# Writing Fugues.



## Cabinet (Apr 16, 2011)

I really like Fugues and I would love to try and attempt to write them, but I'm not sure how I would begin. Does anyone have any tips or links that might be able to help get me started?


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Apr 16, 2011)

Unfortunately, fugues are one of those things that you'll probably have to work up to. They require a really solid understanding of harmony, counterpoint, and voice-leading, and it probably helps if you're well-acquainted with form. But in addition, you have to get comfortable with imitation and various compositional manipulations (inversion, retrograde, retrograde inversion, augmentation, diminution, stretto, etc.). My suggestion is to look at some canons and rounds, pick up J.S. Bach's two part inventions, see what's going on, then go from there. This is an extremely developmental form, far beyond what most guitarists would ever attempt or understand, but that's mainly because it's pretty much the culmination of all of Western music theory into one package.

Some canons:

Gustav Mahler - Symphony 1, mvt. III, the first bit - Yes, that's Frère Jacques in the minor mode. 


Henry Cow - Beautiful As The Moon, Terrible As An Army With Banners - 4:33-6:07


Some fugues:

Johann Sebastian Bach - Toccata and Fugue in D minor (Fugue starts at 2:40) - I like these videos because whoever is making them clearly knows something about music. Notice that each voice is rendered in a different color. This also makes it easy to see the "shape" of the music.


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Coda from Symphony 41, "Jupiter", mvt. IV
This is a fugato, which is for all intents and purposes a tiny fugue-like section. A few performances here, so you can absorb what's going on. Obviously, these few measures are taken out of context, but to put it short, he's developing every theme in the movement (the entire symphony, possibly, but I forget which). This is pretty much considered the best thing ever.


----------



## Cabinet (Apr 16, 2011)

Alright, thanks so much for the input. Do you know any websites that might have exercises or explanations to expand on my knowledge? I have a pretty decent understanding of theory but I'm not well aquatinted with advanced harmony, counter point etc.


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Apr 16, 2011)

There are a few books that I know of, but not many online resources. Any university harmony book should take you up through advanced chromatic harmony and modulations. The good counterpoint books (in English, anyway) are Gauldin and Kennan. I'd also say Piston, but I find his approach to feel a little dated.

This is a good website, although by no means a complete resource: Dolmetsch Online - Home Page

A teacher's probably your best bet, though. I do private lessons, as well. One thing that you can't get from a website is someone to check your voice-leading and phrasing.


----------



## xtrustisyoursx (Apr 16, 2011)

As SW said, you have to be rock solid on your theory. Them's hard. But I really like the Kennan book out of all the traditional counterpoint books.


----------



## SirMyghin (Apr 17, 2011)

Damn. Watching that Fugue with the voices all laid out like that was a near religious experience.


----------



## Kodee_Kaos (Apr 17, 2011)

SirMyghin said:


> Damn. Watching that Fugue with the voices all laid out like that was a near religious experience.



They was not fugue'in around.


----------



## walleye (Apr 17, 2011)

just a quick question. is "fugue" my yngwie malmsteen technically a fugue by schecter whore's above definitions?

it might not be called fugue, maybe fugue no. 5 or something? i think it was on a G3 cd at one point.


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Apr 18, 2011)

walleye said:


> just a quick question. is "fugue" my yngwie malmsteen technically a fugue by schecter whore's above definitions?
> 
> it might not be called fugue, maybe fugue no. 5 or something? i think it was on a G3 cd at one point.



This one?



Nope, no fugue. What we do have, though, is what looks like a seven-part rondo. Why he didn't call it a rondo in the first place, I don't know; it would make him seem like he knows what's going on, rather than invite criticism of his incorrect labeling of the form.

Classical seven-part rondo: ABACABA
Malmsteen "Fugue": AB ABCABA [CA]

0:00 - A
0:33 - B
0:50 - A
1:14 - B (This might change the form. I'll have to think about it.)
1:31 - Transition
1:45 - C
2:22 - Transition
2:26 - Ai (A little bit of a development of A here.)
2:57 - B
3:14 - Aii (More development.)
3:30 - Ci (Short C.)
3:52 - Truncated A.

The last bit, C A, I would consider a coda.

By the way, this rondo is totally vanilla. I could show you some stuff that will really blow your mind.



SirMyghin said:


> Damn. Watching that Fugue with the voices all laid out like that was a near religious experience.



Don't you love that? And how he ends the tocata with a cadence on the minor tonic, then gets you thinking that he'll go for the picardy third at the end of the fugue, but you get the minor tonic after that big major section.


----------



## xtrustisyoursx (Apr 18, 2011)

If you want the trip of a lifetime, analyze Brahams' Orgam fugue in Ab minor. One of the most rewarding experiences in my music theory career.


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Apr 18, 2011)

But seriously, that's how it goes.


----------



## SirMyghin (Apr 18, 2011)

SchecterWhore said:


> Don't you love that? And how he ends the tocata with a cadence on the minor tonic, then gets you thinking that he'll go for the picardy third at the end of the fugue, but you get the minor tonic after that big major section.



Yes.... Sure, I definitely love and understand everything you just said  I ever tell you I went into engineering not music because I thought life would be better if I got a job  

I just liked how it appeared, I had never seen anything like that.



(incase sarcasm is lost on you, which I doubt it is, I am of course just razzing you)


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Apr 18, 2011)

SirMyghin said:


> Yes.... Sure, I definitely love and understand everything you just said  I ever tell you I went into engineering not music because I thought life would be better if I got a job
> 
> I just liked how it appeared, I had never seen anything like that.
> 
> ...



That's okay, I've dealt with enough engineers to know. You're nothing new.  Honestly, though, what am I going to do with my degree? 

[/awkward]


----------



## SirMyghin (Apr 18, 2011)

SchecterWhore said:


> That's okay, I've dealt with enough engineers to know. You're nothing new.  Honestly, though, what am I going to do with my degree?
> 
> [/awkward]



Let guys like me pay you to teach them theory?  (would you believe I just got an email with an exam... the next 60 hours suck ass. Wonder how much time I will waste procrastinating here.)


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Apr 18, 2011)

SirMyghin said:


> Let guys like me pay you to teach them theory?  (would you believe I just got an email with an exam... the next 60 hours suck ass. Wonder how much time I will waste procrastinating here.)



If I'm lucky enough to land a steady gig after I get my Master's, I'll grow a mustache and wear tweed.

They email your exams? Yeah, expect mondo time wastage.


----------



## SirMyghin (Apr 18, 2011)

This one yes, open book, maximum rape. Essentially I become a shut in and cranky for the next few days. 

The guy who taught me the history of pop music (which was delightful) had a PHD in music, was a bassist playing in cover bands and was gravitating to teaching Kindergarteners. Shame too as he was one of the most interesting lecturers I ever had, and one of my 2 90+%s achieved in a course. Sure it was pretty light compared to my real courses, but that is what electives are for, we only get about 4 in Engineering. 3 Hour lectures were no sweat listening to that guy. A course like that would benefit a lot of the posters here and garner the music a bit more respect than it gets too. No tweed or Mustache though, he was a sessional lecturer going between a few universities in the area.


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Apr 19, 2011)

I asked my analysis professor about the form of the Malmsteen piece yesterday, and he agreed that it's a seven-part rondo, adding that it's a bit unusual. It makes sense, really: the essence of a rondo is a repeating A theme, so that extra B doesn't register as a huge part of the form. He then asked what piece I got the form from, and commented that he was surprised that I knew who Yngwie was. 



SirMyghin said:


> The guy who taught me the history of pop music (which was delightful) had a PHD in music, was a bassist playing in cover bands and was gravitating to teaching Kindergarteners. Shame too as he was one of the most interesting lecturers I ever had, and one of my 2 90+%s achieved in a course. Sure it was pretty light compared to my real courses, but that is what electives are for, we only get about 4 in Engineering. 3 Hour lectures were no sweat listening to that guy. A course like that would benefit a lot of the posters here and garner the music a bit more respect than it gets too. No tweed or Mustache though, he was a sessional lecturer going between a few universities in the area.



Education is wonderful in the hands of a competent professor. I'm lucky to have had a lot of those. I did have a horrible bio professor at the beginning of my college career, though, and I am no longer a bio major. 
It sounds really shallow to say that I changed majors because one teacher rubbed me the wrong way, but it left a profound impact on me: I had one music class and one bio class that semester, and the music class was fun and informative while the bio class was unjust and uninviting; tons of people who didn't put in even half the effort of other people in the class got higher grades than those that really poured themselves in and understood the material, and the tests were on material that we hadn't been told to study. That, and my junior college was a mecca for dispassionate nursing students. Not fun.


----------



## Keytarist (Apr 22, 2011)

Hi. I have been offline for a while.
About the original post, I would suggest the OP to take classes with a good teacher. Counterpoint, is a technical skill to develop, as learning to play guitar; hence the need of formal classes with a teacher who will guide you through exercises, theory and analysis.
Fugues are one of the most difficult forms of counterpoint, so it's much better to start with Species Counterpoint. It's kinda boring first, because of the strictness of the method; but it allows you to develop a melodical sense that brings fluidity to your music even in the most difficult forms of counterpoint. I believe that there are better methods, because the Species Counterpoint is a little bit out of date. Please drop here a better method if you know one, please (I'll be taking counterpoint classes again, in the near future). 
After three years of counterpoint classes, I had to compose a fugue, and the attempt was a failure. I believe that the reason was that I lack piano skills. I didn't have too much interval issues like parallel octaves when composing, but the problem was the piece as a whole. I mean that every bar had sense as a unit, but they didn't 'stick together'. Playing the piece in the piano lets you to arrange the elements in time and space (but I didn't). So best bet is also to start playing piano, just some minutes of sheet music lecture in your spare time.
Finally, score analysis, listening to counterpoint pieces and don't forget to get a good teacher, going self-taught would be pretty difficult. Good luck!.

P.S.1: Sorry for any mistake in English.
P.S.2: Hi Mike, it's Rodrigo you may remember me...Well, I just want to know: from which institute/conservatory are you coming from?. I wish I could have some of your skills (both theory and teaching). Do you compose also?. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Apr 23, 2011)

Keytarist said:


> Hi. I have been offline for a while.
> About the original post, I would suggest the OP to take classes with a good teacher. Counterpoint, is a technical skill to develop, as learning to play guitar; hence the need of formal classes with a teacher who will guide you through exercises, theory and analysis.
> Fugues are one of the most difficult forms of counterpoint, so it's much better to start with Species Counterpoint. It's kinda boring first, because of the strictness of the method; but it allows you to develop a melodical sense that brings fluidity to your music even in the most difficult forms of counterpoint. I believe that there are better methods, because the Species Counterpoint is a little bit out of date. Please drop here a better method if you know one, please (I'll be taking counterpoint classes again, in the near future).
> After three years of counterpoint classes, I had to compose a fugue, and the attempt was a failure. I believe that the reason was that I lack piano skills. I didn't have too much interval issues like parallel octaves when composing, but the problem was the piece as a whole. I mean that every bar had sense as a unit, but they didn't 'stick together'. Playing the piece in the piano lets you to arrange the elements in time and space (but I didn't). So best bet is also to start playing piano, just some minutes of sheet music lecture in your spare time.
> Finally, score analysis, listening to counterpoint pieces and don't forget to get a good teacher, going self-taught would be pretty difficult. Good luck!.



I agree that having somebody teach you this stuff is waaaay easier than trying to figure it out yourself. On the other hand, I knew a composer who did Baroque counterpoint as a hobby, and I think he taught himself. However, there are extenuating circumstances with this guy that I won't get into.

I never took the time to learn species counterpoint, but I checked out how it basically works. It just seemed a little redundant to me from the modern pedagogy of voice-leading. The way that I learned counterpoint was through the way I learned part writing: rather than composing a melody through, and then doing counter melodies, you pretty much did all of your melodies at once. "Simultaneous composition", I think the method is called. Bach would have preferred its opposite, successive composition, but you can get the same results with both. I tend to do a little of both, but it's usually because I can picture in my head how the voice-leading will work out when I'm doing multiple parts. I cooked this up in a couple of minutes to show that you can compose a fugue either way. Keep in mind that I don't really do imitative counterpoint very often and this isn't a formal recreation of a fugue; I'm trying to display polyphony and a couple of things that make it sound fuguey - first, you can make out the distinct voices. I do this by giving different rhythms to the subject, countersubject, and answer (here, extremely condensed). Next, the voice-leading: you could reduce this entire thing to one chord per measure (two in some of them), with none of the melody there. I just build stuff off of the chord tones that I get from doing the basic voice-leading. Thirdly, I didn't pay much attention to this, but I sort of made an effort to introduce new voices at sensible times. The more you have, the more obscured the polyphony gets, so I waited a while to bring in the fourth voice so that the melody would be in your ear by the time you get there.

SoundClick artist: Theory Examples - page with MP3 music downloads






I have some spacing errors in the last measure. The one before that technically has the same problem, but I think it sounds fine. Also, the last measure has some sort of voice-leading problem. I believe it's parallel octaves, but I don't see any... Maybe it's the F-G in the soprano and alto voices, even though they're offset a bit.



> P.S.1: Sorry for any mistake in English.


You're doing fine.  The only thing I notice is that you tend to use too much punctuation. Change "?." to "?" and "!." to "!", and it will look more correct. Not that most English speakers really care about correct language in the first place.



> P.S.2: Hi Mike, it's Rodrigo you may remember me...Well, I just want to know: from which institute/conservatory are you coming from?. I wish I could have some of your skills (both theory and teaching). Do you compose also?. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.


Conservatory...  I'm flattered. I'm a product of public schools. I had a great set of teachers in my junior college, and I'm attending CSU Northridge right now. I do compose, but I haven't done much classical in a while. Too much work, and I'm too busy at the moment.


----------



## McCap (Apr 23, 2011)

A good starting point is being able to write classical four part harmony, with all the rules (no parallel fifths etc...).


----------



## Keytarist (Apr 24, 2011)

SchecterWhore said:


> SoundClick artist: Theory Examples - page with MP3 music downloads
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I liked the exposition of your fugue. The subject is strong and easy to recognize. Would you like to explain what 'spacing' means in this case? Does it mean that some of the voices are too separated from each other (second to last bar, check 'C' and 'A')? As far as I know, the limit is an octave + Major third (between adjacent voices), but in some cases a wider interval is permited (in a climax passage, for example). Anyway, it sounds fine for me. 
The only thing I noticed, is that you have 'pseudo' parallel octaves. Bar 4, check answer and countersubject. Also in the next bar, check countersubject (bass) and soprano. Maybe these are permitted because there is a third voice, that fills the gap? But that's all, I mean that it sounds good, and that is what matters the most. 

So some of your music education came from school and junior college? That's cool. Here, music education at school is very slow; for instance, they taught me the accidentals in the last year of school!!! But in some way, it was good...because I could sleep without missing anything.  I hope that we will improve the music education someday, to reach a good level. We are last in this aspect.


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Apr 24, 2011)

Keytarist said:


> I liked the exposition of your fugue. The subject is strong and easy to recognize. Would you like to explain what 'spacing' means in this case? Does it mean that some of the voices are too separated from each other (second to last bar, check 'C' and 'A')? As far as I know, the limit is an octave + Major third (between adjacent voices), but in some cases a wider interval is permited (in a climax passage, for example). Anyway, it sounds fine for me.



I was taught to avoid spacings wider than an octave in the soprano and alto voices, or alto and tenor. I find that it's a rule that you can break some times, and results in horrible music at other times. With the bass voice, you can get away with it a lot more. However, the last measure is pretty sad: the bass and tenor are really close together, and the alto and soprano are too wide apart.



> The only thing I noticed, is that you have 'pseudo' parallel octaves. Bar 4, check answer and countersubject. Also in the next bar, check countersubject (bass) and soprano. Maybe these are permitted because there is a third voice, that fills the gap? But that's all, I mean that it sounds good, and that is what matters the most.


Bar 4: direct octave on the second beat, between the subject and countersubject. And bar 5 has parallel octaves. I have dishonored my family! 



> So some of your music education came from school and junior college? That's cool. Here, music education at school is very slow; for instance, they teached me the accidentals in the last year of school!!! But in some way, it was good...because I could sleep without missing anything.  I hope that we will improve the music education someday, to reach a good level. We are last in this aspect.


Well... this is what music education was for me: grade school was pretty much nothing. I took a few ensembles and the teacher spent a few minutes to explain quarter notes, half notes, and whole notes to us. Notes, we learned, although I'm not sure we touched accidentals much. America hates music. Then, I went to junior college, took a bunch of theory classes, and kicked ass. After I transferred to university, I started refining a lot of the things I learned at my community college.


----------



## Cabinet (Apr 25, 2011)

So I heard in that example you started off with the subject for the first measure, and then you copy it but a 5th above, right? And that's called the answer? When that's playing, what role to the quarter notes in the bass clef serve (If any)?
Oh my what have I gotten myself into..


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Apr 25, 2011)

Cabinet said:


> So I heard in that example you started off with the subject for the first measure, and then you copy it but a 5th above, right? And that's called the answer? When that's playing, what role to the quarter notes in the bass clef serve (If any)?
> Oh my what have I gotten myself into..



Fuck, I don't know. 

The answers, as I have it, is actually a fourth above. This isn't really strict fugal form; I just wrote a progression and kinda put a fugue to it. This is the progression: i|iv|i6/4|V|i V|V7/iv|iv|V7/Bb

It doesn't have any of the traditional harmonic moves that you would see in a fugue. I just wrote this as such to demonstrate writing imitation based on simultaneous composition. Before I added the melody, each voice had one note per measure. One. I used the voice-leading as the basis of where my melodies would go.

As for the quarter notes, it's a countersubject. One thing I'd like to point out with this: I'm making the countersubject sound different from the subject and answer so that we can hear it clearly when we have four voice polyphony. The subject is on the offbeat, and the countersubject is on the beat. Just a little polyphonic trick.


----------



## toiletstand (Apr 25, 2011)

very cool! i learned something new today.


----------



## SirMyghin (Apr 25, 2011)

SchecterWhore said:


> Fuck, I don't know.
> 
> The answers, as I have it, is actually a fourth above. This isn't really strict fugal form; I just wrote a progression and kinda put a fugue to it. This is the progression: i|iv|i6/4|V|i V|V7/iv|iv|V7/Bb
> 
> ...




Moment of truth, is this just a cover because you FUGUED up?  ( damn, I kill myself sometimes).


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Apr 25, 2011)

SirMyghin said:


> Moment of truth, is this just a cover because you FUGUED up?  ( damn, I kill myself sometimes).



Dude, you have no idea how many jokes were had about "inner voices" in my musicianship classes.


----------



## ElRay (Sep 19, 2017)

SirMyghin said:


> Moment of truth, is this just a cover because you FUGUED up?  ( damn, I kill myself sometimes).


Folks have bugging me to give them my Robert Fuchs scores or my Johann Joseph Feux counterpoint and composition chapters, but I keep telling them I don't give two Feux and I definitely don't give any Fuchs because you can get them free at IMSPL.


----------

