Why don't you ask Hrodolf, an excellent composer, how difficult it must be to control that amount of perfectly maintained material within a perfect structure for over 3 minutes. He'll have a far better idea than you about what type of abilities are necessary for that type of control, on the fly might I add. Ask him. He's right here.

lol how many posts before this thread turns into /b/

the world may never know

My opinion is that it's remarkable that you were able to come up with a fugue just by playing it. Improvising in fugal form is itself an act of great ability since you aren't free to do what you want and you have to follow the rules of fugue as well as keeping everything working in terms of the counterpoint, harmony, reiterations of the subject, et cetera. I'd go so far as to say it's an act that reflects above average talent.

I tried writing fugues in high school. I think I still have one of them (unfortunately a lot of music I wrote ended up getting lost due to carelessness). I taped clear scotch tape all over a piece of staff paper, wrote in pencil, and could erase and change notes with no marks because of the scotch tape. And I wrote all the appearances of the subject in red. I think I still have it because it happened to be preserved by being in between the last page and the back cover of a volume of Mendelssohn organ works.

Maybe if I can dig that up and post it here we can establish whether I am capable of discussing fugal form at anything beyond a pedestrian level. I appreciate the praise but since I've had no composition lessons I consider myself a mere beginner (I emailed someone about getting lessons but they never responded unfortunately).

Bjones
I don't do bathroom language.

Chopin wrote a two-voice fugue

/b/ is the phonemic representation for a voiced bilabial plosive consonant. Does it mean something else, too?

Steven

You should definitely write some. I wouldn't recommend a theme as long as Popeye for someone initiating themself into writing fugues. Pick short subjects to start with and let JS Bach be your guide. When I improvise fugues, because Bartok is a huge influence of mine, most are constructed in "fan-like" Fibonacci fashion, complete with theme and subjects in retrograde or mirrored version, a la Bartok's 89 bar grand double fugue from Music for Strings, of course echoing all the laws of motivic development and presentation present in Bach's fugues.
You're a talented composer and I'm sure that a few weeks of analyzing and/or playing Bach's fugues would impart solid knowledge to your own fugue writing.

Technically, there's no such thing as a two-voice fugue, regardless of whom may say differently.

What is it about two voiced pieces that bar them from being fugues? I'm just asking because I'd like to know what your reasoning is.

Technically, there's no such thing as a two-voice fugue, regardless of who(m) may say differently.

I'll post the preserved one I was discussing and we'll see where things go from there. I think there was another fugue I wrote more recently but it was a mess and I don't even know if I still have it.

Re posting the other fugue, I'm not sure if I will be able to do it actually because I don't know how to notate polyphony in notation software. I may have to figure this out and I don't know how long it will take.

Even Bach? The E minor fugue of Book I (WTC) for example.

I'm not sure why you're not able to discuss things without resorting to personal abuse, BJones, as in your replies to Andromaque. It doesn't do anything for your credibility.

Even Bach? The E minor fugue of Book I (WTC) for example.

I'm not sure why you're not able to discuss things without resorting to personal abuse, BJones, as in your replies to Andromaque. It doesn't do anything for your credibility.

It's called getting angry.

It's called getting angry.

You must understand, I'm trying to explain to Andromaque about fugues the way a father might explain about insects to his little girl who was just frightened by seeing her first spider without any understanding of the little creatures.
I'm sure that for Andro to make those comments, Andro has no idea of the virtuosic mental control it takes to improvise a super-strict four voice fugue, especially with a very long subject and a counter theme having poly-rhythmic properties (2/4 elements of the countertheme vs. the 6/8 main motif).
Writing a 4 voice fugue is strict compositional fashion is difficult eough for most, improvising one on a given melody, on the fly, is beyond the capabilities of 99.9% of the world's populaton of musicians.
I have a feeling that Andro is certainly not a composer, and is likely more of a listener than a player, as are most critics that pontificate on subjects that they don't fully understand. This is why I asked if he analyzed it, and as expected, I didn't get an answer, because I already knew that was beyond his abilities to do so and comment theorectically on the piece.

As stated, if you were to formally study composition and were asked to write a fugue, it would be automatically understood that your teacher wanted a 3 voice or more composition.
In academic circles, fugues are generally considered to consist of 3 voices or more.

I suspected that was what it was called .
However, anger doesn't excuse personal abuse in my opinion.

I suspected that was what it was called .
However, anger doesn't excuse personal abuse in my opinion.

Ok, that makes sense, obviously Bach didn't limit fugue that way (WTC I e minor) but we are not required to follow his example particularly in an academic context.

I don't get angry. Andromaque has a non-existant understanding of fugues, their form, their content, the way they propogate, and their laws as modeled after JS Bach. How can I get angered by his ignorance? I'd rather help him understand than abet his lack of understanding.

I take it you never got angry and said things that were in the heat of the moment that could have been seen as offensive?

Hro, if you're asked to write a fugue for a final and you bring them a 2-voice piece, chances are if you prof shoots straight from the hip, he'll tell you, "What the Hell is this?".
Without the 3rd voice, the propagtion/unfolding of the entire art of fugue is vastly changed.

I didn't get angry. Not in the least. I'm very patient with children or those that simply don't understand and base their opinions of the forest on one tree. Andro didn't say anything to anger me. I'd sooner be angry at a 2 year old flipping me the bird. I take things from their source and weight accordingly.

Ok, then you weren't angry. My mistake. I was just assuming you were because I was probably at least seven or eight percent pissed off for at least a third of this thread.

Having never taken a composition class I can only agree with you on this issue. All I meant to indicate is that Bach did title the E minor book one fugue "Fuga" so he intended it as a fugue. So what applies in the present day academic understanding of the form obviously didn't apply to Bach's understanding of the form. But that's ok, because Bach probably wrote the "fugue" as a joke anyway.

You see abuse where I see honesty.

I consider name-calling to be personal abuse, that's all. If you think that's a useful method of teaching, well there's nothing more to be said.
So I won't say it.

Bach's art was to follow all the rules but also to have everything work perfectly as music, without a note out of place and nothing sounding off.

I wish I knew how he did that.