How to Improvise a Fugue
How to Improvise a Fugue?
J. S. Bach: The Art of the Fugue
The Problem is the Question!
Many musicians today ask themselves this question.
Indeed, it seems like a question like any other:
How do you post something on social networks?
How do you open a new Facebook account?
How do you purchase that course?
For all these questions, there is an answer—more or less detailed—but nonetheless singular and procedural: do this, then this, then that.
But if I now ask you: How do you build a house?
The answer is evidently more complex because the house—the final result—is the outcome of different processes.
How do you lay the foundations?
How do you choose the material for the walls?
Which doors and windows are better?
What furnishings do we choose?
And many other questions....
So, the question "How do you build a house?" makes sense only if it is divided into many other smaller questions.
Ask yourself the right questions!
So it is with the Fugue: you can't improvise a Fugue because the Fugue doesn't exist!
Or rather, the Fugue is the result of different building blocks:
- How do you invent a musical Subject?
- How do you harmonize this Subject in the three main voices (Bass, Soprano, Middle)?
- How do you construct (compose or improvise) an Exposition?
- How do you move from one key to another making a Modulation?
- How du you use Sequences?
- How do you create a Cadence?
- How do you craft a close imitation?
When you have found the answer to each of these questions, you can improvise or compose a Fugue.
The question "How to improvise a Fugue" is therefore wrong in itself: the Fugue is the result of many techniques and skills that must be studied separately.
Now learn one thing at a time!
On this page, I am offering you an extremely value Course on how to improvise a Fugue, which you can follow by doing the exercises in the order I provide below.
It is very important that you follow all the steps as they are written, and that you give your brain time to learn and assimilate them one at a time.
The brain 🧠needs time ⌚ to create new synapses and neural connections, and this requires consistency, repetition, and commitment!
If you like these videos, find them useful, and would like more, you can support this project on Patreon.
By doing so, you'll gain access to all the educational PDFs of this course!
You can find the links to all the exercises in the description of each video linked below!
Learn how to Compose and improvise a Fugue
A musical subject can have particular and specific melodies within itself that can be of different kinds: sequences, repetitions, leaps, etc.
When learning to improvise a fugue, you learn to harmonize a Subject with the help of a Countersubject, which can be useful because in this way you have another voice that is already closely related. You will just need to add a third voice to achieve a satisfactory harmony.
Before embarking on this journey that we will undertake together on how to improvise a Fugue, it is necessary that you have a good practical training in keyboard harmony.
It is necessary that you can easily realize a Partimento, that you know all the Sequences, that you know how to use dissonances correctly with the PSR rule (Preparation-Suspension-Resolution), that you can modulate from one key to another, play diminutions, imitations, and florid melodies over a simple harmonic structure.
If you don't know how to do all this, you can learn it with The Partimento Method, a university-level course to learn how to compose music: create your free account HERE.
Now let's choose a musical Subject, which we'll call Do Re Mi Fa Mi reading with Hexachordal Solmisation.
Step 1: Let's set up a Countersubject in Double Counterpoint!
Set up a Countersubject in double counterpoint, using invertible intervals: consonances like 3rds and 6ths, and dissonances like 2nds and 7ths.
Then practice with both hands in all keys.
Step 2: Learn to improvise an Upwards Exposition!
Use the Subject and Countersubject and their relationship to improvise an ascending Exposition—that is, from bottom to top: Bass, Tenor, Alto, Soprano. The Countersubject will always be in the lower voice.
Then, follow it with a Counter Exposition!
Step 3: Learn to improvise a Downwards Exposition!
Now do the opposite!
Learn to improvise an Exposition from top to bottom: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass. The Countersubject will always be in the voice above the Subject.
Then, follow it with a Counter Exposition!
Step 4: Minor Upwards Exposition
After practicing the Upwards Exposition in the major key in Step 2, it's now time to do the same exercise in the minor keys.
The Subject thus becomes Re Mi Fa Sol Fa.
Step 5: Minor Downwards Exposition
Now, with the subject Re Mi Fa Sol Fa, let's improvise a Minor Downwards Exposition!
Step 6: Subject in the Middle - Major Mode
In the previous exercises, the Subject was always in an outer voice, either the highest or the lowest.
Now, instead, let's study its harmonization in the middle, such as Tenor or Alto!
Let's start practicing in the Major Mode!
Step 7: Subject in the Middle - Minor Mode
Now do the previous exercise but in the Minor Mode.
In this way, you will be able to harmonize this subject in all keys (at least up to 4 sharps and flats), and in all three positions: as Bass, as Soprano, and as Middle Voice (Tenor or Alto).
Step 8: Advanced Exposition 1 - Major Mode
It's time to experiment with different types of more advanced Expositions.
In this first Advanced Exposition, we have various combinations, but the last one will always be the Tenor, so the subject will be in the middle!
Step 9: Advanced Exposition 1 - Minor Mode
Now do the same exercise but in the minor mode!
Step 10: Advanced Exposition 2 - Major Mode
In Advanced Exposition 2, not only will the last entry be harmonized as the Subject in the Middle, but the last two!
So practice in the Major Mode!
Step 11: Advanced Exposition 2 - Minor Mode
Now do the same exercise in the minor mode, with the last two voices of the exposition as middle voices.
Step 12: Sequences in the Fugue!
Once you have studied the subject, the imitations, and the voice entries, it is time to learn how to move from one key to another through Sequences.
There are three challenges in this Step:
1) To know the Sequences well: 3 down 2 up, quintfall, Monte, Tied Bass.
2) To modulate elegantly to exit the Sequence into the new key.
3) To make the Sequences coherent with the subject of the fugue: not just simple successions of chords!
Step 13: Chromatic Quintfall!
An effective technique for concluding, also used by Handel in his exercises for Princess Anne, consists of creating a grand Chromatic Quintfall Sequence using the Subject.
Step 14: Improvise a Complete Fugue in Major! Recipe!
Now you have all the building blocks you need to improvise a Fugue in the Major Mode!
Follow the recipe in this video!
Improvise and compose many fugues on the same subject!
Step 15: Improvise a Complete Fugue in MInor! Recipe!
And now, you can also improvise a Fugue in the Minor Mode!
Here is another recipe with which you can improvise and compose many different fugues in the minor mode!
Well! I am happy to have accompanied you on this journey, to have illuminated the path on the right way of the fugue, and to have been your guide through the individual stages to explore!
Now it's up to you! Your destiny as a Musicus Practicus is in your hands!
If you want to learn many other things, acquire new skills, and improve, you need to be consistent in exercise and practice!
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