Improvising a fugue

[etcetra]

I mentioned several times that I've heard some pianists improvise a fugue, and i was wondering can anyone here in the forum actually do that fluently? 

I have been working on solo piano improvisation, and the whole process of having your LH and RH improvise independently of each other baffles me, and the whole prospect of improvising a fugue is way beyond me.. I mean how in the world can someone improvise something as complex as a fugue?  I mean you have to keep in your mind the subject, the counter-subject, and their variations, and manage to interweave them in 3-4 voices on the piano, not to mention that you have to think about how you want to structure the fugue harmonically as you play them.. (and you have to instantly be able to play the subject and counter-subject in whatever keys you end up in... if there is modulation)

  I
It's hard enough just top play them, but to improvise them, you have to be some kind of freak to do that..any suggestion as to how to do it?

[jabbz]

Bach could, but that's probably not a lot of help.

I can transpose pretty much at sight, so from that angle fugue improvising might be possible for me, but truthfully I haven't really tried to, nor do I improvise music.

[mad_max2024]

I've tried my hand and improvisation several times with various results, but just the thought of improvising something as complex as a fugue gives me the willies...

[etcetra]

mad_max & Jabbz..

I know there are people out there who can do it.. I have not heard it in person but I had friends who were studying jazz from a very accomplished jazz pianists, and they told me they were very depressed after hearing his teacher improvise a fugue in front of them.. 

When I hear keith jarrett is improvising a solo piano piece, i don't hear so much Melody+chord+bass, but 3-5 individual voices moving in counterpoint.. you almost feel like the chords were just by-product of the interweaving lines.. which is opposite of how we think of chords..

Also, when I hear really good jazz pianists play solo, I hear how they manage to have 3 different rhythms going on at least.. with the bass, chords, and melody.. sometimes I hear RH playing the melody, bass playing different rhythms on LH, and they are using whatever fingers they have left to spread the chord between two hands.. and sometimes the inner voicings gets tossed from LH to RH.. It's the kinds of stuff you hear in WTC.

I just wonder what it takes to hear that many voice all at the same time and play them... I know that's an example in jazz but I would love to hear classical improvisers who has the same kind of musical control over their improvisation.

[allemande]

I personally can't, and realize how complex it is and really that it takes an accomplished musician to improvise anything and make it into a reasonable fugue.

I remember seeing Gabriela Montero, who by the way is an excellent pianist, interpret Schumann's Carnaval, and at the end of the concert as an encore she talked to the audience and told them to give her ideas for a theme that she would improvise on.

Someone yelled out Mozart's La ci darem la mano; she played the theme once. Then started over, made it into a fugue, kept playing..then turned the theme and the fugue into a tango style of playing and just...gave an amazing performance. I was left speechless.

[term]

I can't improvise all those operations on the subjects, but i can improvise up to 3 voices simultaneously. I love fugues, but i musically prefer an exposition with different subjects and free flow of musical ideas without repetitions of the subject in the middle of the line. Of course that makes it easier, plus it sounds a little bit better imo. However occasionally i do augmentations or strettos and sometimes i invert the subject.

[etcetra]

term,

was the ability to improvise in 3 voices something you picked up naturally or did you have to work on it, and how did you work on it?  I can't begin to imagine how that works..I am sure its not something you learn in college.. i mean hardly any classical piano majors i knew improvised.

allemande,

yea that sounds pretty amazing.. I am not really a classical pianists so I don't have the discipline/patience to stay with one theme for that long.  I guess for us jazz musicians we do other things, like playing outside the harmony, re-harmonize... etc.. one thing I am working on is playing different hemiola one RH while LH plays a steady 4/4 ostinato.. so you can do things like

1) playing 3/4 over 4/4 (by grouping of quarter notes in 3 note groups)
2) playing 3/4 over 4/4 (by accenting every 4th triplet)
3) and if you are brave enough playing 5/4, 7/4. /9/4 over fall using the same logic as step 1)

Gosh at one point music start to resemble extreme form of juggling..

[Petter]

Gabriela Montero

Looked her up ,she is amazing. She claims she never studied counterpoint and that she though it would inhabit her ability to play. Interesting

[pianowolfi]

If you have the whole Bach WTC under your belt like Keith Jarrett (though his interpretations are often object of critique) it becomes quite natural to think and play in a polyphonic way. If you want to learn to improvise fugues I think there is no better way than to study Bach, extensively. And Schostakovich 24 Préludes and Fugues op 87.

Start with the 15 two part inventions, continue with the three part inventions, start to compose inventions. I am dreaming of being able to improvise a fugue too, I think it's a long way and this is the way I would choose. The more I think about Bach, the more I think he has become so great also because he was so eager to learn from others without losing his own character.

[term]

Improvisation is my daily routine and what i do on the piano since i started, so it's natural i guess. Forget trying to work out methods, i think one has to just do it freely and unrestricted.
It's not a big deal to have 3 voices going at a time if you just play something that works together. Along the line, you will pick up those fugal gimmicks. I think it's difficult to improvise even a rather mundane textbook fugue because you have to think quite fast during the improvisation. But once you find your rhythm and direction, you will have time to think about what you can do with the subject.

Why don't you try 2 voices at a time, play around with it a little bit, and as soon as you can handle that you add one and then two voices.

[etcetra]

pianowolfi,

I don't know how much classical training keith had.. so I am not sure his ability came from practicing wtc or he is just a musical freak.  I think playing the wtc will probably help.. but then again I've learned all of bach's inventions but that has not helped me improvise a 2 part counterpoint in Baroque style.

I guess as far as I am concerned, I feel like it will be even more helpful if I learn the fugues by ear.. of course it will take longer and I will probably not learn many of them, but it will force me internalize the sound in a way that you will never do just by learning it out of text.  by the time I learned  a couple of them, I shouldn't be too far from being able to improvise them.  I guess I will get to that.. someday.. lol.. good thing I have the rest of my life to work on these things 

[javacisnotrecognized]

I think playing the wtc will probably help.. but then again I've learned all of bach's inventions but that has not helped me improvise a 2 part counterpoint in Baroque style.

You learned them, but did you study them ?

[pianowolfi]

pianowolfi,

I don't know how much classical training keith had.. so I am not sure his ability came from practicing wtc or he is just a musical freak. 

Well he has recorded cd's with the whole WTC, the Goldberg Variations, Schosta op. 87, Händel Suites and others.

[Petter]

along those linessss etc

[etcetra]

javacisnotrecognized,

I don't know what you mean by "study" them.. but I did learn them with a teacher and I had to analyze invention and fugue in college.. and do all sort of stuff like labeling the subject, counter-subject .. .etc.  I am sure hundreds of classical piano majors did, but I doubt most of them comes closes to improvising anything, let alone a fugue.

pianowolfi,

I remember hearing a story about someone requested him to play Ravel's Bolero while he was working a lounge gig (way before he made his name in the jazz scene), and he was joking about how he played the piece in its entirety...  I am not disagreeing with you about the fact that he had classical training, but I just think his ability and what he does has more to do with his natural talent than his background in classical music.. he is able to learn things in ways most of us can't.