The semester is over! Easter is done! And my summer is mostly beginning (still a few more weeks of choir)! Woo! Which also means I have allotted some time to come visit my blog and get a few things up and going. Meaning a few newer compositions here on the site and improvisations via YouTube. The latter is what I have to present today!
I had originally planned on playing a combo of Bach’s lesser Prelude and Fugues in C major (combine the prelude from BWV 531 and fugue from 553) but found out my friend Sydney’s birthday was that particular Sunday. For timeline clarity, that was from the first Sunday in May. So I decided to call an audible and improvise in Bach-ish/Baroque-ish style but using two distinct themes: a musical spelling of Sydney’s name and a nod to the Happy Birthday song.
When spelling someone’s name, you have two options to choose from. The first is the European model where you include Bb as a note (famously, Bach is spell Bb-A-C-B natural: B natural is the letter H) or what I like to call the American model where it is just the letters of the alphabet and sharps and flats can be added where needed (in that system Bach would be B-A-C-A where H restarts the with the musical alphabet). Edit: Okay, so the Wikipedia article on Musical cryptograms where it lays this out calls my “American” system the “French” system whereas the former system is the German one. I don’t have any evidence right in front of me but I know of several French composers that use the German system. It really doesn’t matter as that’s just lingual knit picking – it’s a cool article though, definitely check it out!
Since I have the American/French model memorized, I spelled Sydney’s name E-D-D-G-E-D. Since the there were so many “Ds” I improvised in the key of D for both the Prelude and Fugue. The Sydney theme comes in about halfway through the prelude and the at the end of the fugue. The fugue subject is, of course, a brief outline of the beginning of the Happy Birthday theme: sol-la-sol-do-ti. I kept out that dotted rhythm at the beginning because it is so distinct: my hope was to not make the theme wholly apparent. With an improvisation like this, I’m always hoping to trick enough folks into thinking that I’m stumbling through a Bach piece when I’m simply making it all up! Enjoy!