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Post by fuguestate on Oct 22, 2021 18:19:19 GMT
Just for fun, I decided to find out what it would sound like if I gave the individual voices each a different timbre. It turned out actually not bad, except for a few places where it's clearly out-of-range for my totally-arbitrarily-selected instruments.  Ironically, m.48 sounds terrible because the string ensemble patch I used is totally out-of-balance there (and I'm too lazy to bother to fix this, since this is just for fun). But the stretto at the end becomes clearer when you can hear the voices in separate timbres. Audio: mp3No score because it's exactly the same as before, only I extricated the voices and plopped them into separate staves for different instruments. (Conveniently, I had written the entire piece with explicitly-separated voices, so this was pretty trivial to do. Lilypond is pretty amazing at integrating separate voices into a piano staff. Well, given some prods and nudges here and there.  But those are ignored in the MIDI generation.) |
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Post by fuguestate on Oct 25, 2021 23:17:44 GMT
After many more listens, I was still not entirely happy with mm.48-49. So I rewrote it several times until I found something that doesn't immediately strike me as off. Also, revisited m.13 and decided to completely scrap the lower 2 voices and rewrite them afresh. This time I think I hit upon a good solution. It doesn't quite contain the chords I wanted but I think trying to hold on to that has held me back from making progress, so it's time to sacrifice that sacred cow. I like the results, and I hope you do too. I revisited also m.41, another bar that has been a source of headaches. This one I'm less sure about, I think I might end up rewriting it again. It's one of those things that initially sounded good, and what follows is built upon that, but upon closer inspection what I had wasn't what I wanted, but then any corrections would break the connection with what follows. Sigh... the woes of fugue-writing. Anyway, here's the latest version: Score: PDFAudio: mp3 |
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Post by gx on Oct 27, 2021 15:19:28 GMT
Hey, HS, Im a bit caught up with things,but look forward to checking it out.
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Post by fuguestate on Oct 27, 2021 17:30:38 GMT
No problem, take your time.  |
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Post by gx on Nov 19, 2021 18:21:11 GMT
Hey HS. Listened to the newer version. The first 54 bars held my attention completely. Bars 55- 60 look fine on paper, but my ear doesn't get it. Then my ear fades back in for bars - the pick-up to bar 62 - 69 - though I don't find it as appealing as the first 54 bars. I know, from bar 69 to the end is the rise to the culminating moment, and I do think it works as such - especially from the pick-up to bar 74.
There is [to my ear, after hearing the first 54 bars - which are fantastic] a bit of disappointment following the 54 bars - because of what that big first section portends.
Logic to the ear is such an individual thing. I only mention these things as from one who hasn't lived with the piece - as You have. The main thing, of course, is that you are convinced!
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Post by fuguestate on Nov 19, 2021 19:30:36 GMT
Wow, thanks for listening to my fugue again in such detail! Are you referring to the first 49 bars or the first 54 bars for the first section? Or do you mean specifically the Bm episode in mm.56-61 that somehow didn't make sense to you? In any case, I somewhat understand where your dissatisfaction with the slow section comes from. This is one point I actually struggled a lot with after writing the climax in m.45 and its denouement. My original plan was actually to make the passage in mm.32-45 a lot shorter than it turned out; it was supposed to be maybe about 8 bars or so at the most to transition back to E minor and then there was to be a different episode/section that followed. The ascending quarter notes of the countersubject that I kinda used as a pseudo-subject of a pseudo-sub-fugue was so compelling, however, that I couldn't resist writing a build-up to a big climax in m.45. This solved a problem I had with what I feel in retrospect was a premature climax in mm.19-20, but introduced a new problem: what was intended to be a passing transition to a new section is now a pivotal point in the entire piece, so it threw off the balance of my original plan (several episodes of various characters connected by the solo subject in E minor). It demanded some kind of corresponding denouement, but I couldn't find a satisfactory one. I tried to end the piece shortly after, but none of the options I tried worked -- I think something about m.45 still had too much momentum so the music refused to end so quickly. Eventually, the only thing I could come up with that was somewhat satisfactory was a contrasting section with a much more relaxed texture, but clearly that didn't work as well as I'd hoped. :/ I'm not sure what I could have done instead, though. I'm open to hearing suggestions to take into account in future works. |
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Ironically, m.48 sounds terrible because the string ensemble patch I used is totally out-of-balance there (and I'm too lazy to bother to fix this, since this is just for fun). But the stretto at the end becomes clearer when you can hear the voices in separate timbres.
But those are ignored in the MIDI generation.)
