Bach and composition

Hey Reinhard...you just said something very interesting that got my attention; you said that Bach composed in his head, not at the keyboard. I've always thought a lot of his stuff came from improvising, then taking the ideas from the improv and shaping them into more of a completed piece. I know he did this with the Musical Offering, for example, and figured he did this sort of thing all the time. I have a lot of respect for your Bach research, so I'm curious how you came to this conclusion...best...HHH
microstick.net

> Hey Reinhard...you just said something very interesting that
> got my attention; you said that Bach composed in his head,
> not at the keyboard. I've always thought a lot of his stuff
> came from improvising, then taking the ideas from the improv
> and shaping them into more of a completed piece. I know he
> did this with the Musical Offering, for example, and figured
> he did this sort of thing all the time. I have a lot of
> respect for your Bach research, so I'm curious how you came
> to this conclusion...best...HHH microstick.net

I read once a quote attributed to Bach that said composers
who need to be in front of a keyboard are basically no good,
and that the best way to compose was with pen and paper only.
On the other hand Bach was a well-known improviser, and the
story about the Musical Offering is at least partly true (some
versions seem to exaggerate the number of voices he was able
to improvise that day). And many of his keyboard pieces,
the tocattas for example, sound an awful lot like parts of
them started out as improvisations.

-Carl

On Thursday 06 October 2005 1:16 pm, Carl Lumma wrote:
> > Hey Reinhard...you just said something very interesting that
> > got my attention; you said that Bach composed in his head,
> > not at the keyboard. I've always thought a lot of his stuff
> > came from improvising, then taking the ideas from the improv
> > and shaping them into more of a completed piece. I know he
> > did this with the Musical Offering, for example, and figured
> > he did this sort of thing all the time. I have a lot of
> > respect for your Bach research, so I'm curious how you came
> > to this conclusion...best...HHH microstick.net
>
> I read once a quote attributed to Bach that said composers
> who need to be in front of a keyboard are basically no good,
> and that the best way to compose was with pen and paper only.

Yes...he called them "Clavier-Ritters"....."knights of the keyboard".

I love Bach, but in a sense, I don't like that attitude...taken to the
extreme, it leads to heady-theoretical music that tends to sound like shit.
Witness most serialism.

> On the other hand Bach was a well-known improviser, and the
> story about the Musical Offering is at least partly true (some
> versions seem to exaggerate the number of voices he was able
> to improvise that day). And many of his keyboard pieces,
> the tocattas for example, sound an awful lot like parts of
> them started out as improvisations.

Anytime you see diminished 7th chords in parallel in a toccata-like texture,
I get the same feeling--where the overall structure is looser. Like the
Fantasias, too (chromatic fantasia and fugue)

-Aaron.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@a...>
wrote:
> On Thursday 06 October 2005 1:16 pm, Carl Lumma wrote:
> > > Hey Reinhard...you just said something very interesting that
> > > got my attention; you said that Bach composed in his head,
> > > not at the keyboard. I've always thought a lot of his stuff
> > > came from improvising, then taking the ideas from the improv
> > > and shaping them into more of a completed piece. I know he
> > > did this with the Musical Offering, for example, and figured
> > > he did this sort of thing all the time. I have a lot of
> > > respect for your Bach research, so I'm curious how you came
> > > to this conclusion...best...HHH microstick.net
> >
> > I read once a quote attributed to Bach that said composers
> > who need to be in front of a keyboard are basically no good,
> > and that the best way to compose was with pen and paper only.
>
> Yes...he called them "Clavier-Ritters"....."knights of the
keyboard".
>
> I love Bach, but in a sense, I don't like that attitude...taken to
the
> extreme, it leads to heady-theoretical music that tends to sound
like shit.
> Witness most serialism.

Who hears heady-theoretical or serial music in their head? The
statement was about composers who *need* to be in front of a
keyboard, implying that they couldn't hear their music otherwise. The
point (IMHO) is therefore that a good composer should be able to hear
their own music in their head, and not need a keyboard to do it.
Music that is neither heard *nor* played, but simply worked out by
system, would be considered the worst according to this attitude,
contrary to what you say. At least that's the way I read the above
statement given how divine Bach's music is.

> Who hears heady-theoretical or serial music in their head?

Supposedly Milton Babbitt...

-Carl

Hi Aaron,

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@a...> wrote:
>
> On Thursday 06 October 2005 1:16 pm, Carl Lumma wrote:
>
> >
> > I read once a quote attributed to Bach that said composers
> > who need to be in front of a keyboard are basically no good,
> > and that the best way to compose was with pen and paper only.
>
> Yes...he called them "Clavier-Ritters"....."knights of
> the keyboard".
>
> I love Bach, but in a sense, I don't like that attitude...
> taken to the extreme, it leads to heady-theoretical music
> that tends to sound like shit.
> Witness most serialism.

Hey, that's just *your* opinion! (OK, and also the opinion
of most others ...) But some of us (me) *like* a lot of
serial music.

At any rate, being able to composer from head-to-paper
doesn't necessarily produce shitty music. Beethoven, who
was also renowned as an improviser at the keyboard,
wasn't able to hear any of his greatest pieces, because
they were all written after he had gone deaf.

-monz
http://tonalsoft.com
Tonescape microtonal music software