How did JSB do it?

[shaun_bowman]

I've searched high and low for postings about piano music with a formal structural basis in the hope that somebody out there was interested in or knew something about those aspects of composition which Douglas R Hofstadter addresses in his baook 'Goedel, escher, Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid' - but, alas, not a word! It's as though pianists in particular are under the impression that music is a strictly audio phenomenon.

It's not!

It is equally a set of patterned relationships comparable with chess, geometry, architecture and so on.  If music were nothing more than sounds impinging on the ear- drums, it wouldn't be music. It's all about the way it is organised. Or maybe you think that Rachmaninoff made it sound the way he did because that was his sponataneous way of expressing emotion? Crap!

Music has something to say to the head as well as the heart. So let's be hearing from some of you piano-heads out there  . .How did JSBach do it?



sb

[bernhard]

How very right you are! Bach’s music in particular is certainly intended for the “contemplation of patterns”, and has little to do with the emotionalism so often associated with romantic music.

Besides Hoffstadter, quite a number of  musicologists has delved into this particular aspect of Bach’s music. Try this one:

Lawrence Dreyfuss – “Bach and the patterns of invention” (Harvard). Invention here does not refer to 2/3 voice inventions, but rather to motifs that can developed into full compositions – the basic method that Bach employed. Fascinating reading. Read review here:

https://homepages.kdsi.net/~sherman/patternsofinvention.htm

Also have a look at these fascinating sites:

https://users.castel.nl/%7Eschic02/invention.htm
(Bach and mumerology – a controversial and much debated topic)

https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/%7Etas3/bachindex.html
(This amazing site uses animation to illustrate how fugues are structured. There are also some beautiful essays on the same lines as Hoffstadter book. Highly recommended)

I have briefly touched on this subject in relation to Bach’s first 2-voice invention here:

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=teac;action=display;num=1081198385
(reply no. 7)

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[shaun_bowman]

Well, Bernhard! It would appear from the fact that my post received one reply that we are in a minority of two!

Nevertheless, I am so very grateful for that one reply. Especially the links, which I am about to peruse over the coming weekend.

I am at present endeavouring to respond to an interesting challenge: to refine a formal system which can map the Fischer-Spassky Rejkjavic games into music.

Of course, I am nuts!

Hence, you risk guilt by association if have anything to say on the subject.

best wishes

sb

[Daevren]

https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/wtc.html

Ooh wait, Bernard posted a link to the same site. Ooh well.

[bernhard]

Chess? Nah. Try GO.  

Back to Bach: Have you heard of this CD? It is at the heart of your interest.

https://web.jccc.net/academic/cip/press/releases03/morimur.htm

https://www.nesta.org.uk/assets/pdf/bach_32-35.pdf


Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Daevren]

Haha, I have looked several times for a way to translate poems/literature to music.

But chess games will work much better because of the rows A to H.

The 'Goedel, escher, Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid', is it funny pseudo-science for novice people? Because I know my share of science, I lack math though, and I don't want to read a book where the rules are bended a little to make the book work more elegently.

I played both go and chess, I liked chess more but I know the advantages of go. Go is just too dratic for me, no structure at all!

But fischers 'random chess' eliminates some of the disadvatages chess has compared to go.

[shaun_bowman]

Hi B & D!

So our minority interest group is burgeoning!

Re GEB - no this is not 'bendy' science. It's tough stuff though, as it is, in effect, a layman's explanation of Goedel's Theorem, which lies at the heart of all attempts to map one system onto another. It is of particular interest, however to those of us who believe that the well-tempered scale offers an environment in which mapping can be employed with considerable precision. And, as Hofstadter is at pains to point out, mapping is at the heart of meaning and communication.

As a twelve year old, I was told that the 1812 was a composition describing Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. I can believe it. But if I had been told that it was a composition describing a coffee-house in downtown Prague, I might well have been equally credulous.

Or to put it another way, if I wrote a description in words of the 'Beautiful Blue Danube' with no refence whatsoever to a river, a valley, the towns along that valley etc, you might well wonder about to what the title referred.

Which begs the question, why not music that bears some traceable relationship to its subject matter. It doesn't seem much to ask, but it ain't easy!

I was beginning to think that nobody in the world thought this was of any interest. So thanks for the links. I'm trying to strike up a correspondence with anybody who is interested in addressing this stuff, and I'll keep you posted.

Thanks again

SB