The Fugue and Canon

A six-part fugue from The Musical Offering, in...

Image via Wikipedia(Text Large for classroom projection)

Textbook recommendation: Roger Kamien Music: an Appreciation

THE CANON

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM

THE FUGUE

The Fugue was a major development in polyphony during the Baroque era. Other types of polyphonic forms were used, like the canon (ex. Pachelbel Canon in D). A Prelude often preceded a fugue (ex.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DeYQ5wJTEU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-abGDv-GMGk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax00vnsZPKE

In the fugue, the main theme typically comes in a single voice. This first appearance is called the subject of the fugue. (Sound example). After the subject is presented in the first voice, it is manipulated a number of ways by the composer. It does not necessarily have to return the same way.

After the subject is introduced, a second voice will echo the subject (called an answer), but in the dominant. Sometimes a countersubject (a melody unrelated to the first subject) will play at the same time as the subject. It counters the initial subject like a good fencer would in a match. They intertwine with each other.

At the same time, the composer must make sure that his or her lines of polyphony do not create too much dissonance, and that they follow a specific chord structure, usually some variation of I-V-I.

Transitions in a fugue are called "episodes". An episode gets you from point A to point B in the fugue, but is not part of the subject, countersubject, and repetition of the other musical lines.

A composer manipulates a subject several ways:

Inverted

Retrograde

Augmentation

Diminution

(Examples on the Board)

Both Handel and Bach wrote hundreds of fugues and preludes. Learning how to write canons and complicated fugues are a part of every composer's training, although the form in its purest state is generally dead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2JFgfc7c70

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FXoyr_FyFw

Comments

EDGY New Film : Special Needs Revolt! A man with Down syndrome is on a mission to save America from a racist dictatorship

Special Needs Revolt! Is an action-horror-comedy film. The film's hero, Billy Bates, who will be played by up-and-coming actor Samuel Dyer, is a young man with Down syndrome. Billy wakes up from a two-year coma and discovers that the United States has been turned into a brutal dictatorship thanks to President Kruger, to be played by award-winning veteran actor Bill Weeden ( Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. ). Kruger has put all people with disabilities into institutions. Billy becomes the leader of a diverse group of resistance fighters committed to ending Kruger's reign of terror. "Special Needs Revolt!" is also a satire on our current political situation, done in the style of Troma Entertainment. Lloyd Kaufman of Troma will appear in the film. CHECK OUT THE INDIEGOGO CAMPAIGN: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/special-needs-revolt#/ Adrian’s latest work Special Needs Revolt! may seem edgy and even shocking to some. However, it demonstrates that he is grow

Music Secrets: The Music School Survival Guide

Music Secrets: The Music School Survival Guide Don't have any time to balance rehearsals, exams, and a social life? Then read on! So you find that between playing in orchestra, the school musical, a solo recital or two, joining Sigma Alpha Iota or Phi Mu Alpha , playing in the alternative band at night, pep band, and marching band that you can't keep your eyes open, let alone study for the music history midterm next week or even begin to write your term paper on Debussy? Then read on and learn to balance life in Music School. 1) Musicians DO need to Sleep Yes, you need to sleep, even if it is only five hours a night plus catnaps. Your brain cannot function if you do not sleep. So sleep, even if that means that you can't play in that awesome alternative band that jams every other night till 5am at the local bar. 2) Eat right and exercise Okay, so I sound like your parents, or Oprah, but I am serious. My biggest mistake as an undergrad (well, one of my bigges

Percussion Instruments 101: How to Play the Concert Triangle

PHOTO"wikimedia.org Percussion Instruments 101: How to Play the Concert Triangle There are literally hundreds of concert percussion instruments in use every day throughout the world. Whether you are playing percussion in a drum circle in Ghana , a jazz band in New Orleans , or a symphony orchestra in Sweden, you are playing an instrument that has traveled and mutated throughout the globe. The percussion instrument the triangle , is a metal rod bent into the shape of a two dimensional geometric triangle with one of the bottom corners disconnected to allow sound waves to escape. The concert triangle often has a slight difference, in that it may have a hole in one corner to loop a piece of nylon to hang the concert triangle. If it is an Alan Abel triangle, it will have a slight difference in the open end. That angle will end in a different thickness, supposedly to help the triangle sound to escape better acoustically. The triangle may be struck near one of the closed an

Search This Blog