NOTATION 37: Bach's Melodic Tapestries

Bach provides endless opportunities for the aspiring creator to both enjoy in the medium of sound but also to study and learn.

His music continues to be performed, recorded and transcribed so your local library will provide the last two, your local city concert hall the other. A web search will reveal a plethora of cheap recordings and scores.

My favourite source of inspiration and study are his Brandenburg Concertos. The pieces within are replete with classy and catchy harmonies and melodies e.g. take a look at these three lines below.

There is one lead violin above and two supporting violas below - think of a lead guitar with two accompanying rhythm guitars.

They are in close proximity in terms of register and timbre, which is normally a recipe for confusion because the listeners attention is overwhelmed by the competing similarity of the notes, but in Bach’s vision, the notes are chosen and delivered in such a way that makes them combine into a satisfying whole.

Here are the frets of all three parts:

Now look at this same trio in action a little later in the piece. Notice how the violin is simply reinforcing the groove while pedalling on the G. This enables the two violas to present their intertwined lines, now fully revealed to the listener. Bach knew that they were more than a supporting role and that the original presentation would disguise them to the untrained listener.

Now let us reflect on our own music.

When you offer your finished piece to another human, it is an invitation to find out whether they are captivated by its magic and can hear and appreciate your intention and craft.

One part of the spell is to catch the attention and the other is about presentation.

If someone is in the mood for a new musical experience and their first impression is favourable based on the palette, texture and flavour of the instruments, and the overt melodic, harmonic and rhythmic content being offered please them, then it becomes about the details of the mix because their valuable attention can be fleeting if your work doesn’t satisfy their more forensic analysis during the rest of the piece or on repeated listens.

Think about the catchy intro to a song followed by an equally satisfying verse (when the vocals and drums join in) but when the chorus hits the experience is not commensurate with the expectation. Or the opposite, when you are turned off by both the lack-lustre opening and the quality of the singer and drummer, and do not even bother waiting for the chorus...

Artistic appreciation is subjective, so the music business often use critics and producers to decide whether the masses will enjoy it. These gate-keepers are not normally professional creative musicians though, because once we become skilled on an instrument and our tastes refine and evolve away from the many and towards the few, away from the mimicry and mediocre towards the novel and accomplished, then we become increasingly less qualified to relate to the trends and fashions of the lay public, whose number equals millions and who are required to fill the stadiums, tune into the mass media radios and buy albums and merch to prop up the music industry.

Back to Bach…

Notice the two violas are playing in unison in both examples until the last beat where they deviate into counterpoint harmony (different notes blending from the same scale) the first time and contra-motion harmony (a version of counterpoint but where the notes specifically move in different directions) in the second .

Unlike today where we can turn the volume up on a pedal (or in a studio recording mix or live music mixing desk), in unplugged scenarios the composer often needs to double up lines to get the volume and impact of an idea, because some supporting instruments can’t deliver this by themselves, even at maximum forte.

‘Impact’ can sometimes be a thickening of a part by deliberately combining two lines which are trying to be the same, but in the hands of an expressive expert will necessarily be slightly different. It does not mean the part is ‘louder’ but it does take up more real estate in the mix and can have some interesting effects (known as phasing or chorusing) as the almost identical frequencies and timbres interact e.g the chorus vocals of many Alice in Chains and Andy Williams songs.

Try and imagine the viola parts as clean guitars panned hard left & right, slightly wet with reverb, and with a different pickup selections. This treatment gives them both separation in space (width and depth cues activated) and timbre. Then imagine the violin part panned to the centre as a guitar with a little filth and extra volume, but very little reverb to grab the focus of attention because of its timbre and its close proximity to the listener in terms of their spacial awareness. The second time you might switch the spatial roles so that the original accompaniment lines pop and the violin recedes into the background.

Bach would have loved the recording studio.