J. Lee please indulge a long time musician but a newbie composer...just one question: In composing this did you sketch it out on paper or piece it together at the keyboard?

J lee left, sorry. :iffy:

J. Lee please indulge a long time musician but a newbie composer...just one question: In composing this did you sketch it out on paper or piece it together at the keyboard?

Don't worry. I will ask him. He and I are still in contact. :)

Don't worry. I will ask him. He and I are still in contact. :)

Much appreciated Morivou! I am always interested to know how the skilled ones work.

The answer is... gee, I don't know how to articulate this, except to say that I just sat down and wrote it.

I almost never compose at the keyboard, and I usually only sketch melodies or basic ideas, just to get them down on paper until I can really sit down and work. I don't usually plan anything. When I come up with an idea, it almost invariably suggests to me what it should be, or if I have to write something for a specific purpose, I try to come up with ideas that fit the need and work from there. A lot of it is inspiration, too. My ideas either come to me fully formed (I often work out large sections of pieces in my head), or they develop on the fly. When I'm working, it's like a stream of consciousness...I just go where my ideas lead me. If something doesn't work, I fix it, but more often than not, what I write down the first time is permanent. When I run out of ideas at a sitting, or I get tired, I stop and pick it up later. This lesson, however, was written in a single evening.

Anyway, that's the way this lesson came to be. I didn't plan it; I just had an idea of what I wanted to do, and started writing. As I went along, I thought things like "hmmm...I wonder if I've arrived at a good place for a stretto," or "it's time for another episode," but otherwise, the music just kind of flowed out...if that makes any sense.

By the way, I've learnt a great deal more about counterpoint since I wrote this, so I should probably make an addendum to this lesson, explaining the proper order of entrances of the various voices, and the concept of tonal answers. The subject I chose for this lesson was impossible to work with tonal answers, but to be thorough, I really should provide an example. I should also provide examples of fugues with multiple subjects (at least a double), and a strict fugue where the countersubject is reiterated with each successive answer throughout the exposition (instead of only once, as in this example).

Yeah, I'm back. For now. I don't know for how long, but I missed you guys. :)

Yeah, I'm back. For now. I don't know for how long, but I missed you guys. :)

Welcome back! :D

...(Even if I've never met you before

This is awesome. Fugues intrigue me because the writing is so complex, and the result is incredible, as if the orchestra is having a massive argument. I have a question though, is fugue writing any different now? I hope I'm right in assuming that the rules you have laid out here are from the Classical period style? What about more modern fugue writing?

One piece that has a particular fugue that I love is "Danse Macabre" by Saint-Saens. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it.

The fugal part comes around the 2 minute mark. Does that part follow the same rules you've mentioned? Are there any changes to them since this piece is minor? I hope you can help, I'm not trying to give you homework or anything, but I love the build that this piece creates in that section, and I want to try it out myself.

If you need a score to look at, here it is:

http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/c/c7/IMSLP21204-PMLP05008-Saint-Sa__ns_-_Danse_Macabre__Op._40__orch._score_.pdf

The fugal part begins on page 13.

I hope you can help with this.

Hi! Sorry just now seeing this. Yes, it sounds to me like Saint-Saens does indeed follow the same rules, albeit his subject is very chromatic, so it might not seem like he does.

These rules are pretty much set in stone, so most if not all of the composers from the 17th through the early 20th Centuries will follow them.

I further suggest strongly that even more modern composers follow them, at least for the exposition.

I have set a "follow" order for this thread so I hopefully won't miss anything again.

This is by far the most instructive thread I've read on this subject. J. Lee Graham made heck of a job with his fugue, and it made very clear for me how exactly a fugue is to be composed (I had happened to make one the right way when composing my First Symphony at 16, but of course didn't actually knew I was following the right path). I'd expect a lot much more from Mr. Graham, whose 'classical revivalist' approach I quite admire (not in the least part because I have an analogous 'Romantic' approach)...

Thanks for the kind words as always.

I must say just as a general comment that I have done a lot more study on this subject since I authored this thread, and if I had it to do over again now, there are some things I would have done differently - not the least being my choice of subjects, which is not entirely "proper," for reasons I won't go into lest I muddy the waters of what is already a nearly opaque subject.

Suffice it to say that my aim was to demystify the process for the beginner, and I believe I accomplished that goal. This thread was not meant to serve as a substitute for in-depth, serious study of the art of fugal construction and development, nor was it intended to address all the technical issues that can arise in the process of writing a fugue. I'm still learning the art myself, after all.

Here is a fugal exercise I wrote last summer employing a restrictive point-on-point (equal note value) technique reminiscent of the exercises in J. J. Fux's Gradus ad parnassum. Sometimes restricting ourselves can serve as a way of conforming ourselves more readily to a discipline.

In the score, the subject is indicated by a bracket at each statement. I hope you find it intriguing.

http://www.youngcomp...trapunctus-iii/

I've composed a short fugue in C trying to follow the principles set out in this course. If anyone had the time to offer some feedback I'd be very grateful. I am aware that there are some things that need improvement, in particular I'm not happy with one or two bars in the recapitulation and I feel as if I over-use sequences.

Link: http://www.youngcomposers.com/music/1667/fugue-in-c/

I love fugues!!!! I have some of them here, posted on YC. Also, I have a book called "Traité de la Fugue", by André Gedalge. It is a VERY DEEP study on composing fugues in a very academic way, in order to make the student able to find his own way of fugue-composing. The book is in french, but I've started to translate it (into Portuguese... my native language). Maybe it'd be kinda useful for YC's composers to have this material for more detailed study. I can offer myself as volunteer to post it here (new topic), part by part and translated... Is there any interest??

Also, I have a book called "Traité de la Fugue", by André Gedalge

Hmm I'm surprised that someone else still uses it. As I'm writing my thesis about the 'fugue d'école' I often call for the help this treatise offers; I believe this is the most extensive study written about the topic (compared to other theoretical works). I consider its only shortcoming to be the lack of examples in the chapter discussing the episodes (this one is responsible for causing me headache when creating my own fugues).

Btw. this book has already been translated to English decades ago.

Just out of mere curiosity, are there any good Portuguese treatises that deal with textbook-fugues?

Just out of mere curiosity, are there any good Portuguese treatises that deal with textbook-fugues?

Once a teacher told me (and even showed me) a book about Tonal Counterpoint and Fugue. He studies fugues and counterpoint, and told me about some other books. Unfortunately, I've never seen any of them, except for this one: Contraponto tonal e Fuga, by [....] (I don't remember her name, but it's a woman).

Excuse me but I'm really excited about learning fugal writing and I'm having issues trying to understand the construction of the divertiment. As far as I grasped from J. Lee Graham's excellent lesson and example, in the divertiment what happens is that one voice kind of "goes solo", am I correct? But its (or other voices') subject doesn't need to recall any of the characteristics of the main subject. What matters is the final modulation of the divertiment as you get into the recapitulation or re-exposition. I just finished an exposition and I'm not sure about how to proceed, if someone could give me some guidelines I would really appreciate it. This is my first post in this wonderful forum, and I hope I can develop this fugue so I can post it in a more complete fashion. Thanks!

Thank you for this!

   I downloaded your Tutorial and look forward to grappling with counterpoint/fugue!

          I've used countermelody  in my compositions but I know I need to up my game...

  This will help!     I have Kennan's text--which is good, but the fugue section is a tad obscure--for me!

This is the book I learned from to write fugues.

The Technique and Spirit of Fugue by George Oldroyd

https://imslp.org/wiki/The_Technique_and_Spirit_of_Fugue_(Oldroyd%2C_George)

Yes, the Oldroyd book is outstanding.

The one by Hugo Norden, Foundation Studies in Fugue, is an excellent short book to get you up and running pretty quickly on your first fugue. After that the Oldroyd, and maybe the exhaustive one by André Gedalge, called Treatise on Fugue, of which there is a public domain copy you can download for free, though I forget where.

Before fugue, if you really want to go deep into Canon writing, for your strettos and whatnot, Hugo Norden's Technique of Canon book is fascinating.