Originally Posted by: bcraig4J[p]Let's start with the Prelude in C from the Well-Tempered Clavier. The bass line is a pedal tone through the piece. Just the bass voice is oblique motion in the first 2 measures staying on C. But it moves to B in m.3 & changes thereafter. So, it's only oblique for those 2 measures.used oblique technique Christopher is correct Air is using the melody and Prelude is using the bass?
It's typical to call the highest notes present the melody, but in Bach that doesn't really make sense because his music is polyphonic, or uses counterpoint. This means that his music often consists of many melodic threads or lines happening at the same time.
This is also true of Air on a G String. Yes, the high voice is oblique through the 1st 2 measures & the first beat of the 3rd! And yes, this is sort of viewed as the melody. But Bach's music overall is best thought of as a weaving together of independent voices, instead of homophonic style music with a clearly separate single melody line & chordal accompaniment.
There are Bach works more homophonic in nature. But these 2 pieces are pretty typical polyphoni counterpoint.
I hope are you enjoying listening to & analyzing Bach!
