Pequeña Fuga Alóctona

Hello everyone! 

Yesterday I was considering participating in the 1 minute Fugue challenge that has been opened recently so I started composing a 1 minute fugue. However, since I only had a few hours I did not give it too much though and started composing by ear (without theoretical thinking) with the first subject. I decided I wanted to have a real answer in the exposition and that was a mistake.

Because of the real answer, It is quite dissonant at times with some suspensions as soon as the real answer starts, so it probably does not work as a proper fugue exposition. Because of that, I was going to call it "Strange Fughetta", but I just though the title might be funnier (for me) in Spanish. So I named it "Allochthonous Little Fugue" (I just found out the word Allochthonous exist in english too). 

The Fughetta form is the following: 

[m.1 ~ m.15]: Alto voice in Cmin --> Soprano voice in Gmin (real answer) -> Episode --> Bass in Cmin. 

[m.16 ~ m.19]: Canonic episode based in few motives of the subject. 

[m.20 ~ m.23] Subject in Cmin (tonic) by the Soprano with dominant pedal in Bass. 

[m.24 ~ m.29]: Ending

Thank you!

Hello
Composing a leak, no matter how small, is no small feat. Especially if we start to do without knowing well. By ear it will not come out for sure.
You see, whether the response to the subject is tonal or real, is not a choice. There are certain things that condition one or the other, so that it works.
To write a real answer (with all the intervals exactly the same in the subject and in the counter-subject), the subject must start on the tonic and end on the tonic (C, in this case).
When the subject has the dominant note (G) preponderant, either because it appears at the beginning or because it appears by leap, the answer has to be tonal. And tonal means that sometimes the intervals have to be changed to bring the notes back to the tonic.
Anyway, this is long to explain here, but that's the way it is, otherwise it doesn't work well.

On the other hand, the subject has a very irregular thing in the melody design. In measure 2 there is a melodic scale that ends in the sensitive (G-A-B-E).... This should resolve to C. But even stranger is that it jumps from B natural to F natural (tritone jump, in strong position).

Hi @JorgeDavid,

I agree with @Luis Hernández with the tritone B-F jump that is a bit off. Also as Luis said, the theme really should ends in an instead going up to G. If you wanna write tonal answer, the first note of the answer will be a C instead of a D. In history tonal answer is the default and more commonly used since it provides smoother flow and transition from modulations from tonic to dominant. 

I think for the episode in b.7 is somewhat bare without a third. I think you can make use of the head of the subject (that anapest rhythm) to include some thirds in it. I like the canon in b.16. For the ending, I think you can keep using the head motive as in b.16!

Thx for sharing.

Henry

Thank you for listening and for your advices @Luis Hernández and @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu!

I know the subject is really inconvenient for a proper fugue. Specially because of the jump from B to F, the strange flow caused in m.3 because of that jump, and the anacrusis beginning in the G (dominant) moving to a C right after that. Since both made it hard to write a proper real and tonal answer: if the beginning was in G I could have written a proper real answer with the Dominant harmony in the first measure. And the fact that G moved to C at the beginning rendered a tonal answer boring, since the G would have to be changed to a C in the first bar so the melody would have been something like C-C-Bb. 

Also I realized the tritone jump was weird. However I kind of found the effect funny and a mixture of seriousness and ridicule, somehow (I particularly like that jump in a legato melodic instrument).

So I just kept the subject and decided to experiment with this piece to do many things that should not be done, such as having that tritone leap, a real answers starting in non-tonic harmonies and "non-serious" counterpoint.

So this is more an "experimental fughetta" rather than an attempt to write a proper one. I uploaded it because it was honestly fun to do, even if I know the final result is not particularly appealing 🤣.

Thanks for listening!!

8 hours ago, JorgeDavid said:

 

So this is more an "experimental fughetta" rather than an attempt to write a proper one. I uploaded it because it was honestly fun to do, even if I know the final result is not particularly appealing 🤣.

 

 

Well, there's the "problem". All of us, or very many of us, have had this happen to us.
You can't do something "experimental" on a basis that is 600 years old or something else. It's going to sound bad, for sure.
To be experimental, you have to distance yourself from the mainstream.
 

6 minutes ago, Luis Hernández said:

Well, there's the "problem". All of us, or very many of us, have had this happen to us.

Yeah it!s better to write with trials and errors with problems than not writing anything at all. All of us faces the problems when writing, but only through error we can learn to write better music. 

But sometimes you have to know how to write properly before experimentation. Like Beethoven he wrote more ordinary sonatas before trying experimentation.

I think the tritone leap can work if the other voices can work around it, and I think the first answer was harmonised well

Actually the first answer is easy to change into a tonal answer, just use CDCBbA instead of DEbDCBb, the rest of the answer can stay the same

and I think @chopin might still actually be interested in this if you are to submit it, but it's up to him

Love the fugue, and its perfect for the challenge. BTW, I'm still collecting submissions for that Fugue Challenge if you'd like to submit this. Music Jotter should be able to import this, with limited problems if you want to give it a shot!

On 8/3/2024 at 8:09 AM, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

I think for the episode in b.7 is somewhat bare without a third. I think you can make use of the head of the subject (that anapest rhythm) to include some thirds in it. I like the canon in b.16. For the ending, I think you can keep using the head motive as in b.16!

Thanks for the suggestions @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu. The episode was indeed strangely composed (it was more like a sketch, in some ways). I used the same melodic ideas but changed the whole episode so now the counterpoint is much better and fuller. Thank you!

On 8/3/2024 at 8:32 PM, Luis Hernández said:

Well, there's the "problem". All of us, or very many of us, have had this happen to us.
You can't do something "experimental" on a basis that is 600 years old or something else. It's going to sound bad, for sure.
To be experimental, you have to distance yourself from the mainstream.

I agree but also disagree. I agree that experimenting with well established forms or techniques while claiming that your experimentation is automatically, just by experimentation, as artistic and tasteful as the canon is a mistake. However, I believe everyone can experiment with anything as long as their experimentation is non-serious and not claiming to be establishing a new artistic accomplishment. I agree that for being artistically experimental (in other words, for doing experimental art) one needs to learn the techniques properly, and to properly distance themselves from the mainstream of those techniques in artistic and tasteful ways. 

But I do think that anyone can (and at times they probably should) play around with well-established techniques (regardless of how many years old they are) even before they excel at those techniques, just for the sake of playing and investigation.

Of course, only doing that while never studying the techniques properly is where the problem lies. The problem is caused when someone never learns the techniques of the past properly and are always composing in superficial ways based on those techniques while claiming that what they do is incredibly artistic and valuable.

Thanks for your comment since it gave me motivation! I wanted to learn fugue properly from long time ago but, since I know fugues are really complex both to compose and to play, I was delaying that as I did not feel my piano skills were good enough to studying and playing fugues at the piano. Thanks to your comment I was inspired to start that long journey. So I started learning my first prelude and fugue from the Well-tempered clavier and studying counterpoint in a systematic way, so in many months (or years) from now maybe I can write a nice piano fugue that I can even play myself! Thanks, @Luis Hernández!

18 hours ago, PCC said:

I think the tritone leap can work if the other voices can work around it, and I think the first answer was harmonised well

Actually the first answer is easy to change into a tonal answer, just use CDCBbA instead of DEbDCBb, the rest of the answer can stay the same

and I think @chopin might still actually be interested in this if you are to submit it, but it's up to him

 

Thanks for the suggestion, @PCC! I will consider changing the answer to tonal! and thank you for listening and commenting!

14 hours ago, chopin said:

Love the fugue, and its perfect for the challenge. BTW, I'm still collecting submissions for that Fugue Challenge if you'd like to submit this. Music Jotter should be able to import this, with limited problems if you want to give it a shot!

Hi @chopin, 

I have been interested in music jotter as I find that being able to compose in the cloud is a really attractive feature. I tested it for a little bit yesterday but I was running into some issues when trying to add three tracks. Two tracks worked okay but when having a third track added the layout would break in some parts (let me know if you do not know of this issue and I would try to replicate it and take a screenshot of it). 

The reason I was using three tracks is because for starting to learn how to use music jotter, I though it would be better first starting with one voice per track instead of having two voices in the same track from the beginning. I did not have much time so I could not test it much but I will try during this week to see if I learn how to use it!

Thank you! 

If you are having trouble adding a new track, please join the Discord, and let's discuss in the Music Jotter channel. I'd have to know what issue you are facing so I can replicate it. It's most likely a browser compatibility issue (which is why I really need to also release a standalone).

1 hour ago, JorgeDavid said:

have been interested in music jotter as I find that being able to compose in the cloud is a really attractive feature. I tested it for a little bit yesterday but I was running into some issues when trying to add three tracks. Two tracks worked okay but when having a third track added the layout would break in some parts (let me know if you do not know of this issue and I would try to replicate it and take a screenshot of it). 

The reason I was using three tracks is because for starting to learn how to use music jotter, I though it would be better first starting with one voice per track instead of having two voices in the same track from the beginning. I did not have much time so I could not test it much but I will try during this week to see if I learn how to use it!

Thank you! 

Check out this video by Mike @chopin: