Bruh this tutorial fugue actually is a great piece and you shouldn't be discouraged if its a banger or not, because in my opinion it sounds amazing! I enjoy your structure and your teachings thank you!!!
Thank you very much for this channel - I'm a private music instructor and it's really nice to be able to drive my students to resources like this to supplement their learning
I really thank this videos, I haven't studied any formal introduction to music in my life but I always managed to learn from my own compositions and from what I could found on the internet. These are great videos for free that allow me to take professional lessons, and I really encourage you to continue with this because I know I'm not the only one who thinks this
Thank you very much for this great lesson! Small suggestion: I would love to hear the score played not only after, but also before you start commenting it. It would "frame" your explanation, maybe making it more concrete and easy to grasp
This is a very helpful presentation, Jacob. Thank you being clear and focused in your methodology in this tutorial. I have watched it a few times to really take it in. At some point I will join your course. I just don’t have extra cortical real estate at the moment. This is right down my alley though!
I wrote about your channel in my college application! Thanks for everything! Also that Dorian Subject and florid counterpoint reminds me of Bach e major fugue book 2 (as well as Michael Haydn's 23rd Symphony finale in D)
The issue that fugue is not a musical form but a process, or a composicion tecnique is interesting, I learned in this way too. But sometimes we see around musician dealing fugue as a form. If I am not wrong there is a letter by Mozart talking about fugue on which he calls it as musical form. Well, I desagree to Mozart in one point about music, so. :)
Usually people just use that line whenever something weird happens in a fugue :) It’s only a useful saying IMO if the writer clues the audience in to what the process actually is that they are referring to.
I would be interested in coding some of these into an improv software, and play around generating fugues and counterpoints out of any sequences of notes. Also can generate improvs from an existing set and yet deform them into interesting new forms. Just some thoughts on the matter have been play with for past 5 years or more.
On fugue as process, or compositional technique and not a form. Well, for Bach, it seems to be the highest form of musical craftsmanship - to him it seemed to define what counterpoint is in its fullest expression. So to me, to say a fugue is not a form, and only a process or composition technique, is to reduce fugue to simply a type of counterpoint. In the form, concerto grosso (the overture to Handel's Messiah is in this form), Opens with a very rich hymn-like composition (in Em) akin to a slow movements from Bethovens concertos or sonatas, then after a perfect cadence in B, it pauses and breaks into my favorite fugue - the ending is awesome. It is a 4 voice fugue. We could argue that the form of a concerto grosso is a way of combining smaller compositions into one. He called this piece t an Overture - which can be in almost any form. By Bach's time, fugues were out of style but he loved them and devoted a lot of work to the form and we could say elevated it to its rightful place as the most beautiful form of counterpuntal compositions (he never shy'd away from using canons in his fugues which demonstrates absolute counterputal mastery). It is icing on the cake when a composer is aiming to highlight or flex his compositional skills, or demonstrate the depth of his subject by writing a fugetta (short fugal section of a larger composition - Bethovens 3rd symphony 2nd movement uses this form before the climax of this funeral march) . Seems like when a composer want to go deep, he writes a fugue (bethovens 2nd movement to his 7th symphony). I would argue that Canons and Fugues became after thought in comparison to the sonata and concerto, the form is too pedantic to stretch into a 10 to 15 minute piece. However, Bach was a master of using every bit of a themes possibilities within a fugal framework - what a master. Check out his Passacaglia and fugue in Cm - so beautiful and monumental in its scope, it starts with a pasacaglia (similar to the cantus firmus, just longer) and ends in one of the most epic fugues I have come across - only the 3 movement of Mahler's 9th symphony comes close (Mozarts double fugue from his requium in Dm is a very close third - also masterful in its use of stetto and canon. As you can see, I love fugues. But bachs fugue in this piece uses almost every possible permutaion imaginable - stupendous creativity. Also, the C major fugue from book 1 of his, Well Temperered Clavier is an excellent and masterful example of stretta. Keep up the good work Gran.
These are some very good points. It would have been beyond the scope of the video for me to explore the differences between "form," "genre," and other technical terms. If pressed, I think I would say that fugue is a polyphonic genre of music, rather than a form per se. Also, I will be analyzing some of those fugues that you mentioned later in this video series; I agree they are really great.
The deceptive cadence in the 3-voice fugue that you talk about around 10:50 was so baffeling to me when I first saw it; it still is really. The soprano leap from D (as the top of a diminished 5th) up to F seems so foreign to me.
Can you criticize my fugue? I wrote one watching your videos! I love writing fugues now, a short theme can change into magic playing around with harmony! Experimenting with suspensions these days. Next I want to learn more about the pedal points, not sure if I fully understand it yet. The music in the opening of that video by CPE Bach, on True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, I'm obessed with, even if it's like 3 measures.
Pedel points are easy once you understand their function. Listen to Bach's organ pieces and you'll understand how and when to use them. Usually, they're used at the end of a piece and typically on the 5th degree of the scale emphasizing the function of that final section, signaling that we are headed home to the 1 chord (or 1st degree of the scale). Place the link to your fugue, I would love to hear it.
@@esjel9804 I've uploaded it on my RUclips channel, it's the Fugetta. I'll take a look back at his Pedal Point video, taking into consideration your comment. Thank you.
hello professor. i have studied the species counterpoint videos closely. might have jumped a little, i got excited. would like to ask about the suspensions. for instance in the first example, the first episode: soprano has an unprepared suspension against the e in the alto. why is this? because it is being sequenced? thank you.
Good question! You are right that the leap to the note D on beat three forms a dissonant seventh above the alto, which seems like the wrong way to prepare a suspension. What we have here is a combination of two dissonant figures: the note D of the soprano is not the dissonant note, the E of the alto is an accented passing tone. The alto "should" have resolved its suspension to F on beat 3, and then if you want the notes E and D before the next downbeat they would need to be crammed in as eighth notes on beat 4. But the composer chose a rhythmically equalized version that spreads those notes out as evenly flowing quarter notes. There is one particularly dissonant passage by Josquin that I am thinking of that also is formed by normal dissonance patterns arranged in unexpected ways.
Lovely video! I wish I could make videos like these but...I'm not confident in myself to explain the concept. Keep up the great work! I'm glad to have found your channel.
Question about Fux's Gradus. I have Alfred Mann's english translation of his study on counterpoint. I have not seen Fugue studies in this edition of Gradus. Is there an edition that is a complete english translation?
Great question. Gradus has three big sections 1) theory about the nature of consonances derived from numbers and divisions of the monochord; 2) the dialogue on species counterpoint, translated by Mann as The Study of Counterpoint; and 3) the continued dialogue on fugue, translated by Mann in The Study of Fugue along with some other great 18thc sources on fugue.
@@JacobGran Great! Thanks for the detailed answer. I have been debating purchasing Mann's book on the Study of Fugue and now I know I should. You are a wealth of knowledge.
@@JacobGran Everything is fine in this video. The only thing that constantly caught my eye was the absence of pauses in the bars where one or another voice is silent. This is especially evident in the exposition of fugues.
I feel like all of this is far to advanced for me, but I really want to learn composition. I'm only at grade 3 in piano as an adult learner, would it be possible for you to please recommend some resources where I can work my way up to understanding your videos?
Good question. This video is definitely not intended to be viewed on its own, but as a very late chapter in a series of videos. I would recommend to start at the beginning and work through a playlist of videos I made last year called "Tonal Voice Leading," beginning with How to Compose 1:1 Counterpoint, including actually doing the counterpoint exercises I recommend. If that video is also too advanced, then I would recommend a RUclips channel called Music Matters, who does a great job covering the fundamentals of music theory.
@@JacobGran brilliant! I started with that video actually, just forgot to comment there, and yes unfortunately it was a bit advanced for me, thank you for the music matters reccomendation, I'll be back here after learning some fundamentals.
I noticed that in the video a lot of times you have considerations which are not contrapuntal but structural. For example deciding where should be a weak or a strong cadence or changing up the keys for variety... Are there any guidelines on this? How did you arrive at those conclusions?
Great question. The typical "form" of these kinds of academic fugues would always place the strongest cadence (one clearly stronger than the others) at the very end. One other strong cadence can go at the beginning in the tonic key or the dominant, but all the others should be weak in one way or another (i.e., in a different key, deceptive resolution, voice drops out of the texture, etc.) to keep the momentum going in the middle of the piece. The cadences in nearby related keys (typically III, V, or VI) are about creating variety, not about modulating. Often after a cadence, the next phrase snaps back immediately to the tonic key. Keep in mind though that we are only talking about the 18th century academic fugue. Many modal fugues from the 15 and 16th centuries show no such planning out of cadences, at least with respect to projecting a sense of a global tonic key, and their final cadences sound surprising to our modern ears. For example, "Oculus non Vidit" by Lassus sounds like A minor all the way through, and then suddenly ends with a cadence in D.
No development secctions? That requires you to think a little more about the large.scale form and the harmonic scheme you use, I guess. But I admit that as an exercise, this is, undoubtly better to start with. Also, I guess they more or less stayed in the same key originally, but this is of course, not the case later in history (say 19:th century) , where you can have large fuges with seccions in very distant tonal regions. I think there is a weakness at the end of bar number 20 where some kind of fluidy is called for, in my opinion (something that is very easy to fix). You don't want the rythmic flow to halt just before a new entrance, espeically not when you have a theme with long note values like this.
Fluidity is not called for in bar 20 because there is a cadence, and cadence is not only harmonic but also a rhythmic device. The cadence draws the listener's attention, after which something important happens (subject entry). So the whole thing works out nicely IMO. Also, the meter is 2/2, so this "lack of fluidity" doesn't feel abrupt or anything, at least to me. If you look at Bach's fugue in E major (book 2 of wtc), in bar 9 you will see a similar device being used.
Would you recommend a nice counterpoint book to pair with your lessons? I'm thinking Fux which seems good but I would love to know one book in particular that you like
2 voice motets by Orlando di Lasso. You can find a book with the "complete" motets and one with parts left out. Up to you to fill in the gaps and complete the voices. Always fun to write 2 voice motets yourself btw, start in canon and then become more free and with more diminutions towards the cadences
Sorry it took a while to get around to this. Yes, Fux is the way to go, but unfortunately the English translations of the sections about species counterpoint and fugue are published separately by Alfred Mann (The Study of Counterpoint, and The Study of Fugue, respectively). If you don't mind a simplified version written in the old clefs, you can find an 18th century English translation on imslp.org for free that has both sections. Another option is Knud Jeppesen's book Counterpoint, which is very clearly written and has a lot of extra explanatory material, but is very much focused on the Palestrina, modal repertoire.
@@igordrm Hello mate. Well done for pointing out Schoey baby! I've been studying counterpoint from his expert guidance for quite some time now and no other teacher comes close. Shoey is straight to the point with his logic and coherence. In fact, I'd go as far to say that pretty much everyone else is full of misleading fanciful notions, no help to any student. I say this cos I've made detailed studies/analyses of many RUclips counterpoint videos, at least 20 on just First Species counterpoint, which is absolutely vitality important to master before moving on. Every one of them have errors that aren't even discussed and show a huge weakness in their understanding of what's going on, completely misleading students. There is no way anybody can learn one of the Species from a 10 or 15 minute video. Ridiculous. I spent about 9 months on First Species alone and discovered so much stuff, building a strong and proper foundation for all the other species. Every single video attempting to teach First Species is flawed. I do not trust any of these 'teachers'. Shoey baby is the only way to go. But of course, to really benefit and get the most out of him, you really have to put serious work into it, which for me is a pleasure and a joy. Once again, thank you for bringing up the one and only master Arnold Schoenberg!
I have two pieces of advice. First, if you are intent on courting a lady through musical composition (on the reasonable assumption that women mate like songbirds), you should use as little counterpoint as possible. Whatever you do, do not prepare and resolve your dissonances. Introduce them unprepared and fade into silence, like Eric Whitacre. Second, and following on the first point, you need to immediately stop spending time learning counterpoint. According to the analytics on this video, the viewership so far is 100% male (not a joke). My channel is basically the corner of the internet one would go to in order to get as far from women as possible. I don't know if it's how boring the material is, my nasal voice, or some combination, but this channel is to women as cat urine is to field mice.
Explain? It would be ironic for the classical book on counterpoint to have an error in it that not even the author or bach, bethoven or others seen. Moreover, one can break the rules at times, but there must be a good reason for it and you don't do that in a text book unless you highlight the exceptions to the rules.
Honestly i had to reconsider some aspects about those fugues. By playing them on my own it all seemed more natural than the impression i had by the midi organ. However i said semi-errors because they were not errors, but very strange choices, but yet a dorian fuge is something very rare and a very innatural union between tonality and non tonality. In conclusion it’s just strange to hear sort of modal cadences in a fuge.
Quite instructive and very much appreciated. I have very good relative pitch, and can follow what you describe on staff, nevertheless your lessons would be greatly enhanced by aural examples at key points. Describing music without sound is as poor as describing a Van Gogh without a picture. I would suggest you visit Dr. Seth Monahan's channel and listen for yourself. You could also stand to loosen up your bowtie just a wee bit. Don't ya think, DOCTOR?
Soltanto a scuola. Se si studia le opere dei grandi compositori (da Palestrina a J. S. Bach, da Lasso a Mendelssohn…) di queste fioriture “proibite” ne troverà a quintali. Soprattutto nella scrittura vocale, dove oserei dire perfino che siano un ‘must’. 😉
Wouldn’t it be better to teach using examples by JS Bach? JS Bach was writing perfect fugues before Fux even published Gradus. I feel like since Fux based this off Palestrina’s work its teachings are invalid it you want to write real fugal music. Many valid Fugues by Bach “breaks rules” in Gradus, but are more valid because Bach wrote them, so they must be valid.
actually is not a good subject because it has no difference to the counterpoint line, it has no character. It is good and easy to compose , but for the listener is bad. The listener will see the counterpoints as thematic material, and the counterpoint will have to be also more interesting, making it harder to compose the counterpoint .For improvisation is excellent.
Older music student here. I WISH I had such a resource back in 1989 when I was studying classical theory. What a treat this is!
Thank you; I'm glad you find it useful!
Breyv how old are you mait
Me too.
Can Gen Z not fathom that people over 60 exist? lmao@@erwinschulhoff4464
Bruh this tutorial fugue actually is a great piece and you shouldn't be discouraged if its a banger or not, because in my opinion it sounds amazing! I enjoy your structure and your teachings thank you!!!
I love this kind of tutorials. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you!
Thank you very much for this channel - I'm a private music instructor and it's really nice to be able to drive my students to resources like this to supplement their learning
I really thank this videos, I haven't studied any formal introduction to music in my life but I always managed to learn from my own compositions and from what I could found on the internet. These are great videos for free that allow me to take professional lessons, and I really encourage you to continue with this because I know I'm not the only one who thinks this
Thank you for the kind words!
21:46 Thanks for the tenth Dr. Gran. It wasn't a surprise at all when trying to sight-read it.
Then a twelfth in the penultimate bar, ruthless
Best counterpoint channel on youtube!!!
Thank you Daniele!
Very enjoyable and informative production. Many thanks.
Thank you very much for this great lesson! Small suggestion: I would love to hear the score played not only after, but also before you start commenting it. It would "frame" your explanation, maybe making it more concrete and easy to grasp
Noted!
This is a very helpful presentation, Jacob. Thank you being clear and focused in your methodology in this tutorial. I have watched it a few times to really take it in. At some point I will join your course. I just don’t have extra cortical real estate at the moment. This is right down my alley though!
Fantastic explanation, much appreciated
I wrote about your channel in my college application! Thanks for everything!
Also that Dorian Subject and florid counterpoint reminds me of Bach e major fugue book 2 (as well as Michael Haydn's 23rd Symphony finale in D)
I noticed the subject was similar to BWV 878 too!
@@henrykwieniawski7233 and the countersubject in bwv 878 is almost identical! Bach was really inspired by Fux's book.
@@garrysmodsketches Yup! Maybe I should look more into Fux's works...
Good luck with your applications!
@@garrysmodsketches take a look at that Michael Haydn symphony, the countersubject is near the same!
You are literally educating a lot!!!!!!!!!
Your videos are fanatastic thank you so much.
Glad you like them!
This is great stuff thanks. I also recommend "
Glenn Gould - So You Want to Write a Fugue"
Thanks a lot for such a valuable tutorial!
Thanks for the information!
5:38
In the hall of the mountain king!!!
The issue that fugue is not a musical form but a process, or a composicion tecnique is interesting, I learned in this way too. But sometimes we see around musician dealing fugue as a form. If I am not wrong there is a letter by Mozart talking about fugue on which he calls it as musical form. Well, I desagree to Mozart in one point about music, so. :)
Usually people just use that line whenever something weird happens in a fugue :) It’s only a useful saying IMO if the writer clues the audience in to what the process actually is that they are referring to.
I'm waiting for new episodes!
Thank you
You're welcome!
Beautiful
I would be interested in coding some of these into an improv software, and play around generating fugues and counterpoints out of any sequences of notes. Also can generate improvs from an existing set and yet deform them into interesting new forms. Just some thoughts on the matter have been play with for past 5 years or more.
Tonica Fugata 14 (Capella Software)
Try also Band in a Box
Very interesting idea!
i use the Automatic Prelude and Fugue 5.0 for mac
@@AndiAngvil Thank I might git is a try after trial. Need to write me own variations as well. In particular Tronica sounded too clean and a bit bland.
On fugue as process, or compositional technique and not a form. Well, for Bach, it seems to be the highest form of musical craftsmanship - to him it seemed to define what counterpoint is in its fullest expression. So to me, to say a fugue is not a form, and only a process or composition technique, is to reduce fugue to simply a type of counterpoint.
In the form, concerto grosso (the overture to Handel's Messiah is in this form), Opens with a very rich hymn-like composition (in Em) akin to a slow movements from Bethovens concertos or sonatas, then after a perfect cadence in B, it pauses and breaks into my favorite fugue - the ending is awesome. It is a 4 voice fugue. We could argue that the form of a concerto grosso is a way of combining smaller compositions into one. He called this piece t an Overture - which can be in almost any form.
By Bach's time, fugues were out of style but he loved them and devoted a lot of work to the form and we could say elevated it to its rightful place as the most beautiful form of counterpuntal compositions (he never shy'd away from using canons in his fugues which demonstrates absolute counterputal mastery). It is icing on the cake when a composer is aiming to highlight or flex his compositional skills, or demonstrate the depth of his subject by writing a fugetta (short fugal section of a larger composition - Bethovens 3rd symphony 2nd movement uses this form before the climax of this funeral march) . Seems like when a composer want to go deep, he writes a fugue (bethovens 2nd movement to his 7th symphony).
I would argue that Canons and Fugues became after thought in comparison to the sonata and concerto, the form is too pedantic to stretch into a 10 to 15 minute piece. However, Bach was a master of using every bit of a themes possibilities within a fugal framework - what a master. Check out his Passacaglia and fugue in Cm - so beautiful and monumental in its scope, it starts with a pasacaglia (similar to the cantus firmus, just longer) and ends in one of the most epic fugues I have come across - only the 3 movement of Mahler's 9th symphony comes close (Mozarts double fugue from his requium in Dm is a very close third - also masterful in its use of stetto and canon. As you can see, I love fugues. But bachs fugue in this piece uses almost every possible permutaion imaginable - stupendous creativity. Also, the C major fugue from book 1 of his, Well Temperered Clavier is an excellent and masterful example of stretta.
Keep up the good work Gran.
fugue is a technique. It is not a form because it allows many forms.
These are some very good points. It would have been beyond the scope of the video for me to explore the differences between "form," "genre," and other technical terms. If pressed, I think I would say that fugue is a polyphonic genre of music, rather than a form per se. Also, I will be analyzing some of those fugues that you mentioned later in this video series; I agree they are really great.
Man, this video is amazing
Please make more videos. Period.
Lovely Christmas present from mr. Gran
The deceptive cadence in the 3-voice fugue that you talk about around 10:50 was so baffeling to me when I first saw it; it still is really. The soprano leap from D (as the top of a diminished 5th) up to F seems so foreign to me.
Can you criticize my fugue? I wrote one watching your videos! I love writing fugues now, a short theme can change into magic playing around with harmony! Experimenting with suspensions these days. Next I want to learn more about the pedal points, not sure if I fully understand it yet. The music in the opening of that video by CPE Bach, on True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, I'm obessed with, even if it's like 3 measures.
Pedel points are easy once you understand their function. Listen to Bach's organ pieces and you'll understand how and when to use them. Usually, they're used at the end of a piece and typically on the 5th degree of the scale emphasizing the function of that final section, signaling that we are headed home to the 1 chord (or 1st degree of the scale).
Place the link to your fugue, I would love to hear it.
@@esjel9804 I've uploaded it on my RUclips channel, it's the Fugetta. I'll take a look back at his Pedal Point video, taking into consideration your comment. Thank you.
hello professor. i have studied the species counterpoint videos closely. might have jumped a little, i got excited. would like to ask about the suspensions. for instance in the first example, the first episode: soprano has an unprepared suspension against the e in the alto.
why is this? because it is being sequenced?
thank you.
Good question! You are right that the leap to the note D on beat three forms a dissonant seventh above the alto, which seems like the wrong way to prepare a suspension. What we have here is a combination of two dissonant figures: the note D of the soprano is not the dissonant note, the E of the alto is an accented passing tone. The alto "should" have resolved its suspension to F on beat 3, and then if you want the notes E and D before the next downbeat they would need to be crammed in as eighth notes on beat 4. But the composer chose a rhythmically equalized version that spreads those notes out as evenly flowing quarter notes. There is one particularly dissonant passage by Josquin that I am thinking of that also is formed by normal dissonance patterns arranged in unexpected ways.
Lovely video! I wish I could make videos like these but...I'm not confident in myself to explain the concept. Keep up the great work! I'm glad to have found your channel.
You should! You have a channel with many followers who are invested in your music, I'm sure they would also be interested to hear your perspectives.
@@JacobGran I appreciate your encouragement! What kind of software do you use? I'm on an old Mac, and have only ever used Garageband...
@@MitchBoucherComposer Presonus Sphere, Studio One 5.4 would be a wonderful way for you to compose and share with the world. :)
Thanks for the recommendation! :)
@@MitchBoucherComposer You're very welcome. Best Wishes.
Question about Fux's Gradus. I have Alfred Mann's english translation of his study on counterpoint. I have not seen Fugue studies in this edition of Gradus. Is there an edition that is a complete english translation?
Great question. Gradus has three big sections 1) theory about the nature of consonances derived from numbers and divisions of the monochord; 2) the dialogue on species counterpoint, translated by Mann as The Study of Counterpoint; and 3) the continued dialogue on fugue, translated by Mann in The Study of Fugue along with some other great 18thc sources on fugue.
As far as I know the only complete English translation is from the 18th century and if I remember it is available on IMSLP
@@JacobGran Great! Thanks for the detailed answer. I have been debating purchasing Mann's book on the Study of Fugue and now I know I should. You are a wealth of knowledge.
countergirrazos
🏅🤘
What edition of translated Fux's Gradus contains this section? Alfred Mann's translation "The Study of Counterpoint" does not.
It’s called The Study of Fugue.
All is good, but I have to ask you about adding an empty bar rests in voices where is no music
in a close score?
@@garrysmodsketches Surely not on this, but on the scores in progress
I'm not sure I understand the question.
@@JacobGran oh, I'm sorry, sometimes my English is falling to «Poor» level.
@@JacobGran Everything is fine in this video. The only thing that constantly caught my eye was the absence of pauses in the bars where one or another voice is silent. This is especially evident in the exposition of fugues.
This dorian cantus firmus in this series is like truck-kun in isekai animes.
I feel like all of this is far to advanced for me, but I really want to learn composition. I'm only at grade 3 in piano as an adult learner, would it be possible for you to please recommend some resources where I can work my way up to understanding your videos?
Good question. This video is definitely not intended to be viewed on its own, but as a very late chapter in a series of videos. I would recommend to start at the beginning and work through a playlist of videos I made last year called "Tonal Voice Leading," beginning with How to Compose 1:1 Counterpoint, including actually doing the counterpoint exercises I recommend. If that video is also too advanced, then I would recommend a RUclips channel called Music Matters, who does a great job covering the fundamentals of music theory.
@@JacobGran brilliant! I started with that video actually, just forgot to comment there, and yes unfortunately it was a bit advanced for me, thank you for the music matters reccomendation, I'll be back here after learning some fundamentals.
I noticed that in the video a lot of times you have considerations which are not contrapuntal but structural.
For example deciding where should be a weak or a strong cadence or changing up the keys for variety...
Are there any guidelines on this? How did you arrive at those conclusions?
Great question. The typical "form" of these kinds of academic fugues would always place the strongest cadence (one clearly stronger than the others) at the very end. One other strong cadence can go at the beginning in the tonic key or the dominant, but all the others should be weak in one way or another (i.e., in a different key, deceptive resolution, voice drops out of the texture, etc.) to keep the momentum going in the middle of the piece. The cadences in nearby related keys (typically III, V, or VI) are about creating variety, not about modulating. Often after a cadence, the next phrase snaps back immediately to the tonic key.
Keep in mind though that we are only talking about the 18th century academic fugue. Many modal fugues from the 15 and 16th centuries show no such planning out of cadences, at least with respect to projecting a sense of a global tonic key, and their final cadences sound surprising to our modern ears. For example, "Oculus non Vidit" by Lassus sounds like A minor all the way through, and then suddenly ends with a cadence in D.
@@JacobGran Awesome thanks a lot for answering! That is very easy to follow!
No development secctions? That requires you to think a little more about the large.scale form and the harmonic scheme you use, I guess. But I admit that as an exercise, this is, undoubtly better to start with. Also, I guess they more or less stayed in the same key originally, but this is of course, not the case later in history (say 19:th century) , where you can have large fuges with seccions in very distant tonal regions.
I think there is a weakness at the end of bar number 20 where some kind of fluidy is called for, in my opinion (something that is very easy to fix). You don't want the rythmic flow to halt just before a new entrance, espeically not when you have a theme with long note values like this.
Fluidity is not called for in bar 20 because there is a cadence, and cadence is not only harmonic but also a rhythmic device. The cadence draws the listener's attention, after which something important happens (subject entry). So the whole thing works out nicely IMO. Also, the meter is 2/2, so this "lack of fluidity" doesn't feel abrupt or anything, at least to me. If you look at Bach's fugue in E major (book 2 of wtc), in bar 9 you will see a similar device being used.
What about the terms of Dux and Comes..didn t Fuchs knie Them?
In my, I have been using the English equivalents "leader" and "follower," for instance in this video when I described the strettos.
👍🙂
Would you recommend a nice counterpoint book to pair with your lessons? I'm thinking Fux which seems good but I would love to know one book in particular that you like
2 voice motets by Orlando di Lasso. You can find a book with the "complete" motets and one with parts left out. Up to you to fill in the gaps and complete the voices.
Always fun to write 2 voice motets yourself btw, start in canon and then become more free and with more diminutions towards the cadences
Sorry it took a while to get around to this. Yes, Fux is the way to go, but unfortunately the English translations of the sections about species counterpoint and fugue are published separately by Alfred Mann (The Study of Counterpoint, and The Study of Fugue, respectively). If you don't mind a simplified version written in the old clefs, you can find an 18th century English translation on imslp.org for free that has both sections. Another option is Knud Jeppesen's book Counterpoint, which is very clearly written and has a lot of extra explanatory material, but is very much focused on the Palestrina, modal repertoire.
Arnold Schoenberg
@@igordrm Hello mate. Well done for pointing out Schoey baby! I've been studying counterpoint from his expert guidance for quite some time now and no other teacher comes close. Shoey is straight to the point with his logic and coherence. In fact, I'd go as far to say that pretty much everyone else is full of misleading fanciful notions, no help to any student. I say this cos I've made detailed studies/analyses of many RUclips counterpoint videos, at least 20 on just First Species counterpoint, which is absolutely vitality important to master before moving on. Every one of them have errors that aren't even discussed and show a huge weakness in their understanding of what's going on, completely misleading students. There is no way anybody can learn one of the Species from a 10 or 15 minute video. Ridiculous. I spent about 9 months on First Species alone and discovered so much stuff, building a strong and proper foundation for all the other species. Every single video attempting to teach First Species is flawed. I do not trust any of these 'teachers'. Shoey baby is the only way to go. But of course, to really benefit and get the most out of him, you really have to put serious work into it, which for me is a pleasure and a joy. Once again, thank you for bringing up the one and only master Arnold Schoenberg!
@@stupidgus123 Scoenberg's Harmonielehre outshines others books on harmony as well.
1:26
efrer 28:32
How tf could Bach write a cantata like every week?
A very fertile mind
And imagine all the players and singers esp teenagers who needed to learn this music in a week's time.
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You have a parallel fifth.
countershreds
Could you teach us how to get a gf on the next episode??? Please??
I have two pieces of advice. First, if you are intent on courting a lady through musical composition (on the reasonable assumption that women mate like songbirds), you should use as little counterpoint as possible. Whatever you do, do not prepare and resolve your dissonances. Introduce them unprepared and fade into silence, like Eric Whitacre.
Second, and following on the first point, you need to immediately stop spending time learning counterpoint. According to the analytics on this video, the viewership so far is 100% male (not a joke). My channel is basically the corner of the internet one would go to in order to get as far from women as possible. I don't know if it's how boring the material is, my nasal voice, or some combination, but this channel is to women as cat urine is to field mice.
@@JacobGran You are simply amazing
hahahaha!
It seems to me that those simple fuges by Fux contain a series of voice conduction problems, and some “semi-errors” in counterpoint
Explain? It would be ironic for the classical book on counterpoint to have an error in it that not even the author or bach, bethoven or others seen. Moreover, one can break the rules at times, but there must be a good reason for it and you don't do that in a text book unless you highlight the exceptions to the rules.
Honestly i had to reconsider some aspects about those fugues. By playing them on my own it all seemed more natural than the impression i had by the midi organ. However i said semi-errors because they were not errors, but very strange choices, but yet a dorian fuge is something very rare and a very innatural union between tonality and non tonality. In conclusion it’s just strange to hear sort of modal cadences in a fuge.
Quite instructive and very much appreciated. I have very good relative pitch, and can follow what you describe on staff, nevertheless your lessons would be greatly enhanced by aural examples at key points. Describing music without sound is as poor as describing a Van Gogh without a picture. I would suggest you visit Dr. Seth Monahan's channel and listen for yourself. You could also stand to loosen up your bowtie just a wee bit. Don't ya think, DOCTOR?
E' vietato fiorire l''unisono battuta 8 e battuta 9
Soltanto a scuola. Se si studia le opere dei grandi compositori (da Palestrina a J. S. Bach, da Lasso a Mendelssohn…) di queste fioriture “proibite” ne troverà a quintali. Soprattutto nella scrittura vocale, dove oserei dire perfino che siano un ‘must’. 😉
First
Wouldn’t it be better to teach using examples by JS Bach? JS Bach was writing perfect fugues before Fux even published Gradus. I feel like since Fux based this off Palestrina’s work its teachings are invalid it you want to write real fugal music. Many valid Fugues by Bach “breaks rules” in Gradus, but are more valid because Bach wrote them, so they must be valid.
a) baby steps
b) he made that video, one of my favorites by him
actually is not a good subject because it has no difference to the counterpoint line, it has no character. It is good and easy to compose , but for the listener is bad. The listener will see the counterpoints as thematic material, and the counterpoint will have to be also more interesting, making it harder to compose the counterpoint .For improvisation is excellent.