hopefully see the two major problems: There are no strong cadences (V-I in root position etc.) anywhere in the piece. This is the musical equivalent of writing a paragraph of text with no punctuation whatsoever. Some of what you write is either harmonically ambiguous, or does not follow common harmony rules. Examples: - In bar 6, what are the first two crotchets supposed to be? Is this V-IV? This is a forbidden progression. Is this I-IV? Then why is the root of I missing? Contrast this with the last two crochets of bar 7, which clearly spells out a C major chord and is well-written. - What are the last two crochets of bar 12 trying to spell out? Is this V? vii°? i? - What is bar 16? You start off with a G chord (fine), introduces the C# in the upper voice which strongly suggests a chord that is the dominant seventh in third inversion of D minor (also fine), but then this dominant seventh resolves to a B natural chord (?) Point 1 can be easily fixed. Regarding point 2: if you look at Bach's 15 Inventions, you will find that 14 of them have semiquaver prevailing rhythms, and the remainder uses broken chords extensively. This is completely deliberate in 2-part writing. Writing in semiquavers gives you more notes to work with, and one advantage of that is it allows you to trace out chords easily thereby making your harmony unambiguous. I would recommend a similar approach here. The other problem here is form. The main material in a 2-part invention is a section of invertible counterpoint, which is then repeated but often inverted (in the sense of two voices exchanging the material they play) and/or transposed, often called the theme. You have indeed written this. But you also need material between these sections, called episodes. These have multiple functions: they serve as modulatory material, they provide a break from the theme, they introduce devices not often found in the theme such as sequences, they allow motifs found in the theme to be presented in a new context (e.g. harmonised differently), they facilitate strong cadences mentioned above, and so on. You need to write these episodes in for your invention to adhere to the form.
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  4. Thanks for the comment! You’re absolutely right that thinning out the texture can help keep things fresh — that idea crossed my mind as well while writing. I treated it more like a fugue d’école rather than a stylistically Baroque fugue (the subject itself is a 20th‑century textbook theme), so I kept the four‑voice texture going longer than I normally would. I also thought about extending some of the three‑voice spots, but the subject is already pretty long and the tempo is on the slower side, so the whole thing was starting to feel a bit too stretched out. Still, your point is totally valid, and I appreciate you mentioning it. Glad you enjoyed the fugue!
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  5. @Frederic Gill inspired this one. He wrote an invention as an exercise from one of his Counterpoint books on the same motive that you can hear here: I was inspired by his attempt so I decided to give it a try myself. Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!
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