Fugato?
What’s my point with this blog name, Fugato?
- Fugato
- Means “in the manner of a fugue”.
- Fugue
- A musical piece in which there are several musical lines weaving together, each playing the same theme albeit with with variations.
It is explained way better over there. In a fugue, the musical lines (or “voices”) interplay in clever ways that make you think “how the heck did he make that all fit together?”
Typically a fugue starts off as just a single voice, playing a theme, and when it is done stating the theme, another voice joins in, and away they go a-weaving.
I don’t have a good sample of a fugue for you to download and listen to. But try out some Bach, e.g. the Well-Tempered Clavier. Bach wrote some pretty amazing fugues. Pay attention; there is plenty to catch there. And if you haven’t listened to a fugue before, it is probably going to be more confusing than cool. Give it a few shots.
So why did I name this site “Fugato”? Because I like fugues. Just like that.
Well, and because I think the idea of writing text in the manner of a fugue is rather cool. I’m not trying to do that, and doubt that I’d have much luck if I tried. But Douglas Hofstadter did write a pretty impressive textual “crab canon” in his bloody great book, Gödel, Escher, Bach.
A canon is similar to a fugue; the lines interweave in a different way, but they share the fundamental trait of “imitative counterpoint”. One famous canon is “Row, row, row your boat.” Now, a “crab cabon” (here’s one by Bach) is a canon in which the second half is a mirror image of the first half, both in time and in pitch. Douglas Hofstadter wrote a non-musical version of that, in the form of a dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise; that is his crab canon.
Which is starting to stray a little from the topic of my site’s name. That being such an exciting topic, let’s stay on it.
The name stands in no relation at all to fugu, a fish eaten as a delicacy in Japan. Fugu contains tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin 1250 times as poisonous as cyanide (whatever that number means). One fish has enough of that to kill up to 30 adult humans. That poison is localized in the gonads, liver, intestines, and skin of the fish; the actual flesh is “usually not dangerously toxic”. So when you eat a fugu meal, you are placing an awful lot of confidence in the chef.
That’s fugu. I just thought I’d mention that because I find it interesting. And although my blog’s name has nothing at all to do with fugu, its theme has a lot to do with mentioning things that I find interesting. That’s the idea.