GENERAL I ARTICLE

Music, Mathematics and Bach

2. Patterns in Bach's Music

Rahul Siddharthan

In the earlier part of this article, an introduction to

musical scales, counterpoint and harmony was given. In
this part these themes are developed further with
reference to Bach's music and the emergence of the
equally tempered scale.

Bach's Music: Counterpoint, Canon, Fugue and

Presently a research
other Patterns
student in the
Department of Physics at
Most readers of this journal may not be very familiar wi th Bach's
the Indian Institute of
Science. Long interested music, and this section, I hope, will prove a good introduction to
in music of various kinds, what I would consider one of the high points of music, not only
but unfortunately of the west, but of the world.
listening pleasure far
exceeds performing J S Bach (1685-1750) was in his own time more famous as an
talent.
organist than as a composer. The trend in the baroque age, of
which Bach was among the last major figures, was to move away
from polyphony and towards a simpler harmonic style; Vivaldi's
concertos, over 500 in number, are delightfully easy listening
Part 1. layers of Melody,
Resonance, Vol.4, No.3, 1999. with catchy melodies and unsophisticated accompaniment
(Stravinsky allegedly remarked that Vivaldi 'wrote the same
concerto 500 times'). Bach instead concentrated on perfecting
the apparently dying art of polyphony. Even his simplest and
most unassuming works have a contrapuntal element, and his
more sophisticated pieces have an intricacy which can be mind-
boggling. But this was appreciated only by a few at the time:
though many music teachers, and composers such as Beethoven,
knew of Bach's work and held it in great regard, the general
public became aware of it only in the 1820s, principally through
the efforts of Felix Mendelssohn.

As described above, polyphony or counterpoint is the interplay

of two or more distinct melodic voices to form a coherent whole.

--R-E-S-O-N-A-N-C-E--I-M-a-v-1-9-9-9--------------~--------------------------------~-1
 GENERAL I ARTICLE

The melody of the second voice can be entirely different from the
first, orit can besimilarwith variations. An interesting possibility,
and one of the oldest, is when the second voice is the same as the
first, but starts off after a small time lag: the first voice begins the
melody, then as it continues the second voice joins in with the
same melody after a few bars. The results with a randomly chosen
melody (or 'theme' ) would be execrable, but if the original
theme is carefully written the effect can be striking. This is an
example of a 'canon' One can have various variations on this
Both systems have basic canonic form: the second melody can be slower or faster
a base note or than the original, played backwards, 'inverted' , and so on. To
'tonic'. In Indian convert these academic exercises into interesting music is far
music the tonic from trivial.
'sa' is played
Another thing one can do with the second melody is to play it in
throughout by the
a different key, that is, at a different pitch. This is a good point
tanpura, and one
at which to mention another important respect, apart from the
never deviates
'vertical component' ,in which Western and Indian music differ:
from it, while in
Western music allows the idea of 'modulation' from one key to
Western music the
another. That is to say, though both systems have a base note or
music can start in 'tonic' in Indian music the tonic 'sa' is played throughout by the
one key (with a
tanpura, and one never deviates from it, while in Western music
particular tonic - the music can start in one key (with a particular tonic - such as
such as C) and C) and then 'modulate' to a different key, with a different tonic
then 'modulate' to
(such as G major, whose tonic is the fifth, or 'dominant' , of C
a different key,
major); the only requirement is that the tonic must return at the
with a different
end of the piece. There are rules, though not very rigid ones,
tonic.
about how the tonic is to be approached, but unlike in Indian
music these rules relate to harmonies and chord changes rather
than individual notes.

A 'fugue' is a step beyond the canon, with somewhat less rigid

rules and greater freedom. A fugue begins with a single voice,
introducing a theme. Then as the voice continues, a second voice
introduces the same theme in a different key, forming a
counterpoint with the first voice. Similarly a third voice, a
fourth, and so on can enter, again in various keys. After all the
voices have been introduced, the form of the fugue is relatively

-62-------------------------------~---------------R-E-S-O-N-A-N-C-E-I--M-a-Y-'-99--9
 GENERAL I ARTICLE

unconstrained: each voice plays out its own melody in

counterpoint with the rest. In the course of this, the theme can
reappear in various forms: as it is, speeded up, slowed down, in
'inverted' form, and in any number of other ways. A listener to
a fugue can have fun spotting new' disguised' appearances of the
theme. The fugue was also one of Bach's favourite forms of
wri ting, an instance of his love of order and pattern. His two
volumes entitled 'The Well-Tempered Clavier' (of which more
will be said shortly) contain 48 fugues, no two of them alike, and
his last, unfinished work was called 'The Art of the Fugue' which
was a series of short fugal pieces based on a rather simple theme
and its inversion.

There are other musical patterns in Bach. For instance, The

Brandenburg Concertos are probably the most widely heard of The canons in
Bach's pieces, and they abound in such musical patterns. Many particular are
movements have fuguelike structures, for instance the third intriguing: Bach
movement of the fourth concerto. The final movement of the wrote them out as
third concerto is a masterpiece in getting maximum mileage out puzzle canons,
of minimum material: the fast, lively theme is extremely simple, with only the first
and repeats again and again from different parts of the orchestra, part explicitly
interweaving with itself to form an effect quite mesmerising. present and cryptic
Much of the same effect is seen in the finale of the first violin instructions to
concerto, where again a cascade of triplets which by themselves complete them
form a reasonably uncomplicated melody build up in complexity with the second
through counterpoint with the orchestra. part.

'The Musical Offering' (which was dedicated to King Frederick

the Great, and based on a theme composed by him) contains two
fugues, ten canons and a trio sonata all incorporating the 'royal
theme' in some form. The canons in particular are intriguing:
Bach wrote them out as puzzle canons, with only the first part
explicitly present and cryptic instructions to complete them
with the second part. For the story of this particular opus, see the
book by Hofstadter in the references.

A final example: the last fugue in 'The Art of the Fugue' is

incomplete; it stops abruptly shortly after Bach introduces a new

--------~~------
RESONANCE I May 1999 63
 GENERAL I ARTICLE

theme, consisting in modern notation of the notes B flat, A, C, B.

To understand the point of this, one should know that in German
notation B flat was called B, and B was called 'H'. Bach died
shortly after encoding his name in his fugue, and without
completing it.

The Equally Tempered Scale

We mentioned Bac~'s 'The Well- Tempered Clavier' earlier; this is

a set of two books, each containing 24 preludes and accompany-
ing fugues for the keyboard (typically, in Bach's time, the
harpsichord, though today they are often played on the piano).
The work has immense musical significance, but Bach wrote this
work to make a technical, as well as a musical point: the work was
meant to show the advantages of a system of tuning the keyboard
called equal temperament' (and this is what the title refers to
- 'clavier' being a generic name for a keyboard instrument).
Which brings us back to the question of what constitutes a
musical scale.

A scale, in the broadest sense, is a collection of notes which can

form the basis for a melody. The Pythagorean scale discussed
above is a very good approximation to the scale that dominates
world music, but it contains room for fine adjustments which are
nevertheless perceptible to the trained ear. An example was
adjusting the third note slightly to fall in consonance with the
first. More generally, the pitch of a note as sung by a singer often
depends on the notes that precede or follow it: in the west, for
instance, musicians like to slightly sharpen (make higher) the
'leading note' or the note just below the tonic (B in the case ofC
major), and in Indian music the exact pitch of a note such as
'shuddh ga' depends on the raga that's being played, and depends
on whether the singer is ascending or descending, and even on
the particular performer. All thesepossible'ga's' are sufficiently
close to identify them as 'ga' but depending on the mood their
pitch can vary minutely, so a mathematical theory of the ideal
'ga' becomes impossible in purely melodic (monophonic) music.

-64----------------------------------------------~~------------------RE-S-O-N-A-N-C-E---\-M-a-V-1-9-9-9
 GENERAL I ARTICLE

In harmonic or polyphonic music, however, we have notes being

sounded simultaneously, and then comes the requirement that
they should be consonant when sounded together. Much Western
music is built upon chords and chord progressions, which are
sequences of notes in small integer ratios played together or
successively. For instance, the simplest chord would contain
three notes (two notes, by definition, don't constitute a chord)
and if we are to avoid the trivial octave (i.e. ratio of 1:2), the
simplest ratios for these three are 4:5 :6. Three notes in these
ratios constitute a so-called 'major' chord: for instance, sa-ga-pa
or C-E-G (which is called the C major chord). When the notes
are played
The major chord by itself constitutes the basis of many well-
successively, it
known melodies. To take three examples: the opening of Bach's
sounds very
second violin concerto; the triumphant opening notes ofthe last
similar to the
movement of Beethoven's fifth symphony; the refrain of the
Pythagorean
Beatles' 'Ob-Ia-di, ob-Ia-da' , are all major triads C-E-G. But
scale, but when
these three notes are not enough to constitute a scale. However,
they are played
let us consider the two arguably most important notes in the
together as
scale, G (called the dominant, because it's a fifth above C, i.e.
chords, this scale
3/2 times C) and F (called the sub-dominant, because it's a fifth
sounds altogether
below the next C, i.e. 2/3 times C' ). Ifwe demand that the major
smoother and
chords constructed on these notes, G-B-D and F-A-C, are also
richer. The whole
perfect 4:5:6 triads, then we have enough information to specify
Western concept
the frequencies of all the notes in the scale, and these notes are
of a melody
furthermore quite adequate for a perfectly respectable melody.
eventually evolved
To write out the frequencies of these notes explicitly, then, the
around the chords
'harmonic' major scale is
of a scale.
1, 9/8, 5/4,4/3,3/2, 5/3, 15/8,2

When the notes are played successively, it sounds very similar to

the Pythagorean scale, but when they are played together as
chords, this scale sounds altogether smoother and richer. The
whole Western concept of a melody eventually evolved around
the chords of a scale (C major, G major, F major), so melodies
began to be constructed by skipping notes in the manner of a
chord progression, rather than linearly ascending or descending

--R-E-S-O-N-A-N-C-E-I--M-a-Y-1-9-9-9-------------~-------------------------------~-
 GENERAL I ARTICLE

a scale, and basing the successive groups of notes on different

chords. A typical sequence of chord changes may go C-G-C-F -C-
G-C: note that the C major chord dominates the melody and is
expected to begin and end it, but in between the notes can
organize themselves about other chords.

A lot of simple melodies can be written based purely on these

principles (for instance, many Christmas carols, the Beatles tune
mentioned above, and other popular tunes), and if that were all
there was to the story there would be no problem. But we
mentioned earlier the idea of modulating to different keys: when
playing in C major, for instance, it is natural to modulate to the
keys of G major or F major because their tonic chords are
respectively the dominant and sub-dominant of C. So we have
to consider how to construct a scale starting from G (say, G, A, B,
C, D, E, F, G) rather than C#. One can do this in an exactly
analogous manner (one can directly lift the ratios of various notes
from the key of C and multiply them into the pitch of G, which
is 3/2 above). One then runs into two problems:

1. The pitch of F works out very different from above: one gets
45/32, which is something like halfway between F and G above.
So we call it by a new name, F (F -sharp). On aeon ventional piano
keyboard, the notes C, D, E etc are white keys, and F# is a black
key between the white keys F and G.

2. The other problem cannot be wished away so easily: the pitch

of A works out almost the same, but slightly different. Rather
than 5/3 as above it works out to 27/16. This means that if the
keyboard is tuned to C major, and then played in G major, one
note will be slightly wrong. The difference is too small to
consider it a different note (as in F# above) but large enough to
be noticeable to sensitive ears. The problem builds up, with a
wrong note added with each modulation by a fifth: thus, D major
has 2 wrong notes, and A major (A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#, A) has
3 wrong notes (A, B, E). A piano tuned perfectly to C major
would sound noticeably off-key played in A major.

-66------------------------------~---------------R-E-SO-N-A-N--CE--I-M-a-Y-l-9-9-9
 GENERAL I ARTIt;LE

Worse is to come: as we go up the fifths ladder and accumulate

more and more 'sharp' notes, we reach a note called E# (in the
key ofF# major) which is very close to but a little lower than the
natural F. Likewise if one goes down the fifths scale through the
keys of F, Bb flat (B flat - again, a 'black key' on the piano
between A and B), etc, one reaches a note called G flat which is
almost, but not quite, the same as F sharp.

The other scale that has taken root in the west, apart from the
major scale, is called (naturally) the minor scale; the minor chord
is basically a sort of inversion of the major chord, with the ratio
of frequencies of the first two notes being 5:6 and of the second
and third being 4:5. Just as we constructed the major scale about
the major chord, we can construct the harmonic minor scale from
the minor chord by demanding that the chords built on the tonic,
subdominant and dominant all be minor chords. The scale of C
major as calculated above serves fine as the scale of A minor when
one starts from A rather than C, with the small flaw that the D is
slightly off: if one changes that to 10/9 rather than 9/8, and then
starts the scale from A, one gets the minor scale. The minor scale,
too, is often used as the basis of a melody (for instance, the
popular song 'Scarborough Fair'). The key of A minor is known
as the relative minor to C major, since it uses the same notes, and
C minor (=C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb, C) is known as the parallel
minor to C major. Tunes in minor keys tend to sound a little

Layout of a musical keyboard

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _,AAAAA,_ _ _ _ _ __ _
v
RESONANCE I May 1999 "'VVVv 67
 GENERAL I ARTICLE

Tunes in minor dark, while major keys sound more cheerful. It is not invariably
keys tend to sound the case, but the possibility is often exploited by composers: for
a little dark, while instance the triumphant sound of the opening of the last
major keys sound movement of Beethoven's 5th symphony is mainly because of the
more cheerful; this sudden change of keys from C minor to C major.
possibility is often
It seems, then, that a piano tuned to C major can only be played
exploited by
in C major, or at best in neighbouring keys like A minor, F major
composers.
or G major; 'remote' keys will involve a profusion of black keys
and 'wrong notes' on the keyboard. The problem does not arise
with instruments like the violin, or with the human voice, since
these can adjust pitches continuously and change according to
the needs of the key being played. Thus composers of keyboard
music, until the 1700s, were constrained by the limitations of
tuning the keyboard and could not modulate their music to
'remote' keys.

This situation is often expressed by saying that 'the circle of

fifths does not close' . By this is meant the fact that if one follows
the procedure of raising a note by a fifth repeatedly, lowering it
an octave when necessary to keep within the initial octave, one
never recovers the original note. However, after twelve steps one
does recover what is extremely close to the original note. More
precisely,

(3/2)12 = 129.74 ... 27 = 128

so raising a note twelve fifths and lowering it seven octaves

brings it to 1.013 ... times its original value. It would be nice if it
were exactly the original value but that is a mathematical
impossibility.

The suggestion that arose in the seventeenth century was to

slightly flatten the fifth, to close the circle of fifths. In other
words, define the C-G interval to be 27/12 - 1.498, rather than 1.5
exactly, and calculate all other notes by the same technique of
moving up a fifth from the preceding note. It turns out that with
this procedure one needs only twelve notes in the scale: B# is
exactly the same as C, C# is exactly the same as Db, and so on; and

--------~~------
68 RESONANCE I May 1999
 GENERAL I ARTICLE

the ratio of any two successive notes is precisely 21(12. To suggest

Suppose one restricts oneself to intervals less than an octave (that destroying. the
is, frequency ratios between 1 and 2), and defines their combi- purity of the fifth
nation modulo the octave: for instance, two fifths (3/2 and 3/2) and the fourth
combine to give the second (9/8), rather than 9/4. Then the set requires great
of all possible intervals forms ·a group, but this group has an boldness, and
infinite number of elements. The set of intervals that actually purists weren't
exist on a keyboard tuned to the natural scale cannot form a pleased.
group, since most of the intervals when combined don't form
other intervals which exist on the keyboard. The 'equally
tempered' scale, however, does form a group with only twelve
elements, 2 n/12 where n = 0, 1, 2, ... , 11.

Of course, this plays havoc with all the nice integer ratios which
we listed before: none of them survive, except the octave -
indeed, they all become irrational. To suggest destroying the
purity of the fifth and the fourth requires great boldness, and
purists weren't pleased. The point of the suggestion was that the
effect was actually not so bad as that of playing a scale on a piano
tuned perfectly to a very remote scale. To most ears, the difference
between these equally spaced 12 notes and the ideal ones is
hardly perceptible. And while no key will now be perfectly in
tune, no key will be more out of tune than any other. The
question was whether it was worthwhile to sacrifice a small
amount of purity of pitch in favour of vastly greater freedom in
modulation. Suggested Reading
Bach was not the originator of this idea of equal temperament, [1] D R Hofstadter, Godel,
but he was the first major composer to promote it vigorously. Escher, Bach: An Eternal
Golden Braid (Penguin,
Before him, composers were content to compose keyboard music
London. 1980): mainly a
restricting themselves to keys close to C major. To emphasize the discussion of Godel's
freedom offered by the new system, Bach wrote book I of The theorem and artificial
Well-Tempered Clavier: the book contained 24 preludes and 24 intelligence but an excellent
place to start for
accompanying fugues, one in each of the major and minor keys.
appreciating Bach as well.
(Since there are now exactly twelve notes in the octave, there are [2] SirJamesJeans,Scienceand
only twelve distinct major keys and twelve minor keys: for Music (reprinted by Dover
instance F sharp major is no longer different from G flat major). Publications, 1968): a classic
on the subject.
Many years later he wrote another similar volume, which again

--------~--------
RESONANCE I May 1999 69
 GENERAL I ARTICLE

traversed the keys in 24 preludes and fugues. This volume was

untitled and is generally referred to as Book II ofthe WTC. The
Well-Tempered Clavier's mission of promoting the equitempered
scale succeeded: it is the only system used to tune keyboards
today. But musically, too, the work profoundly influenced a
number of composers. Beethoven, for instance, was made by his
teacher to memorize the whole work, and for the rest of his life
kept a portrait of Bach on his desk; his late works display a
preoccupation with fugal writing. Mozart discovered Bach late
in life but the discovery sparked an interest in contrapuntal
writing evident in his later works. Chopin, in a reference to the
WTC, wrote a set of24 preludes, with a similar tour of the keys.
He told students to 'always play Bach'. In this century, Shosta-
kovich wrote a set of 24 preludes, and later another set of 24
preludes and fugues: his version of the WTC, but little-known,
and recorded for the first time only in the 1980s.
Address for Correspondence
And on this note we end this brief survey of Bach: little known
Rahul Siddharthan
Department of Physics in his time, regarded as old-fashioned and backward-looking by
Indian Institute of Science his sons and others, but one of the most influential composers
Bangalore 560012, India. ever in more ways than one and, to many admirers, the epitome
email: [email protected]
of perfection in music.

~olfgang .
Ama~eus
. :;\1ozart

Johann 5ebasr{an~ach

.'fel{x :Jvten~elssohn

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ L~AAA~_._ _ _ _ _ __ _
70 v V VVV v~ RESONANCE I May 1999