Bach and Counterpoint

I'm sure most people have heard that Bach is an absolute genius. But it's one of those things that is hard to fully appreciate without understanding musical theory. However, a few months ago I came across a video that easily and convincingly illustrates how ridiculously amazing he is.

Today I'm going to write about the namesake of this blog: contrapunctus, aka counterpoint. "Counterpoint" is a relationship between melody lines that each have their own independent rhythm, contour, and also are not in harmony. In short, it's when there are two or more melodies that aren't in harmony, but they sound good. It's easily one of the most complicated theoretical relationships in music.

Bach is an absolute master of this relationship, because he was able to write 4,5, lines of music that were in counterpoint, IMPROVISED, on an organ(so that's 2 hands, 2 feet going at the same time!!). That alone is otherworldly, but the things he created when he actually sat down and composed them...are completely unfathomable.

Bach would write fugues (contrapunctal music) where one melody would be played straight forward, another would play the same melody backwards, and another would play the same melody but inverted (so imagine a sheet of music being played upside down so that the notes correspond to different things), and at varying speeds.... yet sounding perfect!

To visually understand what I'm talking about, watch the video below (from strangepaths.com).



Is that not mind blowing? I can't get over how incredibly complex his music is!

If you want to learn more about the genius of Bach, I highly recommend this article on Slate: Bach on Top: How one of the most esoteric musical works ever written became an unlikely hit. It's a short article that explains the counterpoint of Bach in further detail, but it's still written for the general public.

Finally, thanks to Rose for sharing this video with me.

(I am extremely busy this month, so updates will be slower. Sorry!)