Why I write fugues (Part II)

This is part II of Why I write fugues. Part I is a discussion on compositional techniques and methods, which you may find interesting if you are into composing fugues.

Its potential for cross-genre innovation

Fugue has its roots in improvisation. The notion of contrapuntal writing developed from polyphonic exercises in the Renaissance Era (ca. 1400 – 1600) that helped plan out a basis for improvisation. Eventually, the fugue became recognized as a distinct texture on its own and rose to its prominence in the Baroque Era (ca. 1600 – 1760) notably with the music of Bach. Fugues were often based on pre-existing material or musical cryptograms using a variety of encodings.

Vid. 1. Video recording of the fugue from Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel (Op. 24) by Brahms. Pf. Andre-Michel Schub.

Contrapuntal writing based on pre-existing material allowed composers to give their music an additional dimension. Typically, the pre-existing material would be a melody or a fragment of a melody from another source, such as a hymn, a folk song, or a piece of music. The fugue from Brahms’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel is an example of such a work from the Romantic Era (ca. 1815 – 1910).

Musical cryptograms are a way of correlating written language to musical pitch classes. Notable examples are:

• the BACH motif (from J.S. Bach): B flat, A, C, B natural; and
• the DSCH motif (from D. Shostakovitch): D, E flat, C, B natural.

(In German music conventions, B-flat is represented as B and B natural is represented as H.)

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Fast forward to modern day, a world dominated by computers, mass media, and popular culture. While “classical music” (art music) still has a prominent presence in art and culture, it is less accessible to the public, and therefore not as well understood, compared to popular music.

The fugue is now a thing of the past, but I feel that shouldn’t be the way it is. In Part I of Why I write fugues, I had talked about how I appreciate the art of fugue writing as a fascinating puzzle. It is an engaging challenge that leads to the revelation of things that were once not obvious to the composer. And in turn, the composer learns more about himself through this process. That is why I believe that the fugue form is important and should be brought back to some degree of prominence. That is what I hope to achieve through my work on YouTube.

I didn’t start posting score videos until some time in 2008. (“Score video” is a term I made up to describe a slideshow of sheet music synchronized with music playing in the background.) My first upload of this kind was my piano solo arrangement of Lilium, the opening theme song from the anime Elfen Lied. I composed the arrangement in response to all the positive feedback I was receiving from my Lilium improvisation video. Soon after, my first score video received lots of comments and views, which gave me an idea.

Vid. 2. Score video for Nokia Fugue (Op. 31), an original composition.

Seeing that people liked the idea of score videos, I thought I’d make some more to see where it would lead me. But anime music, while popular with selected audiences, still does not compare to the popularity of pop culture. Then I thought of cell phones and started sketching out the beginnings of what would later become the the Nokia Fugue (Op. 31).

From that point on, I realized that the fugue form (and canons) was a link between art music and pop culture. By writing fugues that incorporated elements from pop culture, I could speak to a broader audience and raise awareness of this art form to audiences that otherwise would not have been aware. Later on, My YouTube subscriber count rose quickly after the user smalin, who is known for his visually appealing music animation videos, animated the Nokia Fugue.

Vid. 3. Score video for Fugue for Sycra (Op. 35), an original composition.

In November 2009, I composed Fugue for Sycra (Op. 35). Extending the idea of musical cryptogram into the 21st century, I came upon the idea of writing a fugue loosely based on the letters of a friend’s YouTube username. As mentioned previously, there are many methods of encoding letters to pitch classes. Being the case that I do not speak fluent German, I decided to go with the “French” method of the musical cryptogram, which basically encodes the first seven letters of the alphabet as expected, and then the rest of the letters are encoded to their corresponding pitch class given in the top row of the following table:

A	B	C	D	E	F	G
H	I	J	K	L	M	N
O	P	Q	R	S	T	U
V	W	X	Y	Z

Tbl. 1. French musical cryptogram encoding scheme.

I say this is an extension of the traditional cryptogram-based fugue because it is based on a username as opposed to an actual name. It is essentially an adaptation of traditional methods to the modern world of technology.

By writing fugues using pre-existing melodies and motifs from pop culture, I can combine my appreciation for the fugue with something to which the general public can relate. With time, I hope that more and more people can appreciate the beauty of the fugue along with its complex compositional techniques.

Why I write fugues (Part I)

Introduction

For those visitors of my website, Audiomuse, you may have noticed that the last blog post was written nearly half a year ago all the way back in August of 2009. I had mentioned that I was going to blog more often, and write interesting articles on certain music-related topics, but yet again, I have not kept my word. For that, I apologize. “Why,” you ask, “am I posting now all of a sudden?” Well, due to some interesting circumstances, I now have an incentive to blog; one of my university courses requires me to keep a regular blog, so I thought: What better opportunity to write articles on topics of personal interest without feeling guilty of procrastinating than this one?

(Before I begin, note that this article assumes of the reader some general knowledge in music terminology and fugue. However, I will try my best to express my ideas in a way that the material will make an interesting read for any audience.)

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The fugue form has always been a great interest to me, ever since encountering my first Bach fugue in my teen years. Two things I find interesting about the fugue form are:

1. the systematic approach and recursive nature of fugue writing
2. its potential for cross-genre innovation.

(I will talk about the first point in this post and save the second point for a later time.)

The systematic approach and recursive nature of fugue writing

While I have studied counterpoint (adj. contrapuntal) several years ago, I admit that I have forgotten many of the rules. (Counterpoint is a technique of polyphonic writing, in which two or more voices maintain interdependence in harmonic structure and independence in rhythm and melodic contour.) While I still adhere to things such as proper voice leading, priority in note doubling, and the avoidance of parallel fifths and octaves (those are the main ones that I can recall off the top of my head), much of what I write is based on what I think “sounds good.” In some ways, this can be a good thing, because it allows me to focus more on the actual composition than to be bogged down by rules. I guess what I’m trying to say is that while I am conscious of the rules of strict counterpoint, I am also conscious about musicality. Having said all that, I think it’s time to delve into the composition process.

Fugue writing is definitely a systematic process. In most cases, fugues are based on a single melodic idea, known as the subject, that is complete on its own. The subject serves as a starting point for the rest of the composition.

In addition to the subject, one may choose to also incorporate a countersubject. (A countersubject is another subject that is regularly, but not necessarily always, heard with the main subject. If the countersubject is featured prominently enough and treated like the main subject, it can be considered as a second subject, and the fugue is then referred to as a double fugue.) The countersubject is often tested for invertibility, that is, its ability to be contrapuntally logical when heard above the subject and heard below the subject (Fig. 1). I generally try to work in a good invertible countersubject, but sometimes it is not possible because of the intervallic constraints with the main subject. In this situation, I will either choose to modify it or to keep the main subject as it is because it just “sounds good.”

Fig. 1. Excerpt from Fugue for Sycra (Op. 35), an original piano solo, showing various elements in the exposition of a fugue. The fugue subject makes its first appearance in mm. 1 – 2. Then the countersubject appears in the middle voice (mm. 3 – 4) and again in the top voice (mm. 6 – 8) demonstrating invertibility when heard together with the fugue subject.

If one wishes to compose a “stretto fugue” he or she may choose to plan the subject such that it is possible to be heard in canon with itself in one or more ways. (Canon refers to a style of polyphonic composition where one or more voices strictly imitate the first voice at some interval, usually diatonic, and at some delayed duration, while still maintaining harmonic sense. Stretto, then, refers to the canon texture within a fugue composition.)

Fig. 2. Excerpt from Fugue for Sycra (Op. 35), showing an example of stretto in mm. 12 – 13 between the upper voice (leader) and the middle voice (follower).

This can be a frustrating experience, but once a stretto is established, it can be used over and over again to one’s heart’s content. The stretto may appear later on in various configurations. Either the leader or the follower may be above the other, and additional voices may be oriented to be above or below a voice. (Some configurations may not be possible due to excessive voice overlapping and other contrapuntal constraints.) I find the notion of stretto to be very fascinating because of its property of being strictly self-referential.

So far, I have briefly talked about two fugal features: the countersubject and the stretto. As you can see, both are closely related to the composition as a whole. I typically choose to focus on one feature more than the other, simply because it would be too time consuming to consciously integrate several features simultaneously. Because of this, my fugues usually have either a highly-developed stretto basis and a less-developed countersubject or vice versa.

From these observations, I perceive the process of fugue writing as a puzzle, where the composer discovers more and more as he progresses. It is like a puzzle in many regards:

• Contrapuntal devices are closely and firmly integrated, and so, there is a great deal of recursive dependency.
• Contrapuntal devices develop simultaneously as the composer writes the fugue, which makes fugue-writing suspensful and full of surprises.
• Harmonic relationships are not always apparent at first glance, so there is much trial and error involved.

The idea of a puzzle is even more apparent when the fugue subject is based on pre-existing material (such as references to popular culture) which I will be discussing in depth in my next segment.

I will leave it at that for today. In my next post, I will be discussing the notion of cross-genre innovation and how I relate this to the fugue.