Anyone else think that DT should do a fugue?

[Magikernandy]

There are so many interesting compositions that involves the fuguetechnique in one way or another.

Listen to this unfinished fugue based on the theme from Final Countdown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYknDpRAwoY

There are so many ways to break new ground if you use the fugue technique in a rockband setting

A 4 voice fugue + drums could sound really amazing.

Anyone else think that DT should try to do fugues or similar counterpoint techniques?

[Aniland]

Honestly? I'm willing to let Dream Theater try just about anything short of gangsta hip-hop.

[TheMadgician]

They won't do a fugue because it'll be too awesome. And then space time will rupture creating a vortex that will remove all awesome from this world to correct the error of "too much awesome" we had just had. But then with the complete lack of awesome, suck will be the only thing that will remain. So then ANOTHER rupture will occur removing all the suck from the world. Which in the end will leave us in a horrible limbo and we'll all probably die.

[Jamesman42]

Hmm, I guess they've never done it before.

This would be a cool element in a song.

[rumborak]

The only thing I remember about fugues is that the dux answers the comez with the upper fifth.

rumborak

[In The Name Of Rudess]

It would be cool, but I don't think anyone in DT has the compositional skills to create a decent fugue. To write a fugue, one would already have to be quite proficient at contrapuntal composition. Jordan has written some simple 2 and ocassionally 3 voice contrapuntal pieces, but I don't think he would be up to the task. To be honest, most of the fanbase of DT wouldn't even recognise how difficult it is to write a fugue, so even if they could it would be kind of a waste of time on their end.

A fugato or fughetta would probably be a better idea.

[Magikernandy]

It would be cool, but I don't think anyone in DT has the compositional skills to create a decent fugue. To write a fugue, one would already have to be quite proficient at contrapuntal composition. Jordan has written some simple 2 and ocassionally 3 voice contrapuntal pieces, but I don't think he would be up to the task. To be honest, most of the fanbase of DT wouldn't even recognise how difficult it is to write a fugue, so even if they could it would be kind of a waste of time on their end.

A fugato or fughetta would probably be a better idea.

Agree with the fugato or Fughetta alternative, The final countdown fugue I linked is more like a Fughetta actually.

I think that a significant part of the DT fans understands how hard it is to write a fugue actually and I am sure that they would love it too if it´s a good fugue. If you are a good musician you will understand that after you listened a couple of times. 

Only some themes work great in fugues though but I am sure that they would do it well  if they really tried.

I would propably say that transcribing and learning an already existing 4-voice fugue would be a better idea actually.

Maybe a fugue written in an odd time signature  like 5/4

[ricky]

It would be cool, but I don't think anyone in DT has the compositional skills to create a decent fugue. To write a fugue, one would already have to be quite proficient at contrapuntal composition. Jordan has written some simple 2 and ocassionally 3 voice contrapuntal pieces, but I don't think he would be up to the task. To be honest, most of the fanbase of DT wouldn't even recognise how difficult it is to write a fugue, so even if they could it would be kind of a waste of time on their end.

A fugato or fughetta would probably be a better idea.

are you kidding me? rudess could write a fugue with his eyes closed.

[Magikernandy]

It would be cool, but I don't think anyone in DT has the compositional skills to create a decent fugue. To write a fugue, one would already have to be quite proficient at contrapuntal composition. Jordan has written some simple 2 and ocassionally 3 voice contrapuntal pieces, but I don't think he would be up to the task. To be honest, most of the fanbase of DT wouldn't even recognise how difficult it is to write a fugue, so even if they could it would be kind of a waste of time on their end.

A fugato or fughetta would probably be a better idea.

are you kidding me? rudess could write a fugue with his eyes closed.

You can write simple fugues if you want too. by using melodies with very few notes or simple scales or arpeggios. In general they sound pretty boring though. 

Really good themes is important, I am trying to write a fugue based on a couple of themes from Learning to live right now and that´s tough indeed.

Here is a cool fugue based on the theme from Axel F by the way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Cn4rj9LTw

[ZirconBlue]

A fugato or fughetta would probably be a better idea.

Or, perhaps, a fugazi?

[JediKnight1969]

A fugato or fughetta would probably be a better idea.

Or, perhaps, a fugazi?

Fugazzeta for me, thank you.

[In The Name Of Rudess]

It would be cool, but I don't think anyone in DT has the compositional skills to create a decent fugue. To write a fugue, one would already have to be quite proficient at contrapuntal composition. Jordan has written some simple 2 and ocassionally 3 voice contrapuntal pieces, but I don't think he would be up to the task. To be honest, most of the fanbase of DT wouldn't even recognise how difficult it is to write a fugue, so even if they could it would be kind of a waste of time on their end.

A fugato or fughetta would probably be a better idea.

are you kidding me? rudess could write a fugue with his eyes closed.

You can write simple fugues if you want too. by using melodies with very few notes or simple scales or arpeggios. In general they sound pretty boring though. 

Really good themes is important, I am trying to write a fugue based on a couple of themes from Learning to live right now and that´s tough indeed.

Here is a cool fugue based on the theme from Axel F by the way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Cn4rj9LTw

This, basically. While anyone with some compositional skills can write a fugue just by following the rules, it probably wouldn't be something you'd want to listen to. Writing a good fugue takes tons of practice and insight. I'm pretty sure Rudess doesn't have that. Not that he has anything to be ashamed of, many great classical composers never dared to write a fugue. Even heavyweights like Brahms (no pun intended), Chopin, Schumann, Liszt etc. only wrote one or a few fugues as an experiment because they didn't feel they were able to do the form justice.

[ricky]

It would be cool, but I don't think anyone in DT has the compositional skills to create a decent fugue. To write a fugue, one would already have to be quite proficient at contrapuntal composition. Jordan has written some simple 2 and ocassionally 3 voice contrapuntal pieces, but I don't think he would be up to the task. To be honest, most of the fanbase of DT wouldn't even recognise how difficult it is to write a fugue, so even if they could it would be kind of a waste of time on their end.

A fugato or fughetta would probably be a better idea.

are you kidding me? rudess could write a fugue with his eyes closed.

You can write simple fugues if you want too. by using melodies with very few notes or simple scales or arpeggios. In general they sound pretty boring though.  

Really good themes is important, I am trying to write a fugue based on a couple of themes from Learning to live right now and that´s tough indeed.

Here is a cool fugue based on the theme from Axel F by the way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Cn4rj9LTw

This, basically. While anyone with some compositional skills can write a fugue just by following the rules, it probably wouldn't be something you'd want to listen to. Writing a good fugue takes tons of practice and insight. I'm pretty sure Rudess doesn't have that. Not that he has anything to be ashamed of, many great classical composers never dared to write a fugue. Even heavyweights like Brahms (no pun intended), Chopin, Schumann, Liszt etc. only wrote one or a few fugues as an experiment because they didn't feel they were able to do the form justice.

there is no basis to that statement. they did write convincing fugues, despite the fact that they felt their compositions didn't do Bach's justice. rudess attended juliard his entire childhood, an elite school of music. i can guarantee you he took more counterpoint classes than he can remember, so of course he can write a fugue. i can't understand we are arguing that fact in the first place. undergrad compositional students at my OWN college can write proper, complete fugues incorporating all of the required aspects (subject, countersubject, exposition, etc.), so to say rudess can't makes absolutely no sense.

[Magikernandy]

It would be cool, but I don't think anyone in DT has the compositional skills to create a decent fugue. To write a fugue, one would already have to be quite proficient at contrapuntal composition. Jordan has written some simple 2 and ocassionally 3 voice contrapuntal pieces, but I don't think he would be up to the task. To be honest, most of the fanbase of DT wouldn't even recognise how difficult it is to write a fugue, so even if they could it would be kind of a waste of time on their end.

A fugato or fughetta would probably be a better idea.

are you kidding me? rudess could write a fugue with his eyes closed.

You can write simple fugues if you want too. by using melodies with very few notes or simple scales or arpeggios. In general they sound pretty boring though.  

Really good themes is important, I am trying to write a fugue based on a couple of themes from Learning to live right now and that´s tough indeed.

Here is a cool fugue based on the theme from Axel F by the way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Cn4rj9LTw

This, basically. While anyone with some compositional skills can write a fugue just by following the rules, it probably wouldn't be something you'd want to listen to. Writing a good fugue takes tons of practice and insight. I'm pretty sure Rudess doesn't have that. Not that he has anything to be ashamed of, many great classical composers never dared to write a fugue. Even heavyweights like Brahms (no pun intended), Chopin, Schumann, Liszt etc. only wrote one or a few fugues as an experiment because they didn't feel they were able to do the form justice.

there is no basis to that statement. they did write convincing fugues, despite the fact that they felt their compositions didn't do Bach's justice. rudess attended juliard his entire childhood, an elite school of music. i can guarantee you he took more counterpoint classes than he can remember. of course he can write a fugue. i can't understand we are arguing that fact in the first place. undergrad compositional students at my OWN college can write proper, complete fugues incorporating all of the required aspects (subject, countersubject, exposition, etc.), so to say rudess can't makes absolutely no sense.

I don´t think it´s required that you learn to write fugues just because you attented Julliard.  But it´s for sure possible that he can write fugues and do it well.  So far he hasn´t showed any signs of being able to do it though. 

Anybody know if anyone from the band is checking out this forum on a regular basis? Maybe thay haven´t even thought about doing a fugue at all. 

[In The Name Of Rudess]

It would be cool, but I don't think anyone in DT has the compositional skills to create a decent fugue. To write a fugue, one would already have to be quite proficient at contrapuntal composition. Jordan has written some simple 2 and ocassionally 3 voice contrapuntal pieces, but I don't think he would be up to the task. To be honest, most of the fanbase of DT wouldn't even recognise how difficult it is to write a fugue, so even if they could it would be kind of a waste of time on their end.

A fugato or fughetta would probably be a better idea.

are you kidding me? rudess could write a fugue with his eyes closed.

You can write simple fugues if you want too. by using melodies with very few notes or simple scales or arpeggios. In general they sound pretty boring though.  

Really good themes is important, I am trying to write a fugue based on a couple of themes from Learning to live right now and that´s tough indeed.

Here is a cool fugue based on the theme from Axel F by the way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Cn4rj9LTw

This, basically. While anyone with some compositional skills can write a fugue just by following the rules, it probably wouldn't be something you'd want to listen to. Writing a good fugue takes tons of practice and insight. I'm pretty sure Rudess doesn't have that. Not that he has anything to be ashamed of, many great classical composers never dared to write a fugue. Even heavyweights like Brahms (no pun intended), Chopin, Schumann, Liszt etc. only wrote one or a few fugues as an experiment because they didn't feel they were able to do the form justice.

there is no basis to that statement. they did write convincing fugues, despite the fact that they felt their compositions didn't do Bach's justice. rudess attended juliard his entire childhood, an elite school of music. i can guarantee you he took more counterpoint classes than he can remember, so of course he can write a fugue. i can't understand we are arguing that fact in the first place. undergrad compositional students at my OWN college can write proper, complete fugues incorporating all of the required aspects (subject, countersubject, exposition, etc.), so to say rudess can't makes absolutely no sense.

He was in the pre-college division of Juillard. In Juillard, composition classes including counterpoint aren't given to pre-college students.

[Magikernandy]

It would be cool, but I don't think anyone in DT has the compositional skills to create a decent fugue. To write a fugue, one would already have to be quite proficient at contrapuntal composition. Jordan has written some simple 2 and ocassionally 3 voice contrapuntal pieces, but I don't think he would be up to the task. To be honest, most of the fanbase of DT wouldn't even recognise how difficult it is to write a fugue, so even if they could it would be kind of a waste of time on their end.

A fugato or fughetta would probably be a better idea.

are you kidding me? rudess could write a fugue with his eyes closed.

You can write simple fugues if you want too. by using melodies with very few notes or simple scales or arpeggios. In general they sound pretty boring though.  

Really good themes is important, I am trying to write a fugue based on a couple of themes from Learning to live right now and that´s tough indeed.

Here is a cool fugue based on the theme from Axel F by the way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Cn4rj9LTw

This, basically. While anyone with some compositional skills can write a fugue just by following the rules, it probably wouldn't be something you'd want to listen to. Writing a good fugue takes tons of practice and insight. I'm pretty sure Rudess doesn't have that. Not that he has anything to be ashamed of, many great classical composers never dared to write a fugue. Even heavyweights like Brahms (no pun intended), Chopin, Schumann, Liszt etc. only wrote one or a few fugues as an experiment because they didn't feel they were able to do the form justice.

there is no basis to that statement. they did write convincing fugues, despite the fact that they felt their compositions didn't do Bach's justice. rudess attended juliard his entire childhood, an elite school of music. i can guarantee you he took more counterpoint classes than he can remember, so of course he can write a fugue. i can't understand we are arguing that fact in the first place. undergrad compositional students at my OWN college can write proper, complete fugues incorporating all of the required aspects (subject, countersubject, exposition, etc.), so to say rudess can't makes absolutely no sense.

He was in the pre-college division of Juillard. In Juilard, composition classes including counterpoint aren't given to pre-college students.

Aha, I guess that no one in DT have got any formal training in composition worth mentioning, or?

You can do a lot of studies on your own though so that isn´t really a problem. You often get ideas that would work great with in a rock-setting if you listen to classical string quartets for instance. Finding musicians that are capable of playing transcriptions of Beethoven´t late string quartets or even more Bartok´s quartets is really hard though.  Would propably take hundreds of practicehours even for DT to learn to play those quartets uptempo and accurate.

[Jaffa]

Would someone humor the musically retarded (IE me) and explain what a fugue is in layman's terms?  I looked it up on Wikipedia and still don't completely understand. 

[D_Halco]

I would be much more interested to hear DT tackle a twelve-tone technique piece, personally.

[tri.ad]

I would be much more interested to hear DT tackle a twelve-tone technique piece, personally.

I really can't say that I share this sentiment.

[LudwigVan]

Fughetta'bout it

[Metabog]

It would be cool, but I don't think anyone in DT has the compositional skills to create a decent fugue. To write a fugue, one would already have to be quite proficient at contrapuntal composition. Jordan has written some simple 2 and ocassionally 3 voice contrapuntal pieces, but I don't think he would be up to the task. To be honest, most of the fanbase of DT wouldn't even recognise how difficult it is to write a fugue, so even if they could it would be kind of a waste of time on their end.

A fugato or fughetta would probably be a better idea.

are you kidding me? rudess could write a fugue with his eyes closed.

You can write simple fugues if you want too. by using melodies with very few notes or simple scales or arpeggios. In general they sound pretty boring though.  

Really good themes is important, I am trying to write a fugue based on a couple of themes from Learning to live right now and that´s tough indeed.

Here is a cool fugue based on the theme from Axel F by the way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Cn4rj9LTw

This, basically. While anyone with some compositional skills can write a fugue just by following the rules, it probably wouldn't be something you'd want to listen to. Writing a good fugue takes tons of practice and insight. I'm pretty sure Rudess doesn't have that. Not that he has anything to be ashamed of, many great classical composers never dared to write a fugue. Even heavyweights like Brahms (no pun intended), Chopin, Schumann, Liszt etc. only wrote one or a few fugues as an experiment because they didn't feel they were able to do the form justice.

there is no basis to that statement. they did write convincing fugues, despite the fact that they felt their compositions didn't do Bach's justice. rudess attended juliard his entire childhood, an elite school of music. i can guarantee you he took more counterpoint classes than he can remember, so of course he can write a fugue. i can't understand we are arguing that fact in the first place. undergrad compositional students at my OWN college can write proper, complete fugues incorporating all of the required aspects (subject, countersubject, exposition, etc.), so to say rudess can't makes absolutely no sense.

He was in the pre-college division of Juillard. In Juilard, composition classes including counterpoint aren't given to pre-college students.

Aha, I guess that no one in DT have got any formal training in composition worth mentioning, or?

You can do a lot of studies on your own though so that isn´t really a problem. You often get ideas that would work great with in a rock-setting if you listen to classical string quartets for instance. Finding musicians that are capable of playing transcriptions of Beethoven´t late string quartets or even more Bartok´s quartets is really hard though.  Would propably take hundreds of practicehours even for DT to learn to play those quartets uptempo and accurate.

Jordan could write a fugue and play it with his pinky finger.

But that's only if he stops fiddling around with his iPod.

[The Presence of Frenemies]

I would be much more interested to hear DT tackle a twelve-tone technique piece, personally.

I really can't say that I share this sentiment.

[Magikernandy]

I would be much more interested to hear DT tackle a twelve-tone technique piece, personally.

I really can't say that I share this sentiment.

Agree, Sonata Arctica did a 12-tone piece I believe but it was hardly a masterpiece.

Serial music is with a few exceptions not my cup of tea at all.

I don´t really know if DT themselves like this kind of music, I guess that JR does he seems to love almost everything. 

In reality chances are that DT won´t do a fugue, a 12-tone piece or even a short fugato in a longer piece.

It´s more likely that things like that would occur on a JR solo album for instance but that´s pretty unlikely too. 

Michael Romeo has mentioned that he wants to write a fugue one day however and Yngwie tried to write one for his concerto Album but it´s hardly a fugue even though Yngwie called it a fugue for some reason. 

[nickel]

Jordan could write a fugue and play it with his pinky finger.

But that's only if he stops fiddling around with his iPod.

I was actually thinking this same thought (about fiddling with his iPod) while reading this thread!

[JediKnight1969]

Fughetta'bout it

But seriously: "fughett" it buddy. There's no sense of humor in this thread.

[atmyne]

on a somewhat unrelated note, I wish DT would let Jordan use moar mellotron!!! like so:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WU1x_4yFD4
just beautiful...