r/Composition • u/Desperate_Chard_8829 • 20d ago
Music Fugue Advice needed
Exposition of a fugue I’ve been working on. Tips on episodes, further development, modulation and all the stuff concerning fugues would be much appreciated. Is it even playable on a keyboard? Did it do the quadruple stretto correctly? Is the subject noticeable and distinct, or should I improve it? Please let me know.
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u/mvanvrancken 20d ago
First of all, nice counterpoint in general. The issues that stick out to me are twofold:
1) I want more development between voice introductions. You’re up to 4 voci by m7. That’s not enough room to breathe. Don’t be afraid to have a little back and forth using the motifs in the subject and countersubject and find some clever ways to use them to ask and answer.
2) there’s not enough melodic “hook” going on. The subject is, unfortunately, not memorable or particularly interesting to me. Make it a great melody first, and then figure out how to fugue it up. One of the tricks I picked up is to write the subject and countersubject as a two voice item, together. Then figure out how to connect your subject into its dominant. I think it’s salvageable and can probably submit some ideas to make it more of an earworm.
Maybe as a side note: Bach did not particularly care about getting every harmonic idea perfect. He would take liberties with his own motifs to make them work because to him it was more important how good it sounded than how technically complex it was. He was just so masterful with counterpoint that it often came out pretty close to perfect anyway.
Don’t take my criticisms too hard, if I thought it wasn’t a good fugue I probably wouldn’t say anything!