Bach's Neverending Canon

[sarahbroadbent1]

The middle line is silent....would like to hear all three parts. :(

[MMmusing]

@sarahbroadbent1 All three parts are there, but it's set up with the bottom part on the left channel and the middle part on the right channel. You must not be getting the right channel. (I thought when I'd first uploaded it that the stereo separation hadn't come through, but I just checked and it is working.)

[sarahbroadbent1]

@MMmusing You are right!!! I fixed my settings. No wonder stuff has been sounding thin! LOL

[mtv565]

@sarahbroadbent1 you need to dig your ears.

[sarahbroadbent1]

@mtv565 ?Huh?

[mtv565]

@sarahbroadbent1 read your previous chump comment.

[WarEqualsPeace]

Musical mobius strip

[DeadHappyFilm]

I SWARE! THE DEVIL DIDN'T GIVE HIM THIS GIFT IT HAD TO COME FROM GOD!

[hellomate639]

@DeadHappyFilm

Really? I think it came from the Great Pumpkin.

[samthemusicguy]

friggin Bach.... what a genius...

[jfeucht82]

I was confused, because when I had finished listening to the piece, I was expecting to start the piece from the beginning and it would be two octaves lower. I feel like I just listened to the musical version of the never-ending staircase.

[Garselo]

The musical equivalent of the Energizer Bunny.

[C091000]

@KageKonohagakure that is because it is just transposed up into different keys repeating the same melodies/ voices

[KageKonohagakure]

Wow. Interesting. I kept on hearing the same thing.

[H1J9D7V9]

[qout] I listened to it looping continuously on the 30-minute [/qoute]

Wow, how did you do that. I want to drain myself with it. I have already downloaded the file..I shouldn't be difficult (I remember I have cooledit pro somewhere)..

anyway, it's awesome!

[donaldnewmanmedone]

"GEB" led me here.

[iObsidian]

CANON PENIS.

[bugsandfun]

Bach: I told ya all equal temperament is better!

[TromboneMachine]

Mind : blown

[johannsebastienbach]

For fans of this music, I recommand you guys check out this song featured in japanese anime gundam seed called "Justice and freedom". The main theme is actually switching keys at the end of first round but it's hardly detecteble. When i heard that piece i related to this cannon. I am certain that toshihiko sahashi was inspired by it.

[ReaIly]

This so much different than anything else that considered as music.

[Pretendkid]

@MMusing Was this piece originally meant to be played on a piano, harpsichord or organ? (in other words, I can play the piano, so can I learn this piece? :D)

[DrumCorpsageout2010]

@Pretendkid Well during Bach's time. It would have been played on organ. hence the 3 staffs.

[gr0mithtimon]

@DrumCorpsageout2010

Source please. Bach distributes the voices over the staffs in much of his polyphonic writing, not just works for organ. This has 3 voices and hence, 3 staffs. As far i know, Bach did not indicate instrumentation.

[MaggieFloats]

I tried, but I cannot find where the modulation is... :(

[musicamaxima]

@MaggieFloats 4th and 7th measures : Using the pass in cminor, The 2nd tone (& of 1) 4th mm in the bass creates and Italian6 of Gm V. From here, Bach eliminates the Ab, remaining ostensibly in Gm until the 7th measure wherein he inverts the leading-tone tritone C-F# to C#-F (leading tone and 3rd) creating all the necessary tones for d minor.

[fdskool]

Bach is genius

[seahyimin]

bach wrote a complicated chromatic tune so people won't notice that he had put it on loop

[sergiogeorge1]

it needs a coda.

[BrynSowash]

@sergiogeorge1 The point is that it repeats ad infinitum...Bach was a mathematical genius. The modulations are hidden so well. Check out the book Godel, Escher, Bach. It goes into a lot more detail about this.

[sergiogeorge1]

@BrynSowash , it was a joke, jijij :)

[lovesGenet]

Black folks enjoy this too.Don't be silly . We Have Strayhorn &Ellington we know good music.  Berg's Violin concerto is soulful as it gets .Stravinsky and Ives got it too!

[peterphilip]

If you are interested in this phenomenon read Douglas Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach"

[recorderson]

awesome ! Thanks for this wonderful video ;)

[xxxxcensoredxxx]

Thanks for these posts, must have taken ye a while. I'm continually something new about this work.

[TheCanCollecter]

What's going on here??!?!

[NitramZiarreh]

Interesting idea. But for the shepard tone technique to work properly you'd need a different, less percussive kind of timbre... with that MIDI guitar tone we actually hear the octaves as separate voices, not as overtones.

[TheCanCollecter]

@NitramZiarreh How do you mean?

[mkmonroes]

@NitramZiarreh Oh, I only just saw this note. Of course you're right that organ works better. I just found that I liked the sound of synth guitars better than what I was getting with organ, but it's not that hard to hear the lower octave "sneaking" in. There's a much more convincing organ recording here: ssp11si.stanford.edu/music/Bac­hs_Strange_Loop.mp3

[ch252525]

The brilliance of bach is always unsurpassed. Even the use of same melody with modulation. Each time the melody repeats, it seems so different.!

[MuseIsAwesome]

haha, that's funny. I found this video because I was reading GEB :).

He actually compared the games of chess to improvising 6 fugues, not 8. Regardless, Bach is by far, in my opinion, the greatest composer of all time... so it's not like it matters ;)

[polymath7]

Thanks for the correction.

I was quoting from memory and haven't reread GEB in a couple years.

[Askelairlines747]

in my opinion too ;-)

[Toobis]

Please speak Klingon

[tromba55]

Cool video- nice job. This is a masterpiece for sure. If only more people recognized it as such...

[avalberola]

GEB

[cyndie26]

You may want to put this on a long Möbius strip.

[VolkColopatrion]

@cyndie26 i see what you did there.

[LatinMass2010]

@cyndie26 Let's not and say we did!

[kingtyryon]

please use spanish!

[RainMan34]

Please use bird chirps!

[BreviariumRomanum]

it ascends endlessly to heaven, ... as does all Bach's music

[soittotaiteilija]

Ah, it's just like a more melodic Shephard Tone! Does Bach's genius know no END?!

I suppose not.

[debartzen]

Realmente ésto es como la otra parte del espejo.

Juego matemático-musical.Parece ser que el enigma es que lo imposible está aquí.

Sean los estudiosos los que revelen ésta conjetura imposible para la mente humana,tras su aparente sencillez.!!!:.

[kriptozoositocratico]

Sin duda un buen musico no es mas que un genial matematico... pero que matematico!! El barroco es fascinante; no solo Bach si no sus antecesores nos brindaron obras realmente complejas y de una belleza indescriptible en palabras... Monteverdi, Shutz.... Como musico creo que en ocasiones es dificil oir una pieza sin desligarse de la razon y la tecnica, prestar atencion a detallitos... Pero, Ay!! Cuando se oye con el alma y no con la razon, que placer!! Es como completar un puzzle... una delicia.

[monkiemike]

please use english!

[QueenAnime99]

Youtube is for everyone whether they speak English or Spanish.

[T3hub3r1337]

@QueenAnime99

There should be a youtube.com for english.

a youtube.ca for french canadians.

etc. etc. etc. keep english domains english and english can stay out of non english domains. simple. yes?

[XEightBallX]

@QueenAnime99 You do realize that "english or spanish" is but a small population of the world? That description cannot fit the beauty that is mankind... But i get what you mean, and thank you for that!

[QueenAnime99]

@XEightBallX I think I was responding to an English-speaking/writing person who took issue with another person because he/she was writing in Spanish. LOL. I'm glad that you understood and appreciated what I said. Good day.

[Ravenpulse]

this is like a k hole. not really but haha

[NagualElias]

you hardly notice the piece change but suddenly it's higher!

[Schneider10101]

No, this ends at 5:32...see?

[smark911]

blizzack, stop spamming, you are the retard if you persist.

has anyone read "Godel, Escher, Bach", by Douglas Hofstadter?

[jdandrewszt]

I'm working my way through it. It's quite thick, and relatively heavy reading. Beautiful stuff, though. Rather brilliant. Next I'll read Hofstadter's "sequel"...

[Icingde4th]

I rather enjoyed that book but I have to agree with jdan, it is a rather heavy read indeed. It leaves you enlightened though.

[polymath7]

Sounds fascinating; I shall certainly seek it out.

[NagualElias]

isn't it impossible to write a 6 voice fugue?

[wcbroccoli]

Not at all. There are many examples.

Bach's "Musical Offering" includes a 6-part fugue (which he called a ricercar) on the royal theme and is playable by 2 hands on keyboard.

"Credo" from his B-minor Mass is an 8-part fugue for SSATB + 2 obligato violins + basso continuo.

His organ chorale prelude "Aus tiefer Not", a 6 (BWV 687): 4 voices on keyboard + 2 on pedal.

And while not a fugue, there's Tallis's motet, Spem in alium, for 40 voices.

[wcbroccoli]

Correction: should read BWV 686, not BWV 687.

BTW, I have found recordings on YouTube of all the above except the organ chorale prelude.

[zyx1236]

I think the one in the "Musical Offering" is even improvised and written down later, and there's another fugure of 8 voices in the "Musical Offering".

[wcbroccoli]

The 3-part ricercar in M.O. may be based on the fugue Bach improvised for the Prussian king on fortepiano.

But no fugue in M.O. has more than 6 voices.

[misterbuckethead]

true story. 6 is the most.

[zyx1236]

maybe...

I'm not completely sure...

[misterbuckethead]

trust me, it's six. Not a bid deal of course... but really.

It's called the Six Part Ricercar.

The musical offering is an integral part of the book "godel escher bach" and therefore I know it quite well.

[zyx1236]

I know it's in this book - I just started reading it :D

[yamex5]

zyx1236, in "Godel, Escher, Bach" a story is recounted where one observer claimed that Bach had improvised an 8 part fugue for the King, but that is likely an exaggeration.

[zyx1236]

maybe ;-)

we don't know, and I guess we won't ever know.

[anisometropie]

He more likely improvised a 3 or 4 part fugue

[polymath7]

As I recall, Hofstadter himself expresses extreme skepticism that it could be done, and says something like (this won't be word for word): "To improvise an eight part fugue is really beyond human capability....it would be the intellectual equivalent of playing sixty simultaneous games of chess blindfolded, and winning them all."

[cinnamonbrandylite]

The thing is that if your brain is wired that way, so that you can dance with it, and it's food and drink to you... what can seem impossible to someone that would have to work with it might be not just possible, but joyous and inevitable.

h.

[Shakespeare1612]

If you knock over a piece do you lose?

[polymath7]

Actually, I'm not sure; I don't think so.

It would be only a slight exaggeration if I were to quote Artur C Clarke and tell you I've never learned the rules of the game.

I actually do know the basic rules, so I'll conveniently quote Hofstadter again:

"I'm a miserable player".

You'd be surprised at just how unremarkable as chess player a guy with 180 IQ can be -certainly my talents lie elsewhere.

By the way, why 1611!? Uh... 'The Two Noble Kinsmen'?

[Shakespeare1612]

No, just a random number, after all "what is in a name?" I prefer to go be shakespeare1212 but that name was taken.

[alwaysright10000]

I.

Ah, I see.

Just be aware that most people of erudition are likely to presume that '1612' is an allusion to one of the plays (ie, the year of composition or first performance) . Now, *1611* is the year Shakespeare is thought to have written The Tempest, his last great play and indeed the last written entirely by Shakespeare himself (leaving aside the question of borrowings and adaptations).

Thereafter, Shakespeare produced only a few mediocre works in collaboration with John Fletcher...

[alwaysright10000]

II.

...and so, this is why I found your handle name slightly bemusing.

I know this is trivial and I'm being pedantic, and of course you're entitled to call yourself whatever you damn well please; but whatever you do don't re-brand yourself StevenKing1985. ;-)

[polymath7]

Oops, wrong screen name. That was supposed to come from polymath

[psatch]

maybe you mean a fugue with 6 subjects?

[johnnytothemc]

No. In fact, Filippo wrote an 8-part fugue.

[TheBlizzack]

Is you're name Joe?

[RocketScience92]

I'm R.J. Carrot.

And  I agree.

[TheBlizzack]

Contradicted was a typo. Actually, you're right. Anyone is not plural. So, kudos on that. Listen man, I know you're a bit hung up by this, but I think you and I are on the same wave length. This work was "nifty" for the time, but in present musical practice it is not all that impressive. You just think it's genius because Bach wrote it. Bach wrote over 1,600 hundred pages of music in his life, and I doubt he considered a "neverending canon" to stand as a cornerstone of his repertoire.

[fashnek]

Yikes, you set off my pedantry alert. :(

[TheBlizzack]

However, in Bach's day it was pretty damn cool. Not dissing Bach... the man was remarkable

[TheBlizzack]

??? Why? It's not that creative to do exact transpositions over and over again.

[TheBlizzack]

Are you retarded??!!!! The Canon was very well recieved style of writing in Bach's day. And by the way, This is NOT an example of Bach's "mastery" of music. Have you ever heard of the Art of the Fugue? or St. Matthew's Passion, or the Well Tempered Clavier Books? Those were Bach's most defining works, among others. A Canon that modulates up exactly a Major 2nd over and over again is not an example of Bach's musical genius. You should read a book on counterpoint.

[123BubberMiley]

This is Really neat

[sorafb]

super key-sig. exercises

somewhat

yaaaaaaay

[kelsiejackson]

Really creative...great job!

[ariastoteles]

The best of Bach is his name.

Salut!

[yashil17]

truely neverending

awsome