Fugue as sample flip

Posted byEthan

Here’s a question from the always insightful Debbie Chachra:

Debbie’s intuition is correct, there is a connection between sample flipping and fugue writing. This connection supports a core argument of my dissertation research: hip-hop is a valuable area of study not only because it’s significant in and of itself, but also because it provides a set of methodologies you can use to understand other kinds of music as well. Let’s dig in!

So first of all, what is a sample flip? There is no precise definition. Some people describe any usage of a sample as a “flip.” I prefer to say that flipping a sample goes beyond merely reproducing it intact. To flip a sample is to alter it, in subtle or extreme ways.

“Top Billin’” by Audio Two is an archetypal sample flip. The beat is made from the drum part at the beginning of “Impeach the President” by the Honey Drippers. Many old-school rap songs sample those drums, but Audio Two goes further: they slice the beat into individual drum hits, and then reassemble them out of order to create a completely different rhythmic feel.

In the video that Deb links to, DJ Dahi says that there are three main techniques you can use to flip a sample: looping it, chopping it, and reversing it.

  • Looping is the simplest of the three techniques, but its musical significance is deeper than you might think. In his must-read book Making Beats, Joe Schloss points out that looping a sample juxtaposes the sampled material with itself, because it connects the end of a phrase with its beginning. In so doing, “looping automatically recasts any musical material it touches, insofar as the end of a phrase is repeatedly juxtaposed with its beginning in a way that was not intended by the original musician. After only a few repetitions, this juxtaposition… begins to take on an air of inevitability. It begins to gather a compositional weight that far exceeds its original significance” (p. 137). Looping can take an idea that was meant to be linear and turn it into something circular, and that act can have political valence.
  • Chopping means splitting a sample into segments (e.g. individual drum hits or notes) and then recombining the segments out of order. Audio Two’s “Top Billin'” beat is a chop of the “Impeach the President” drums. Pete Rock created the beat in “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)” by chopping the drum intro to James Brown’s “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud).”
  • Reversing is the least common technique of the three, but when it appears, it’s conspicuous. The best example I can think of is the chorus to “Work It” by Missy Elliott. She follows the line “Put my thang down, flip it and reverse it” with that same line backwards.

Let’s listen to some more noteworthy sample flips. Pete Rock flips a few piano chords from “I Love Music” by Ahmad Jamal to make the iconic instrumental for “The World is Yours” by Nas. (The video is from this great series by WhoSampled.)

I especially like when a sample flip changes the meaning of a lyric. In his instrumental for “Illest Alive” by Main Attrakionz, Clams Casino rearranges a few lines from “Hunter” by Björk, giving them a new air of menace.

I wrote an in-depth scholarly analysis of Kanye West’s “Famous,” which includes a remarkable flip of “Bam Bam” by Sister Nancy. I also recommend checking out “Full Clip” and “Flip the Script” by Gang Starr, “Mathematics” by Mos Def, many tracks by J Dilla, and many more tracks by Madlib.

Here you can watch 9th Wonder flip a sample in real time:

Okay. That’s sample flipping. Now, how does this relate to fugues? First, you need to understand what a fugue even is. If you’re the kind of nerd (like me and Debbie) who first learned about fugues by reading Gödel, Escher, Bach, then you already have some idea. Here’s a handy guide to all the music discussed in GEB. Also, it’s worth reading this critique of the way that GEB explains Bach.

If you haven’t read GEB, the basic idea is this. A fugue is a particularly complicated style of counterpoint writing. You start with a short theme, a little melody, usually just a bar or two long. You then build a composition by repeating and varying the theme across multiple melodic lines simultaneously. So, you might have the theme playing forwards in the right hand while it plays backwards in the left hand, or you might have the theme playing at half speed in the right hand while it plays at double speed in the left hand, or both hands might be playing the theme transposed up and down by different amounts, or rhythmically displaced by different amounts. More advanced fugues will do all these permutations and combinations using multiple themes across three or more independent melodies.

Bach wrote tons of fugues, and was famous in his lifetime for being able to improvise them on the fly. At the end of his life, he wrote a set of compositions called The Art of Fugue, a series of fugues all based on the same theme in D minor. If you’re not familiar with them, I recommend starting with Glenn Gould’s performances, because a) they’re awesome, and b) he plays at a nice slow tempo that doesn’t overwhelm you with too much information at once. The first thing you hear is the theme– try to keep it in your mind as you listen.

A purist would say, well, you should really listen to The Art of Fugue on harpsichord, because the piano didn’t exist in Bach’s time. The harpsichord doesn’t have velocity control, meaning that every note is the same volume regardless of how hard you press the key. Bach must have been writing with this limitation in mind.

It’s also interesting to hear the fugues played on non-keyboard instruments, like a string quartet. I like this format because each voice is on a separate instrument, so you can follow them independently more easily.

The fugues are even easier to follow with some visualization. This scholarly analysis of Bach’s Prelude and fugue in E-flat major BWV 852 from WTC 1 includes some helpful diagrams. But for me the most helpful format is animation. Richard Atkinson made this dry but informative one.

Aesthetically, though, the best animations are by Stephen Malinowski.

If you want to try creating this kind of music yourself, I recommend the amazing Fugue Machine app. Meanwhile, for a deeper dive into Bach, read this excellent breakdown and history of the Art of Fugue by Davitt Moroney. Here he explains some of the main techniques of fugue writing:

Inversion. An important part of Bach’s language is the idea of turning a theme or melodic fragment upside down (known as melodic “inversion”). The intervals are inverted (usually, but not always, pivoting around the third degree of the scale). What went up, comes down instead. So a theme that sounds the notes “D, E, F, G, A” can invert (pivoting around the F) to “A, G, F, E, D.” Bach uses this principle throughout The Art of the Fugue, announcing it right at the start, in the first four pieces: fugues 1 and 2 are based on the normal version of the theme, while 3 and 4 are based on the inverted theme. So in the motto theme that unites all the pieces in the collection, “D, A, F, D, C-sharp,” becomes “A, D, F, A, B-flat” when turned upside down.

Stretto.  In a stretto, the main melody is heard playing against itself in another voice, so you hear the theme twice at the same time, but with one part starting just after the other. In other words, the theme harmonizes with itself in a sort of short canon. The multiplicity and variety of the stretto treatment in The Art of the Fugue is astounding, but also amusing. Fugue 7, in particular (where six versions of the theme coexist in a joyous chaos, all tumbling about and falling over each other), makes me think of a description of the Bach household given by one of his many children. The house was always so full of children and other musicians running in and out that C.P.E. Bach described it as being rather like a pigeon coop, with birds always flying in and out. Fugue 7 is definitely a pigeon-coop fugue. The four statements of the very slow version of the theme, grandfather-like (with the notes in rhythmic augmentation), supports the whole structure, rising steadily through the four voices (bass, tenor, alto, soprano), around which the normal versions of the main theme scurry about in every direction, while the child-like fastest versions (with the notes in rhythmic diminution) rush all over the place.

Double counterpoint. In almost every piece Bach wrote there is more than one short melody, and these melodies are combined together to make harmony. The two-part Inventions are in two-part counterpoint, always based on two ideas being tossed back and forth between the hands. In “two-part invertible counterpoint” almost every melodic fragment found in one hand will appear somewhere in the other hand when the counterpoint is “inverted.” Any melodic passage can become the accompaniment and any accompanimental passage can become principal melody. But the concepts of “principal melody” and “accompaniment” are fundamentally misleading here. There is little hierarchical distinction between melody and accompaniment, since the whole point of the exercise is premised on their essential equality and interchangeability.

Triple counterpoint. In practice, Bach is at his happiest when combining not two, but three thematic elements, in triple counterpoint. The themes are short, sometimes just one measure and rarely more than four measures. Although one theme is usually announced at the start of a fugue (it is generally on the longer side and referred to as the “subject”), it is not necessarily the most important melodic element in the work. Usually Bach combines the layers rapidly by immediately adding a second theme in counterpoint, and then a third, so that after about six measures three different elements are already in play together. Only then does the musical fun really begin; Bach juggles with his themes to find new harmonies, like someone turning a three-dimensional object round to see new angles.

So, here’s the comparison that Debbie is suggesting: if a fugue theme is like a sample, then the fugue itself is like an elaborate series of sample flips. Does the analogy make sense? There are certainly some big differences between a rap instrumental and a fugue. The goal of sample flipping is to create a groove with a few short and unvarying repeated elements. The goal of a fugue is to create a linear composition with almost no large-scale repetition at all. Also, in fugue writing, you usually only alter the pitches and durations of the theme, while keeping its timbre intact. When you flip a sample, you might alter pitches and note durations, but you are more likely to be concerned with timbral manipulation. Those caveats aside, though, I do think the fugue/flip comparison holds merit.

We should always be careful not to try to “validate” hip-hop by comparing it to the Western European canon. Hip-hop is perfectly valid on its own terms. But there is value in comparing the two if the comparison is productive of new ideas. Hip-hop sampling is a relatively new art form and we have barely begun to explore its possibilities. What would it mean to “invert” a sample? What would sample-based “stretto” sound like? Would it be worth trying to create a “sample fugue”, a composition that applies systematic fugue-like combinatorics to a sample? Now I’m curious to find out. I have done one sort of fugue-like treatment of a sample, a Disquiet Junto project combining the opening bars of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” at normal speed, at half speed, at quarter speed, and at one eighth speed:

Meanwhile, the language of sampling has tremendous value for understanding the fugue. In Bach’s time, there was no expectation that you had to create your fugue themes from scratch. The Musical Offering is a set of contrapuntal pieces that Bach wrote based on a theme by Frederick the Great. It’s more clear to think of Bach flipping Frederick’s theme than it is to think of Bach composing something completely “from scratch.” The idea of the lone genius composer conjuring ideas out of nowhere is specific to Romantic-era ideology. The reality of composition in Bach’s time (and before then, and afterwards too) is closer to the world of sample manipulation.

Update: great response post from Wenatchee the Hatchet