How do you write a fugue?

[super_ardua]

You get a subject and a countersubject and what do you do?

[Daevren]

Good question. I am trying to figure this out too. I ordered sheet music for Bachs WTC and "The Study of Fugue" by Alfred Mann ISBN: 0486254399

The thing I figured out by now is that you need to have a melody called a subject. It has two parts, a head and a tail. The head is usally build out of small note values. The tail is slower notes, a descending tetrachord seems to work very well.

At the moment you start with the tail of the subject, another voice begins playing the subject too. When that voice finished the head of the subject another voice can start. You can have 3 or 4 or 5 voices. In theory you can also have 6, 7, 8 and-so-on number of voices. Start out with 3 or 4.

Then it gets too complex for me. When a voice is finished with its subject you probably just write counterpoint agaist the other voices still playing the subject. I know what a countersubject is but I can't seem to apply it yet. The moment I finished playing the subject in the 4th voice my wannabe-fugues begin to sound like crap.

Fugue writing is hard. I don't know what your knowledge of music theory is but start learning counterpoint, harmony and voice leading. Especially counterpoint.

So look at fugues, study them. Study counterpoint and buy a book that covers fugues. Lots and lots of work.

Check these sites:

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

If anyone really knows how to write fugues, I would love to hear it too.

[JK]

I'm not an expert but as I understand it: (each voice represented by a different line):

subject (tonic)  counter subj (dom) 2nd counter subj(ton)


                        subject (dominant)  counter subject (ton)


                                                        subject (tonic)


And so on, after the subject has been heard in every voice the material is then developed in various episodes, this may include fragmenting the subject using sequences etc. After this "development" section there is usually a recapitulation in the tonic where the full subject is heard. Towards the end you may get stretto which is when the subject enters in different voices at increasingly smaller intervals of time.

[Daevren]

This site too: https://www.kunstderfuge.com/theory.htm

[abe]

Just compose it by ear. Thats what I did.

[super_ardua]

The problem is have never learned composition (apart from a little bit),  and cannot really compose away from the piano.  If I want to write something,  I just write what sounds right,  as long as there are no parallel octaves, fourths or fifths.  I would like to write something contrapunctual in my spare time,  are there any helpful pages?

[Daevren]

Compose it by ear?

How?  

[super_ardua]

Just compose it by ear. Thats what I did.

I'm interested.  Tell me more, please

[ted]

For me the fugue is a loose style rather than a strict form - a style I enjoy bringing into my improvisation quite frequently. However, I don't do it in the normal way, and rhythm and flow are the elements most important to producing the sound I like, rather than fancy rules about harmony.

My brain is not perceptive enough to recognise an inversion, cancrizan or any other clever transformation of a motif, let alone play them on the fly. Neither does my musical response tell me I must use this or that chord or start and finish in a particular way.

In other words I do not create strict baroque fugues (whatever they are - I haven't the faintest idea about theory) but always enjoy pushing the style in a new direction each time.  There is no doubt considerable attraction in the sort of flowing imitative sound a fugue produces and this is the thing I like.

One way I have gone recently, for instance,  is to play in totally unaligned metres, or no metre at all, that is to say completely independent voices whose notes are not aligned vertically but nonetheless produce rather nice fugal imitation. It's hard to define but easy to feel, and lack of metre does not imply lack of rhythm or life. Probably next to impossible to write out though !

This is purely a subjective view of the fugue which suits my own creative purpose. I find the fugue, like the rag, a continuously fertile source of ideas - limited only by my imagination and technique.

[dlu]

How do you write a fugue? Why would you want to do a thing like that? Haha JK....Why don't you listen to A Glenn Gould composition entitle: "So you want to write a fugue?" It for string quartet and voice quartet (bass, tenor, alto, soprano)...Look it up on amazon.com and listen to a sound sample, it's pretty hilarious. I'm not sure it will help you write a fugue but it'll at least be entertaining. Why don't you write a two part invention of then a three part sinfonia before you write a fugue?

[Daevren]

Well, I assume that people who want to compose a fugue are already experienced composers.

A fugue is kind of the biggest challenge for a composer. Its a strict and complicated form. Alot of great composers composed fugues just to prove they could.

[Rach3]

For me the fugue is a loose style

Then why call it fugue?

fancy rules about harmony

Counterpoint is harmony in its abstract. Great fugues are very much dependent on a powerful harmonic implication - the forward-driving motive is the tension of dissonance and the release of its return to the tonic. It is in no way superfluous or 'fancy'.

[Daevren]

Harmony is the essence of western music. Without it all our music would be worthless.

A fugue is an excersize in counterpoint and form. It is naturally strict, though alot of variation is possible

A 'loose fugue' does exist. Its called a fugato. Alot of pre-baroque compositions have fugue-like passages. But they aren't fugues, because those are strict. So we call those parts fugatos.

You can improvise fugues but its pretty hard.

And about composing just by ear and without theory. I am not a composition teacher so I don't have that much experience with it, but the classical compositions composed by people by ear and without theory always lack harmonic movement and/or structure. Melodic and rhythmic its all ok, but harmony is more subtle. Just pure imitation by ear doesn't seem to work for normal people. Now I know it can be done, but I get the impression its very rare.

So if you want to compose classical music and you aren't some Mozart you have to learn theory. And if you can learning theory would still help you.

[ted]

Quite right, Daevren. Fugato is the correct term for what I do. As I get the same mental effect from loose counterpoint and free forms generally as from the strict varieties I see little point in my bothering with the latter. That is just my choice, and the deficiency, if deficiency it is, resides with me.

Thank you for clarifying this difference.

[Daevren]

Well, its impossible to write a perfect fugue(in the way it is strict and follows all the rules).

One just wants to gain as much control as possible.