My journey to analyze all of J.S. Bach's Chorales
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- Опубликовано: 19 авг 2023
- Hi everyone! Long time no see 😲. A lot has been going on as of late, and I have been trying my best to plug away at this video with the free time I could spend on it. This video took a very long time to produce (even longer because I had to remake it due to losing the project file when updating my computer), but I am happy to present this overview and self reflection on my journey to analyze all of JS Bach's chorales.
If you're new to the channel, check out some of my individual analyses. I analyzed every chorale (sometimes more than once on accident!), so there is no shortage of content even if you just want something on in the background. And be on the lookout for more video essays in the months to come!
Check out my website: forrestbalman.com
Pick up a copy of my complete collection of all of J.S. Bach's chorales!
www.etsy.com/listing/17338368... 
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I've been studying Bach for ~40 years, and I've still only scratched the surface.
Mozart said it best: "Bach is the father, we are the children."
As long as I know Mozart thought about J.S.Bachs second son, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in this quote. Mozart felt very inspired by C.P.E. Bachs Music which already was the gateway to the classical period and at some points about the opposite of his fathers compositions.
I still agree though :)
Man what a cool project. Like the sort of thing I imagine myself doing but never have. Sounds like it was massively enriching, and thank you for sharing the results with us!
Thank you so much for the kind words! It was a massive undertaking only in hindsight. Once I got into the routine of doing a video everyday, it just kept growing and growing over time. Now I miss it!
Dude, this video was very cool and fun. I loved the memes haha so funny. Great video, man!
Thank you very much!
Your videos have inspired me to start work again on my own Bach chorale project that I started almost 30 years ago while a student at UNT.
One of my favs from that collection of harmonizations is the last version of BWV 244, with the agonizing minor seconds, so dramatic
Hey, I just stumbled upon your channel today and I'm really impressed with the amount of work you've put in to analyse the chorales. I'm really finding the videos useful for my studies.
Thank you so much!
I think the most common overral key is G?? Maybe Bb? I don't know. Yes! I got it!
Good guesses!
Thanks so much for your channel! Just one correction to make - Bach did not write his 48 preludes and fugues in all the keys to celebrate the virtues of equal temperament, because in equal temperament all keys sound the same (just different pitches). He was using a "well" temperament (we don't know exactly which one) where all keys were playable but the pattern of intervals is different in every key, so every key has a distinctive sound. Hence the title "well-tempered clavier". Meantone temperaments (where some keys are completely unplayable) were common before Bach's time, and we still use them today for this earlier music.
Thanks so much for clarifying this! This will be very useful for viewers to distinguish between well and equal temperaments. It appears that there's a spectrum of well temperaments that exist between meantone and equal temperaments. It seems like there isn't a unanimous agreement because there isn't much intact historical documentation about the WTC's intended tuning. Some musicologists believe the WTC is to be played as one work, therefore a well temperament closer to equal temperament is intended to be used, but others disagree!
Correct. "Equal" Temperament, didn't exist yet. Equal Temperament wasn't adopted until the very late 18th Century (in Germany), but only became widespread in the early 19th Century.
Well Tempered and Just Intonation are far more closely related than Well vs Equal Temperament.
Wonderful video bro! Very inspiring
Hello, I am Teresita de Jesús and Joan's mother and we are both your imaginary students, it is a pleasure to meet you. (on web) Muchas felicidades 💐.
Igualmente! Thank you so much for checking out the channel. 😃
Back when I was in school, before we were allowed to present an analysis of a given choral, we had to demonstrate that we could sing any of the 4 voices, while playing the other 3 at the keyboard. Was a good ear training exercise
Nice video!!
Amazing work, sir...
Forrest!!!! Miss ya man! Just subbed! Great use of virba-slap in your soundscape.
Awesome stuff, just the channel I was looking for
Thanks for checking out the channel!
This is so incredible, glad I found your channel! I discovered it because I am literally beginning to undertake a proper analysis of all the chorales, although I won't be going in as much detail with spreadsheets and data and capturing the journey as you have (although I thank you that you have done this work which I can cross-reference and double-check my own analyses haha).
My journey to the chorales was initially rocky. I started studying composition a couple years ago and I was reading this book whose first chapter was about first-species counterpoint, using Fux's exercises as its model. Immediately at the end of this chapter, they provide ~50 Bach's chorales in the original form, with basically no instruction other than: analyze these. I felt so underprepared at that time. It would be like asking a first-semester med student to perform brain surgery in the ER. I've been playing music for many years so I was able to do basic chord and roman numeral analysis, but I had no idea what the voices were doing and how we got there. Modulations were particularly difficult to dive right into - of all your amazing memes in this video I feel I relate most of all to the types of headaches one around 24:18 🤯🤣
That said, I put that book down and got another more thorough one which helped me out so much more understanding intervals and walking me through species countepoint up to 5th species in 4 voices - and then, most recently, the book shifts its focus to chorale style. Honestly spending a lot more time studying counterpoint is like a veil has been lifted - now the examples of Bach's chorales in the book are SO much easier for me to analyze. I mean, ok, Bach is still not necessarily easy, but I at least don't feel so lost now, and I get how cadences and tonal functionality works.
This new book also now has me taking individual lines out of Bach Chorales and reharmonizing them. It's so much more fun and musical than following Fux's Cantus Firmus exercises (although this has its pedogogical place). It's such a great way to learn composition, both analysing the original works and reharmonizing them. Also I have found it's really great to sing individual lines, playing the other parts on piano. This is HARD but very rewarding.
Another benefit to studying these Chorales which I think many people don't talk about, is I feel they are perhaps the greatest training I have found for sight-reading of polyphony at the keyboard. I think there is value in finding chorales both in their original form and in keyboard style and practicing it both ways (especially since sometimes chorale style is impractical to finger at the piano). Practicing these in Chorale style has been doing incredible things for my ability to read polyphony, and is far more rewarding to play than dry "sight-reading exercises." Plus they are short and digestible, so I have found sight-reading a Chorale a day is the best thing I have ever done for my musicianship. It's economical and ticks so many boxes in a short space: in just a few bars you learn and practice sight-reading, voice leading, keyboard technique, composition, tonal functionality etc. all at once. Short on time? I can't think of a more economical way to study all those things than Bach's Chorales!
Finally, I love your project and that you stuck with it! At the new year I actually committed myself to a daily composition project, usually ~1m of music. I am fortunately still going strong approaching the half-way mark, but I do get lazy about the RUclips uploads. My hats off to you for being able to do not only the analysis but all the video and presentation work. Congrats! I look forward to revisiting your channel as I pursue my own analysis of these works. Cheers!
Thanks for sharing your story Jonathan. The channel has definitely taken a backseat since I started my doctorate, but I still have a few videos that I plan to space out over the course of the year.
In the same way that you're composing about a minute of music everyday, I gravitated towards the chorales because of their length and, as you put it, digestibility. There is so much nuance in Bach's harmonic processes, and it's fascinating when you uncover a progression that deviates from the norms of his time.
Cadences and modulations were points of contention for me when analyzing so often. Sometimes conventional labels and analyses fail us when trying to describe how Bach achieved key changes, but as I reflect back on some of the chorales that were particularly challenging, I remind myself that Bach lived and composed during a stylistic musical intersection. Chords were understood as we understand them in the vertical sense, but Bach was a composer of mostly contrapuntal music. Chorales are largely "first species," but it's evident in some of Bach's quirkier phrases that he's reconciling voices horizontally, which leads to vertical sonorities.
Fux might've been onto something, even though by the time his book was published (have you read the original? with the dialogue between the student and the teacher? It's really bizarre) the counterpoint he discussed was somewhat passe. However, even though the tonal language changed over time, the legacy continued to live on!
Brilliant analysis ~ awesome awesome awesome ~ Thank U infinitely 🙌 ~ * ~
This video is GOLD❤
First time viewer here. The Algorithm clearly wants more people to watch your stuff! Congratulations on completing your Bach chorale journey. Like some others in the comments, I will offer some unsolicited advice, for you to take or leave.
(1) The analysis was interesting, but it doesn’t seem substantial enough to justify a video of this length. It could have been done in half the length. And you would do the viewer a favor by explaining up front what kind of analysis it will be (distributions of keys, resolutions, etc.)
(2) From a storytelling point of view, the script was well written and well delivered. On the other hand, the visual presentation (frenetic, full of text that moves by too quickly to read, generally irrelevant and distracting) was very off-putting. I had to put the screen down so I could focus on what you were saying. Aside from the visual style being off-putting, it is also tonally mismatched against the calm and sober audio.
(3) Given that this was a musical analysis, it seems like a wasted opportunity not to include audio examples and illustrations.
Good luck!
Awesome video
Great video
continue your creative journey
loved this video and background music! What are you planning to cover in the future?
Thank you so much! I have some more overview videos that are a bit more specific than this one planned, as well as some more secret content planned for the future.
Great video! I respect your perserverence! I am considering doing the same :)
Go for it! There are a lot, but it was extremely rewarding.
@ForrestMusicTheory
I enjoyed your video and appreciate the work you put in for this video and your yearlong endeavor!
Please note:
Contrary to what you've/most have been taught, Bach did not compose the Well Tempered Clavier to advocate or promote the equal tempered tuning system. Equal temperament actually did not come into use until many, many years later. Bach's motivation for composing the WTC was to demonstrate the feasability of composing in well temperament and to demostrate the varying key colors in well tempered tuning as one progresses around the circle of fifths. The various well temperaments used in Bach's time are distinct from our equal temperament. Well temperament represented a departure from the various meantone tunings that were used in earlier music.
Most of Western music from the time of Bach until the turn of the 20th century was not intended to be performed in equal temperament. Equal temperament is appropriate for some music and especially music of the 20th century, atonal music, music based on the whole tone and diminished scales, and pitch sets, etc, but not the Well Tempered clavier.
I wish you health and joy.
And many more rapturous musical moments.
Dr D
Thanks for the clarification Dr D!
We don't really use equal temperament today either if we can avoid it. Any piano tuner worth his/her salt will tell you that you have to adjust every note slightly to make the piano sound good and there's a saying that string quartets spend more time arguing about intonation than rehearsing.
Perhaps the most extreme examples of how temperament can change a piece of music are the F minor preludes and fugues from WTC. On modern piano with equali(ish) temperament they sound very sweet and romantic. With a meantone(ish) temperament they sound distrubingly jarring. But that's exactly the point. In baroque music theory the key of F minor (on a keyboard that is) represented death so those pieces weren't supposed to be nice and sweet.
@@tessjuel
Yes to your points !
I am a touring, guest conductor and can confirm that we (and you) know that any 3rd of a major chord in ET is 14/100 too sharp (so we have to adjust !) and the minor 3rd of a minor chord is 14/100 too flat (!) (and we adjust !) and etc. !
I wish you health and joy
and, many more rapturous musical moments.
hug 🫂 from my current European tour,
Dr D
Love your videos and have one request - Would you be willing to make a video on what books and resources you consider good for laying the foundation of harmonic knowledge. (There are so many books out there on harmony that it's a bit difficult to know who are good and who are not).
I promise this will happen!
quality content :)
The most common overall key has to be CMaj. The least common... C#min, maybe?
interesting video
I knew G would have to be the most common key because around G would be where most men's nicest lowest note is. Of course many can sing F, and some can sing E or even D, but those notes will be pushing the lower register for the bass singers.
I think this also explains the A dominance, a low A will resolve nicely with full voices.
Of course, this is just my assumption, not based on any historical knowledge or supporting evidence.
This makes a ton of sense! If only I could be a fly on the wall to hear some of the conversations Bach had with his basses about some of the Es and Ds below the bass staff.
thats super impressive, great work :)
Do you have some kind of link where you can find the chorales as a book?
I looked somewhere, but it didnt look right.
thx
Thank you so much! As far as a complete book is concerned, I don't think one exists. Mostly complete books exist, but you usually seem them is 389 or 371 chorales, which are not complete.
You can check out Luke Dahn's bach chorale website. There is a table that has images of all of the chorales that can be printed out.
for all your work i meant
Are you able to compose chorales in his style yet? At the keyboard and/or away from it?
J.S. Bach had his own unique style. All one could do is try to copy it!
If you were to go about writing chorales would you use the 3 treble clefs and 1 bass, 1 treble and 1 bass, satb clefs, or what appeared to be 1 soprano clef? And 1 bass clef that bach used
I prefer the first option! C clefs only have a few situations where they are still relevant, so I would avoid them.
7:27 I think the average length of a Bach cantata would be closer to 15 minutes than 25. Yes, there are a few over 40 minutes, but there are many that are 12-15 minutes, and not many over 20.
Your estimation might be more accurate, but with interpretations in tempi and gaps in between movements, I guess there isn't any real way to be 100% certain. Even at 20 minutes a piece, what an achievement.
I totally agree that the volume of (amazingly high-quality) music in Bach’s cantatas is a remarkable achievement. Actually, it is thought that only about two-thirds of the cantatas have survived, so the total amount would be 300+ times the average number of minutes.
based
I just discovered your channel, so I planted a flag and you can start paying taxes to me.
LOL.
I'm a piano Newbie and just learning to play piano. But I bought a Bach Sightreading book that takes the 4 part chorales and breaks them down into 2, then 3, and only in Grade 9 and 10 uses the full chorale. Gotta agree with you that Bach is the GOAT.
Last month I was rooting around in my local music shop and saw the book of 389 chorales and scooped it up. Now I'm sightreading and documenting it's place in the Bible.
Have you learned the Rule of the Octave? Maybe by analyzing those 47 Cadenze che ti fanno grattare la testa, they can finally be dandruff free. I watched a college professor push aside an analysis of a chorale by saying that sometimes Bach just did different stuff.
BTW I used figured bass on Prélude en Do Majeure, and found it much easier to understand and play. And I immediately was able to transpose it into G Major. And I'm not a musician.
Thanks for checking out the channel! Here are my taxes 💲💲💲.
Is the course Bach Scholar's by chance? Bach Scholar is a RUclips OG, and I think I have one of his digital courses sitting somewhere on an old drive myself. It didn't help my sightreading, unfortunately, but I think that's more my dyslexia rather than his method, because his method is pretty well known, especially on RUclips.
The 389 chorale harmonizations is a great resource, especially to sing/play from. Do remember that although 389 chorales was considered a complete collection at some point historically, the number now is closer to 420, so if you're looking for more chorales, the Bach Chorale Table Luke Dahn published. It is excellent for cross referencing editions, too, because different collections have been known to have different realizations.
I have not heard of the Rule of the Octave until your comment. It looks like a handy tool for accompaniment, especially figured bass.
Bach most certainly did different stuff. A lot of the doubling rules, spacing rules, and progression patterns the textbook will tell you about won't always apply, but that's the case with so much other music too. Theorists are always the ones playing catch up, so the "Rules" are more like trends and observations in hindsight.
As much as I love Bach, I must point out that the reason Mendelssohn didn't revive, say, Handel, was because Handel's music didn't need reviving ;)
Touche!
@@forrestmusictheory
I enjoyed your video and appreciate the work you put in for this video and your yearlong endeavor!
Please note:
Contrary to what you've/most have been taught, Bach did not compose the Well Tempered Clavier to advocate or promote the equal tempered tuning system. Equal temperament actually did not come into use until many, many years later. Bach's motivation for composing the WTC was to demonstrate the feasability of composing in well temperament and to demostrate the varying key colors in well tempered tuning as one progresses around the circle of fifths. The various well temperaments used in Bach's time are distinct from our equal temperament. Well temperament represented a departure from the various meantone tunings that were used in earlier music.
Most of Western music from the time of Bach until the turn of the 20th century was not intended to be performed in equal temperament. Equal temperament is appropriate for some music and especially music of the 20th century, atonal music, music based on the whole tone and diminished scales, and pitch sets, etc, but not the Well Tempered clavier.
I wish you health and joy.
And many more rapturous musical moments.
Dr D
Is Bach overfond of the tierce de Picardie?
I don't know about overfond, but it's very common for minor chorales to end with a major perfect authentic cadence.
24'50
deinum -> deinem
D chord may hint to G major, not just G minor as you say
Most common: G major
Least common: C# minor
As a jazz player and music enthusiast, I am enjoying your analysis!
[now do Monteverdi's madrigals lol]
To me, I see great potential in the type of videos you make, but am fully distracted from the content by all the memes and the comedy music in the background. A strange mix with Bach analysis videos as well to be honest. What is your intention with this mix?
Thanks for the feedback.
The memes were an attempt to make the subject matter lighthearted and will remain a part of my teaching and editing style. I believe that being able to make a meme about a presentation subject can one indication of having a firm grasp on the topic.
The music wasn't intended to be comedic in any way. It's accompanimental, and makes use of chord progressions from some of my favorite chorales.
This was an experimental video format for me in trying to strike a balance between humor and information, and it's still something I'm working on, but I don't think there's a rule or convention about Bach analysis, or any analysis of any subject for that matter, having to take itself too seriously.
Do you read and hear the chorales just by looking at the page in your head
I can hear the melodies pretty clearly, but putting the whole chord together takes a lot more effort!
Bach wasn't an advocate for Equal Temperament. Equal Temperament didn't develop until the 1790s in the Classical Era.
He was an advocate for Well Temperament. Otherwise the Titles would be the Equal Tempered Claviar Book 1 and 2.
Thanks for the clarification! I'll make a video correcting the mistake at some point :)
Equal temperament was known since at least the 1500s but rarely used until the Classical era. But Bach did prefer Well Temperament.
it would have been just perfect if you would have attached the midi and the sheet but....anyway...
Unfortunately, I didn't make the original MIDI that I used for audio and scores, so I'm not sure if redistributing it was okay or not. I altered what I was able to find online😥.
Slow down there boy, nobody can read that fast.
Yeah, a lot of the text wasn't on screen long enough. Apologies! 🙏
agreed and those pop noise are stressful and useless tbh
I care about the theory and history. All the distracting video clips strongly detract from your message in my opinion. Many clips don't seem to relate. You have a lot of good information, but I hope you change the video clip approach.
sorry I hate the memes here popping up all the time and making mess in my mind. After 10 minuts watching I can't even say what it really is about.
just pay attention to something else jesus
Yeah the memes are annoying and kitschy
Wrong . Bach is not so much "complicated" as it is elegant, rigorous, and transcendent in the ability to weave apparently disparate lines together even in the middle of a modulation to different key centers by different lines.
why are so many of y’all like this
This sounds like semantics to me, lol. Complication and elegance aren't mutually exclusive.
The would be a wonderful video if it wasn't for the relentless, distracting, irritating background semi-music. Why?!
Semi-music!? Clearly a criticism, but what does that even mean? Lol... I arranged a few little ditties that used chord progressions from some of my favorite chorale that are mixed significantly behind my narration.
Why?! Because I felt, creatively, that the video needed music, and that I wanted it to have significance to my research.
Sorry they didn't do it for you, but thanks for sticking it out regardless :)
"the" would have been a good comment if it wasn't such a brain-dead take
agreed
While I admire your considerable efforts, I have to say that about 1/3 of the way thru the video I started to get bored. The presentation seems more suited for children, even though the material would be beyond most of them. The constant picture-inserts were particularly annoying. Still, congrats on completing this project.
Gotta get the next generation started young!
Great. Next challenge : learn to hold a pen correctly.
Great video, but, for the love of Bach and sound, step away form the mike! It sounds like someone's talking directly into your ear. Very annoying.
i found the voice to be tolerable, but after your comment i noticed it more, but that didnt drive me crazy. what did do my head in was all those pictures or memes every 5 seconds. great topic, info and nerdy af, i would listen to it again and take notes as needed but i dont want to watch it again. Thanks for your comment.
The pointless, distracting and countless memes make this unwatchable and a complete waste of what otherwise may have been useful. How can you even read a meme while you are talking about Bach? Why waste your time with needless filler like this? I don't want to see pics of Kayne and Taylor in a Bach educational video. What a total waste. Why? smh....
Thanks for the feedback.
An absolut massacre when you pronounced the German names. What's the matter with Americans?