inventions

[maestoso]

so are there 24 inventions one for every note and it's relative minor?

[leucippus]

so are there 24 inventions one for every note and it's relative minor?

I thought there were 30 of them.  One for every natural number from 1 to 30.

The first 15 are 2-part preambles and the second 15 are 3-part fantasies.

Why the numbers worked out the way they did must have had something to do with the position of Pluto in the sky when Bach wrote these pieces and that's why it has recently been demoted from a planet to an asteroid.

[amanfang]

There are 24 preludes and fugues if that's what you mean.  One for every key plus its parallel minor. 

[gilad]

when the inventions where written there was not yet a tuning system that allowed for 12 keys and their minor relatives. That is a system of tuning that was to be called Well-Temperment, which is what Bach wrote his WTC according too. Im sure someone else could give a more detailed explanation.

[maestoso]

click!(light comes on)WTC well tempered clavier duh! no i just was thinking as i was printing them out that since it was c major then minor there were 24 of them.

[pianistimo]

wait.  there are 88 notes on the keyboard.  that could be 44 preambles and 44 fantasies.  all combined into the grand un-tempered inventions. 

ps what does pluto have to do with this?  no matter.  i like the idea.  lets add a few titles to some.  pluto.  jupiter. 

we can turn them into symphonies later.

i'm not sure i want to find out what pdq bach said about the inventions.  probably had a rube-goldberg one somewhere.

[pianistimo]

www.bachtalk.com/pdq_bach.html

has some interesting titles.  traumeri for unaccompanied piano?  fanfare for the common cold?  couldn't find any inventions.  hmmm.

[maestoso]

speaking of inventions, in no 1 at bar 4  should that be an f#. i can't scan so i cant put an example up but maybe you would know what was going on.

[pianowolfi]

Why the numbers worked out the way they did must have had something to do with the position of Pluto in the sky when Bach wrote these pieces and that's why it has recently been demoted from a planet to an asteroid.

I'm against the demotion of Pluto.

[pianistimo]

dear maestoso,  according to pianostreet urtext - yes, it is an F#.  but, looking at the autograph version, good luck deciphering!  i think he wrote some things in the easiest key and then just transposed later.  in some editions you have to read the little footnotes and see what is most likely - or what sounds the best to you.  bach really experimented way beyond what most people thought harmonic.  if music is played with a certain flow - you can get away with some strange notes.