bawb

Luckily almost every human being has a creative mind, it's the reason why we can do practically anything beyond basic survival, it's an important reason for the success of our species if you ask me. But if we start talking in relative terms I don't think a "less creative human" whatever that means, will have a harder time composing, he might compose a different kind of music, maybe with a focus on virtuosity for example.

Homophonic counterpoint? Could you eloborate? In my head Homophonic means not contrapuntal, having just one main melody. As for chromaticism, I don't see how it's that much different, I'm sure the books that you read state how to handle any interval. If you know that all diminished or undiminished imperfect intervals(major/minor 3th/6th) are handled as consonants. And all diminished perfects(diminished 5th 8th) and diminished dissonants(diminished 2nd 7th) are handled as dissonants. And of course the perfect intervals as perfects. And you have knowledge of false relations(if you care about that) you should know all you need for writing chromatically.

I thoroughly enjoyed this, very musical and also fun : ).

I found the prelude to be somewhat of a stream of notes, missed some textural contrast I guess, but perhaps that's mostly midi. Good fugue! it reminds me of contrapunctus 14, and that's a compliment : P. But for some criticism, the first theme seemed more like an accompaniment to me than a theme(perhaps add some ornaments?) and as a result I had a hard time following it. I found the second theme was good initially because it introduced a stream of eight notes where it was mostly quarters before, so I felt as if the third theme subtracted from freshness of the second theme when it was rhythmically similar, also had a hard time discerning those two, when the third theme plays the first and second theme are inaudible to me. In short, I think the 3 themes are not unique enough from the accompaniment and each other to really get the triple fugue across. Anyway, I don't have time to comment on the other elements of the piece, but I must say you did manage to hold my attention during the whole fugue, I wish I was at that level of fugal writing.

No need to be so hard on yourself, yea sure you have a lot to learn, who doesn't. This is actually a place to learn from each other, get some feedback, not only to show off "masterworks" Anyway, I didn't dislike it as much as john bucket although I do agree with his commentary. Just pick one or two things you want to change analyze this element in other fugues and write another one, it's all a matter of practice.

Ok here a little attempt, don't mind the lyrics too much, it's just a first try: HOmage to The lAguage in PIECE fOLDing worDs inTo MY Point focus YOUR EARS on the whole OR: hold your tears at my peace Which I set to this music: The bottom part should be a soprano too... I really hope I can get this to work, perhaps I can try it out with speech synthesis or something. Anyway thanks for this, got me thinking again, I really think a catch is a great way to let ideas and lyrics come together and pull a larger piece in on itself so to speak, as is with many contrapuntal forms I guess. edit: made it a tad better

The title says it, how does one go about this, anyone have any experience? Is it as simple as having the right syllables as top notes? For those that never heard of the form: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_%28music%29 "In a catch, the lines of lyrics interact so that a word or phrase is produced that does not appear if sung by only one voice" I'm trying to figure out some scores I found but none specify what the result will be so I don't really know what to look for. -Bob

It's ok to still reply here right : P? This is one of my first attempts at a fugue so any comments are appreciated. -Bob Fugue in D.pdf Fugue in D.mid

I find myself listening to the 3th most often, the 5th and 9th are exciting too but not extremely interesting to me. And I just decided to listen to 4th again : ), haven't heard it in ages.

I started out doing everything myself at first but a teacher is definitely practical, even if just for professional feedback or somebody to push you out of your comfort zone. I also found that I work harder now that there is somebody checking out my work, you can't "ignore" the little issues in your music anymore, you could of course be extremely self disciplined but this is just more practical(IMO anyway). Oh and you might actually learn a lot too! -Bob

I enjoyed it from beginning to end :). One question though, did you try inversion or diminution? Since your theme sounded like it would work great in both of those, it would fit in stretto with the original theme right? I don't have a great ear for it, just curious. -Bob

Either way, he is conviced enough of his own opinion that I'll try to write a piece using the trial version of Sibelius, see if it works that much better. Also, you go me curious, what notation program do you use(if any) and what for? -Bob

I have used lilypond for the actual compositional process. It's a royal pain in the donkey, but I'm not sure if I'll work THAT much faster with Finale(Sibelius being way too expensive). For me Lilypond does work fine for small scores in a "well setup environment". Well setup enviorment being a window with the code and one with the pdf. when I press F5 lilypond compiles everything refreshes the score and F6 plays the midi. Also, syntax highlighting, autocompletion, shortcuts for halving, doubling dotting note values, transposing, etc... So I just sort of use my money for food and clothing for now and plow trough thousands of lines of lilypond notes. (don't hesitate to tell me to go buy a copy of Sibelius : P) Although Gardener does have a point, I might need to try to just write on paper more often, especially for larger works. (imagine this, a symphony in lilypond, and I want to add an extra bar to some section, have fun making sure each voice that is not used has a rest added at the right spot...) -Bob

No, it is not invalid, I was just trying to think of a reason why in my ears a major chord sounds happy while a minor chord sounds sad, and I think that a culture that DID develop a system based on fifths(ambiguous term since there might be more tones to subdivide an octave) is fairly universal in this matter. Not entirely obviously, but you could call it a biological or at least a logical reason that a major chord sounds happy because it's more "stable". It probably has something to do with it. I also think things like dissonance or harmony in general are relative to a certain piece, so I might have no problem finding happy atonal music happy. But I can still shiver or feel melancholy when Bach drops dissonance in the midst of some nice chords, it's all about contrast. The term dissonance may imply that it sounds odd or strange, which is not what I meant, I hope you get my point. Anyway I do agree that there are very few concepts that are entirely universal. And I can very much enjoy music that does not sound like anything that developed in europe. -Bob

Well, c and g sound assonant because the soundwaves fit into each other, one sound wave is quarter the length of the other and with major this is cut up precisely again, so it's more stable, as opposed to minor where the soundwaves do not really fit in each other, so not just pure culture perhaps.... But that's just an idea... -Bob