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Is there anyone here interested in music theory? If so, I have a question. What would you recommend, Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier" or his "The Art of Fugue" to learn more about fugues? Obviously they both are books of fugue, except the former has preludes as well.

And after that, has anyone here composed anything interesting?

I love music theory, but most of what I know, is applied towards guitar. Circle of 5ths, order of sharps and flats for key signatures, basing chord progressions off of these and determining 7ths, 9ths, etc. for a 2-6-1 jazz prog, or messing with modes and diff scales like harmonic minor and such.

But, just basing it on what little I know about bach *runs over to wikipedia*...

"in all 24 major and minor keys" is mentioned about The Well-Tempered Clavier
and
"is an incomplete masterpiece...contains 14 fugues and 4 canons." was mentioned about The Art of Fugue

I would look into the former of the two. Seems like there would be more variance in note structure, and with its completion, it would be easier to see the formation of the movements in its entirety.

I've been singing for 7 months so I guess that's my area when it comes to music. It's actually a lot of things that involves in the process of producing a tone. Especially the resonators, it's so hard to balance them! Getting into the mix is even harder!

I'm planning on getting an acoustic guitar sometime in the future, it's going to be awesome! I love learning new things!

Yes, well, by incomplete it means that the last fugue was never completed. I'm thinking of getting them both just because they cost like ten dollars.

@nackidno - Yeah, singing is fun. Do you sing in a choir or what?

I've made a few fun orchestral things. My main thing is composing for piano, though. SIbelius + tons of free time = sheets and sheets of my music.

Anyways, what do you mean, learn more about fugues? How they are written? Or playing them?

Writing. I'm attempting to compose in my spare time. I actually was forced to make a decision.

I've already undergone a year of professional training in school, so I have the concept of harmony under my belt pretty well. Counter-point was kind of a fun thing, and lead to me having an interest in fugue.

I did a very poor composition a bit back. It was a hybrid first movement sonata form composition. I used Baroque counterpoint in it and ended up having my first and closing theme from the exposition developed simultaneously in the development, which is remotely like what a double fugue does (in the sense of developing two themes at the same time via counterpoint). I then had announcements of the first theme inverted and such, as well as diminished and augmented of course. It turned out to be an interesting composition, and my teacher was confused as to how I knew counterpoint so well. However, I think my composition is horrible because I didn't follow any rules of counterpoint. Except the two different melodies playing on top of each other and being primarily consonant.

Anyways, the books I have chosen to buy are as follows:

-"Guide to the Practical Study of Harmony" (Tchaikovsky). This is for reference.

-"The Study of Counterpoint: From Johann Joseph Fux's Gradus Ad Parnassum" (Johann Joseph Fux and translated by Alfred Mann). This is a book that Bach endorsed, and Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven studied. It is a very famous book according to many reviews across the internet.

-"The Study of Fugue" (Alfred Mann). This is basically a second part of Fux's Gradus Ad Parnassum that Alfred Mann translated. It also includes four other sources of information on fugues.

-"The Art of Fugue & A Musical Offering" (Johann Sebastian Bach). This is for study material along with the Study of Fugue. It's best to learn by example, and the Art of Fugue is a contrapuntal exploration of fugue, so I figured it would suit my endeavors well

-"Principles of Orchestration" (Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov). I bought this book to learn the principles of orchestration, as the title would suggest. I intend on writing epic music for my games eventually.

Now all I need to do is learn how to model, animate, and texture content, and I'll be set for making a full game on my own. Which is quite a large amount of material to cover, and will take a very long time.

Nope, I sing solo. I'm actually thinking about getting into a choir, that would be extra fun.

Guitars are a blast to play! Will you being playing classical?

As for music theory, I've wanted to study it for a while now but haven't quite gotten around to it. I'm an HS graduate now so it's a bit problematic for me.

I'm definitely looking into taking a class on it in college though, because it's something I know I would enjoy. I can play both the guitar and piano mostly by ear without the need of reading music sheets, but I'd really like to be able to read and write music. Especially since I'm writing my own soundtrack for a movie.