tonica fugata part 1

Four-part composition

Composing a four-part piece of music following a given melody is the most attractive feature for many tonica users. Perhaps you tried it out once and got a result which looked similar to this one:

You will spontaneously judge: "Not useful" because the composition might be artful, but an amateur ensemble will not be able to play it. After all there is good reason to have beginners play the accompanying voices as they are most likely to struggle with technique and intonation...

But: It strongly depends on your option settings which composition tonica creates!

A second try

Here we have the same melody but an entirely different composition:

In menu Compose - Options we selected these settings:

The "Samuel Scheidt" harmonization style mainly applies simple harmonies; by selecting "Half note" a very calm composition is created. This one can be easily played by beginners (transposition into an easy pitch could still be done) but - to be honest - it is quite boring.

The third try

Lets have a look at the Options:

Here again a Bach style is selected, harmonized in quarter notes.

This will do the trick:

We are now not selecting the command "Score", but "Harmonize..." and then  "Realise chords...".

We will deliberately skip "Add passing notes..." (which is carried out automatically when selecting "Score")! This way the numerous eighth and sixteenth passing notes in the accompanying voices remain undone. A pure homophonic score is created which sounds smooth and interesting but does not overstrain the ensemble:

Due to the special technique applied it might happen that you will obtain different scores even though you selected the same options. So when you find that tonica composed a particularly suitable score - save it right away!

And now: Enjoy experimenting with different options!

To be continued...