Fugue Whip

fuguelike melody with attached substances, wip

https://soundcloud.com/zhaozhou/fugue-wip

A+ percussion, dude

Although I feel it is a bit distracting from the melody at times

https://soundcloud.com/zhaozhou/fugue-wip2-1

Listened to Fugue WIP2..

As said above, the percussions are very nice. I could just listen to them. The synth playing the melody gets a bit boring in my opinion, it doesn't lead to anything or that's how it feels.

Anyhow, this sounds technically good and drums, percs, fx and all are very good sounding and well arranged.

Bu its my first original classical fugue :'(

I so desperately want to settle on a melody to repeat Tbh.

I feel gravity pulling from a few directions so im trying to answer the calling to see if there's a way to satisfy what i like about a narrative type sequence and funk jazz syncopation at the same time, risking possibly making mint peanut butter at the end.

Yeah, as was said above, the percussion is tight, but I actually kinda like the melody as well. It's definitely a backup melody though. Listening to like.. Bach (because we all know he's the only person that does that) maybe you should try to be more expressive with the melody. More going up the keyboard, and down, and throw in some counterpoint for measure. Bach is pretty boring to me, and the least boring he gets is when he has melodies counterpointing (or whatever)


Also, you should just do everything you want to do music wise. Unless you're famous, then you should just make the same song over and over. ;)

  On 5/9/2014 at 9:28 PM, skibby said:

Bu its my first original classical fugue :'(

Technically, those are not fugues. Fugue follows a very strict composition structure where you have all the different tracks/instruments repeating the subjects and counter-subjects and their variations.

Good tracks nonetheless. Cheers.

Well spotted, pafr. I wanted to make a fugue, but that's why im calling it a wip for now, its not a fugue yet, but I assure you there's intent. I'm doing it without knowledge or thorough specific imitation.

im changing the name of this to sonata, and i'll change that if its not a sonata. :)

also, the mix isn't mixed, still sorting ideas.

https://soundcloud.com/zhaozhou/fugue4-aka-sonata1-za

Well, it's not a sonata at all, but it's a very nice track nonetheless. Like already said, the percussion is tight and I really like the melodies in the background. The bass, leads and fx steal the show too. Maybe the fugueisch melodies blend a bit too much into the background, but that's fine with me, since the tracks work just fine as is.

  On 5/21/2014 at 3:05 AM, skibby said:

im changing the name of this to sonata, and i'll change that if its not a sonata. :)

also, the mix isn't mixed, still sorting ideas.

 

https://soundcloud.com/zhaozhou/fugue4-aka-sonata1-za

it's really nice!

ok, lets just say the melodies are inspired by classical music, and this arrangement is just an arrangement.

  On 5/21/2014 at 11:23 AM, kinari said:

Well, it's not a sonata at all, but it's a very nice track nonetheless. Like already said, the percussion is tight and I really like the melodies in the background. The bass, leads and fx steal the show too. Maybe the fugueisch melodies blend a bit too much into the background, but that's fine with me, since the tracks work just fine as is.

that's not true at all. Sonata is rather a general form for music that is not a song (having a vocal track in the music).

  On 5/3/2014 at 4:06 AM, skibby said:

fuguelike melody with attached substances, wip

 

https://soundcloud.com/zhaozhou/fugue-wip

Great programming there!

  On 5/22/2014 at 5:45 AM, pafr said:

 

  On 5/21/2014 at 11:23 AM, kinari said:

Well, it's not a sonata at all, but it's a very nice track nonetheless. Like already said, the percussion is tight and I really like the melodies in the background. The bass, leads and fx steal the show too. Maybe the fugueisch melodies blend a bit too much into the background, but that's fine with me, since the tracks work just fine as is.

that's not true at all. Sonata is rather a general form for music that is not a song (having a vocal track in the music).

 

You're right. I was thinking about sonatas having multiple movements (mostly 4), and in general more defined in their definition. Obviously it's far more vague and general than I thought.

Nonetheless, I like the approach to the tracks. They do not feel too artificially trimmed to sound like classical music, which oftentimes is more cheesy than anything else.

name change and mix balance change. it sounded hollow on a mac pro, so i added some distortion on another channel with a bandpass at 300hz, let me know if it sounds like ass.

https://soundcloud.com/zhaozhou/fusonata-wip

sounds nice

Indeed, really digging it! Sounds crisp.

Sounds nice - it has a very video game vibe to it. I do think the melody is slightly meandering at times and it couldn't grab my attention long enough on 1st listen. Maybe that's just me.

  On 5/25/2014 at 6:05 AM, GateFour said:

Sounds nice - it has a very video game vibe to it. I do think the melody is slightly meandering at times and it couldn't grab my attention long enough on 1st listen. Maybe that's just me.

this all started because of mozart, i was super into mozart, and then i heard JS bach and was like "bach doesnt seem to be able to make a point" and then later i was listening to art of fugue and was like "wow its really impressive how the music can just go on and on without blatant repetition, how the f did he do that" and so i mustard up some courage (intentional misspelling there) and (haha, ahem) this is what caused me to try and write a melody that meandered continuously but still didnt sound like a sample and hold lfo on the pitch mod. so, it was a personal exercise to hopefully grow from.

i guess i would call this way of approaching melodic content a "narrative" approach, where the melody attempts to tell a story or is chattering, bantering, calling responsing, harmonising, etc.

what think?

There is no narration in music. It's all just in your own head or the artist's if he thinks his music is narrative.

Music is like food. Fugues are cool because of the variations of motifs (aka loops) except they are variations, not the exact same copy. The whole point is to make the music less boring. Now I can't really listen to anything except classical, jazz, and braindance simply because those are the only genres that don't consistently bore me to death.

People who only like any specific genres are the same kind of people who want to eat bacon everyday, every meal, nothing else.

  On 5/25/2014 at 2:07 PM, skibby said:

 

  On 5/25/2014 at 6:05 AM, GateFour said:

Sounds nice - it has a very video game vibe to it. I do think the melody is slightly meandering at times and it couldn't grab my attention long enough on 1st listen. Maybe that's just me.

 

this all started because of mozart, i was super into mozart, and then i heard JS bach and was like "bach doesnt seem to be able to make a point" and then later i was listening to art of fugue and was like "wow its really impressive how the music can just go on and on without blatant repetition, how the f did he do that" and so i mustard up some courage (intentional misspelling there) and (haha, ahem) this is what caused me to try and write a melody that meandered continuously but still didnt sound like a sample and hold lfo on the pitch mod. so, it was a personal exercise to hopefully grow from.

 

i guess i would call this way of approaching melodic content a "narrative" approach, where the melody attempts to tell a story or is chattering, bantering, calling responsing, harmonising, etc.

 

what think?

 

I am a huge fan of melodies that don't repeat. I also think that some counterpoint melodies in your piece would be awesome.

If you want to learn to fugue, you must first learn more music theory. I am making an assumption based on what I heard, but I think you need to round out your musical knowledge a bit. I heard what sounded to me like baroque era influence on your melodies. Great stuff. Professional training is a great option if you can afford it! Take a couple composition classes if it's an option for you. I think I hear where you want to go, and I think you can get there. If I'm right on your destination, you fell short this time. That's ok, that's how we learn, let's look at why.

A fugue is a very strict form of contrapuntal (counterpoint) composition. Let's first look at counterpoint.

Wikipedia has a great article, I'd recommend reading it thoroughly. Look at the Species 1-5 Counterpoint, it's an easy to follow way of understanding how to begin writing two or more melodies designed to play at once.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterpoint

After you can write harmonically interdependent melodies that are rhythmically independent with different contours (parallel movement is usually to be avoided if your goal is to write fugues), then start learning about what makes a fugue a fugue.

I do not know what your music theory knowledge is like. I'll give you a couple links, use em if they're useful to you!

http://musicdials.com/theory.html

http://www.openculture.com/2009/09/how_a_bach_canon_works.html

http://www.jacmuse.com/041708trc/101706trc/index.htm

That last one is very in depth.

Happy writing. Keep pushing yourself. If you have questions, hit me up.

  On 5/24/2014 at 12:28 PM, skibby said:

name change and mix balance change. it sounded hollow on a mac pro, so i added some distortion on another channel with a bandpass at 300hz, let me know if it sounds like ass.

 

https://soundcloud.com/zhaozhou/fusonata-wip

Cool track! I think I prefer the more frenetic percussion and fade-out on the first version.

With something like a fugue it can be harder to intuitively write the melody for reasons already stated. It's definitely a brain excercise and you cannot expect too much of yourself the first time around. That being said the melody is pleasant and more progressive than a lot of electronic music.