Talks to Watch

Bach, "Little" Fugue in G minor, Organ

4.3M views · Jul 12, 2013 · 3:46 · 0 HN recommenders · 3 mentions · discussed 2018–2026

Stephen Malinowski performs Bach's Little Fugue in G minor on organ, accompanied by an animated graphical score. Pedalboard playing carries one of the melodic lines.

Why Hacker News points people here: Linked as the original organ version of the piece, with a visual score that makes the fugue easy to follow.

“Compare the Little Organ Fugue as originally intended”HN comment, 2025

What Hacker News said 3

Cites itpfootiSep 2018
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Headline seems demonstrably untrue [0]. Better framing should be, "contentID incorrectly identifies YouTube sample as being part of a totally legally copyrighted recording of a Bach work". (Bracketing for now the rightness or copyright at all, I suppose) 0: this video

in “You can't play Bach on Facebook because Sony says they own his compositions” · view on HN
Cites itusername223May 2025

“Compare the Little Organ Fugue as originally intended”

Original organ version of Little Fugue

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Bach in general is amazing in terms of surviving all sorts of transcription and mutilation. Compare the Little Organ Fugue as originally intended: this video to the a cappella version by the Swingle Singers: link Some music is very much tied to a particular instrument, but Bach is more or less universal.

in “The Art of Fugue – Contrapunctus I (2021)” · view on HN
Cites itkortexJul 2026

“Bach's Little Fugue in G minor was and is one of my favorites.”

Piece used for overload trance meditation

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One of the first ways I learned to meditate/access different states of mind was a technique described as "overload trance" (IIRC). The premise was, listen to a piece of music, focusing on one musical component, then while keeping that focus, add another element, and another, etc. It works best with pieces with a lot of ostinato (repetition/vamp) and Bach's Little Fugue in G minor was and is one of my favorites. Really fun to play too, though i get tripped up as soon as the feet get involved. Also, Utopia by Astral Projection (that whole album Trust in Trance 3 is great for this). Bonus points to mentally visualizing something in time with the music (I like orbs whirling around like atomic orbitals). You can really tie up much of your mental processing this way and I find it much easier than traditional zen meditation, trying to bring focus back to eg. breathing. Little fugue: this video Trust in trance 3 playlist: link

in “EEG shows brain can simultaneous encode two speech streams” · view on HN