Back on October 21 I posted a new music video, Bach’s “Little” Fugue in G Minor played on a Behringer Poly D Synthesizer (see here for original post). Anyway, I did a new recording of it:

(Click here if you don’t see the above video)

Why did I do this? If you read the original post, I mentioned several times about how out of synch it was. I knew at the time I shouldn’t have posted it, but… After a few people said, “Yeah, you should do a cleaner version,” well, I knew I had to.

I’ll admit that I often get very impatient and rush things. I don’t take the needed time to get the parts down right. Once I have something “close enough for rock and roll,” I don’t take the extra time redo it. And then, to cap it off, if I like it at all, I will put out, even knowing that it is not really all that great….

I’m not saying the new version is perfect. Not even close! There are a few places where a couple of notes are rushed, or one is so short you might not hear it, or I fat finger something and you have a slur from another note. Not a lot, but I notice every one every single time… I might even have more of these little flubs than the last time. So why is this better? The synch issue was a huge issue just because of what the music was…

So, yeah, by its very nature, a fugue pretty much has to be in synch to work! And a Bach fugue? This one? Even more so…

A quick “music theory and forms” lesson ;) First a fugue is the “pinnacle” of polyphonic music. In this case, “polyphonic music” means that every line acts as a complete independent piece of music. You should be able to pull each line out and have it stand on its own without being seen as “merely” background, which, in ways is what I did by having each line played by a different sound.

But there is more.

These lines also have to work together in a “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts” fashion. More than that, with Bach, the harmonies created by the liens is super important – that was Bach’s genius, being able to create the harmonies from independent lines. In fact, most “tonal harmony” courses could easily be named “Harmony according to Bach”. Almost all harmony before the late 19th century is based more on what Bach did than on any other composer.

More than just harmony, a few melody lines run back and forth between the different parts/voices.

Writing this I am getting depressed about my initial out of synch offering… Anyway, as i said, this new version is not perfect and there may be a few slight synch issues, but much better…

Some changes between the two – I recorded this at a slightly faster tempo. The sounds are different (sounds are created from scratch – you can’t save them). I made very different choices on mix down, such as where each voice is heard in the stereo field and the reverb used.

And as a FYI – I made the original private so it is no longer available. Some broken links to it may still exist. If so, sorry…

In case you are interested, click here to hear the version I used as a kind of reference – to me this has the clearest lines and is the perfect tempo. She did a fantastic job!

I hope you enjoy the new, improved version!