Trying to write a Fugue

I don't really have composition knowledge or experience I do like fugues a lot and have learned the first two from WTC 1 on piano. This is incomplete I am wondering what we think so far

B Majuh.pdf

Hi, @draingxngceo!

This is short, but personally, I think it doesn't sound bad - not gonna lie, so far so good: it depends on how it develops from here, but it will sound good I guess. As of now, it’s difficult to get a glimpse of the overall characteristics of this piece—the last part feels a bit awkward. I'm not sure, but I feel like in this piece, you might be focusing too much on using a fugue, prioritizing it over the clarity of the motif or the subtlety of the development. Look at Bach's works, for example—while they are fugues, in many of them, the musical character of the piece seems to stand out more than the fugue structure itself.

Anyway, since you mentioned it's incomplete, I’m looking forward to seeing how you develop it from here. When it's finished, please be sure to post it in this forum! You'll be able to get more detailed feedback from knowledgeable people, maybe.

I don't know music theory, so I can't offer any specific ideas (sorry), but I'm sharing this piece with you because you love fugues!😁

Also, welcome to the forum, let's enjoy this forum together :)

Best,

Lithl.

HELLO

Let me just say that if you have no experience in composition, you’ve got a long way to go before you can compose a proper fugue.

I get the impression you must have some knowledge of counterpoint.

But before you start composing fugues, you need to master other, less demanding areas of strict counterpoint.

It’s simply not possible to come up with a logically structured composition just by studying two of Bach’s fugues and leaving it at that.

What you’ve written doesn’t sound bad, but, in my opinion, there’s a point (which I think is the one mentioned by @Lithl ) where everything falls apart quite a bit, and that’s in bar 6. Because you’re forming a D#–A tritone which, although the intention is for some of these to be passing notes, I think that should resolve into a Bb chord. Enharmonically, you have Eb–A, a tritone which, in this context, must resolve in this way. The solution you’ve suggested for another context is fine, but here, at least for me, it ruins the whole thing.

Edited October 29Oct 29 by Luis Hernández

20 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

HELLO

Let me just say that if you have no experience in composition, you’ve got a long way to go before you can compose a proper fugue.

I get the impression you must have some knowledge of counterpoint.

But before you start composing fugues, you need to master other, less demanding areas of strict counterpoint.

It’s simply not possible to come up with a logically structured composition just by studying two of Bach’s fugues and leaving it at that.

What you’ve written doesn’t sound bad, but, in my opinion, there’s a point (which I think is the one mentioned by @Lithl ) where everything falls apart quite a bit, and that’s in bar 6. Because you’re forming a D#–A tritone which, although the intention is for some of these to be passing notes, I think that should resolve into a Bb chord. Enharmonically, you have Eb–A, a tritone which, in this context, must resolve in this way. The solution you’ve suggested for another context is fine, but here, at least for me, it ruins the whole thing.

How would you recommend I go about learning counterpoint? I would like to study counterpoint further it is true that I have a little base knowledge but not much.

I would heavily recommend starting with an introductory textbook on harmony, such as this one by the ABRSM which you can view for free. The counterpoint you're interested in (18th-century counterpoint) is essentially the usage and adaptation of (16th century) contrapuntal techniques in the context of harmony, so detailed knowledge of the latter is absolutely essential.

One thing I noticed about what I wrote is that I slightly varied the subject in the different statements. The subject ends on a low B which in the first statement is cut off because I wanted to follow it immediately with some sixteenths. The second statement holds that B for a longer duration, and in the third statement it's even longer. Is this an error?