Musical Espionage and the Bach Motif

For centuries, composers have been hiding a secret tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach in their works. From Schumann and Brahms to Schoenberger and Honegger, there's over four hundred documented cases of the same motif popping up in honor of one of western music's greatest composers. And the craziest part? It actually spells out his name! The theme is what's known as a Musical Cryptogram, a secret code that turns letters into musical notes so you can hide words, names, and even full sentences in your work, and the Bach Motif is just the beginning.

Other references:

Huge thanks to our gold-level Patreon supporters:

Ron Jones
Jill Jones
Susan Jones
Howard Levine
Elaine Pratt
Ken Arnold

And thanks as well to Henry Reich, José N., Logan Jones, Jdominioni, Eugene Bulkin, Jody, and Yan Han! Your support helps make 12tone even better!

Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold and Inés Dawson for proofreading the script to make sure this all makes sense hopefully!

[oravlaful]

the facebook notification sound is a F7M which spells "face"

[zohaiblateef]

In the video game "Super Mario Galaxy" there is a level entitled "Ghostly Galaxy" In the music for the stage, there is a series of notes at the beginning that go:

D E A D

The notes spell out the word "Dead" and I thought it was really clever, and it fits as it was made for a ghost stage

[Fredemarmelade]

My favorite cryptogram is the jingle for the danish railroad/train company, DSB.
The jingle consists of D, Eb and B, which actually sounds really nice and is also a cool little easter egg for musicians on the train

[jeanbonnefoy]

Bonus facts: about the 'French way', a very popular one, not used specifically in music but in everyday life: when walking along the street, you'll notice quite a number of detached houses named with notes on a musical staff, reading 'do-mi-si-la-do-ré' which, phonetically reads: 'domicile adoré' ie 'adored home'... And you have this famous 50s commercial for a Wax company: sounding: 'sol facile à cirer si la cire est là' meaning: 'floor easy to wax provided wax is available'. There are many other examples since French people like playing on words almost as much as they like singing... Oh, and btw, the French equivalent of the so British 'ti' is 'si'...

[aznargo]

I keep on saying to myself, this will be the last one. And then I click on another one. And another one. I need another hit. Help me....it's too entertaining, intriguing, and reminiscent of my musical studies. BUT I CAN'T STOP.

Also, one of my favourite users of the musical cipher was Mr. Schumann. He was a madman, but did it brilliantly!

[markchapman]

I briefly shared a house with a composer friend at about the same time that I became keen on Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet, which uses his own motif extensively. One day my friend was working on something when I heard him play D-E flat-C-B. I asked him if he was writing a piece In Memoriam Dimitri Shostakovich, but it was just a coincidence. :-)

[TehToastererererer]

C.A.B.B.A.G.E is a good idea for a song in 7/8.

[corymc]

you seriously just freaked me out. I was just thinking how to spell out my name in notes and then you did it haha.. i didnt realize we had the same name and spelled the same. love your videos man...

[RCAvhstape]

YYZ by Rush spells out the morse code letters YYZ in the rhythm to represent the name of the song and the 3-letter code for Toronto's airport.

[BlobVanDam]

The song "In The Name of God" by Dream Theater encodes a hidden message in morse code using the rhythm of the triangle hits. And then there's the joke about the tabs for some metal songs being binary messages, primarily using just the 1 and 0 (ie open) frets. Interesting video! I didn't know of any of these examples beyond the basic A-G notes.

[y_fam_goeglyd]

Of course there is the very well known "cryptic sound" from WWII. Messages to occupied countries were sent via the BBC over radio, initially with the musical "heads up" of Beethoven's 5th. The introduction of da da da daaa (it's v hard to write sounds and their lengths in text like this!) is the Morse for V (victory). Maybe someone out there doesn't know this one ...

[MatEnAlks]

Immediately reminds me of a song by Ron Jarzombek, great metal guitarists and composer who loves this kind of things. His song Createous Chasm uses 12 tone technique, but in different kind of way, he groups the notes in numbers lower than 12 but there are still some parts using all 12, he also breaks rules of repetition within each part. But what I'm trying to say, he wrote a song called In The Name of Ron, where he placed two columns of letters of the alphabet as the represantion of notes and wrote his full name, harmonized it and it's a really cool experiment, you should check it out, there is a video where he explains all the steps he makes. Thank you for the video by the way, and yes, composers will do absolutely anything to give the music a deeper meaning.

[stevie]

maybe use octave numbers in the french method [if you use midi]? like A4 would mean column A, row 4 (V); etc etc

[Reesecollins]

Search up cabbage metal by Andrew Huang!! The song is all about cryptograms

[AmandaKaymusic]

Your cabbage melody made me laugh. Thanks for your entertaining work 12tone.

[trinitarian]

In his Offrande Musicale Koechlin used BACH as the basis of every bar in the piece, and it is an orchestral work lasting 45 minutes!The 12-tone row of Webern's String Quartet op 28 is three versions of BACH.

[PastaPics]

This would be a great use for a 13TET scale bc it would simplify the French method a lot since you would have exactly 2 letters for every note

[malkamichel]

This video is delightful! Brought me right back to my grad school and college days as a music student <3

[LoraCoggins]

Wait, I remember being told in Music Theory class that Bb was the H note, not B.

I've been lied to!

[ToddWSmith]

I'm surprised the constructed language Solresol didn't get a mention here! It's an entire language where all words are made with the seven syllables of the solfege