Using practice parts for a fugue
A while back, I made a string orchestra arrangement of Bach’s Contrapunctus I from The Art of Fugue. I am currently working on this arrangement with my KSU Philharmonic orchestra as a last minute add-on piece to our October 1 program. My orchestra is a mix of non-music majors and music education majors playing secondary instruments. It’s a fantastic, fun group and we are making great strides in our music making.
We are in a bit of a time crunch, so utilizing MP3 tracks as a practice tool is a good idea. A fugue is about the melodic lines and how they interact with each other. Also, the rhythms can be somewhat tricky to count.
Since I already had the arrangement of this piece in Finale, it was simple to export as a standard (type 1) MIDI file using the “save as” feature.
From there, I transferred the MIDI file into Garageband using drag & drop right into the empty area of a new Garageband project. Separate string tracks were created and I added a metronome click.
Finally, I exported MP3 tracks for each instrument using the “share” menu. Prior to exporting, I raised the featured instrument’s volume. To deemphasize the other tracks, I lowered their volume and changed them to electric piano.
Hope this arrangement and the tracks may work for your orchestra!
Download MP3 practice parts:
MIDI File: Contrapunctus I Fugue
PDF of the arrangement: Contrapunctus I Fugue
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