my first fugue

Hi. I'm taking a fugue class and have put one of my compositions for the course online on the off chance someone would like to take a look and provide comments.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dpetrou/wreckers.ps

thanks much,

Hi David...

whats .ps? It doesnt work on any of the windows program that I have.

cal

Hi there,

.ps is the universal norm for printer files, it means PostScript. You can view such files with Ghostview, available here:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/

postscript. Since today pdf is more accessible, I've made a pdf version and stuck it at: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dpetrou/wreckers.pdf

The on-screen quality is poor, but it should look ok printed out.

Very impressive, david. Good ideas.

Now YOU must ask yourself if you think it contains music of enduring interest.

Fugues are curious, the greatest ones are more continually captivating than works in any other form, but the throw-away variety are, well... you know..

I still keep notebooks of fugues from my student days, I dont know why, they're of no interest to anyone but me. I tell myself, 'Why fill up a landfill somewhere?' <grinning>

Thanks for sharing with us,

thank you!

good question.

well, that fugue was my first serious attempt at writing music. maybe next weekend i'm going to take all the great suggestions people on this list and in e-mail have given me and polish up the rough edges.

but even after i get rid of the obviously ugly parts, the piece lacks coherence, motivic structure, etc.

we're to write one more fugue in the class i'm taking. i should have something new by may 4th, and hopefully it will hold together better. at least, i hope i don't make the same technical mistakes that i've made in this fugue.

but the learning process sure is fun.

thank you for taking the time to look at it!