Counterpoint Topics

• johann sebastian bach
• species counterpoint
• john rahn
• cantus firmus
• contrapuntal music
• composer johann sebastian
• baroque composer
• art of fugue
• practice period
• method of teaching
• consonance
• according to the rules
• dissonance
• distractions
• harmonies
• listener
• favour
• harmony
• exceptions
• boundaries

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Counterpoint, Counterpoint

Counterpoint focuses on melodic interaction—only secondarily on the harmonies produced by that interaction. In the words of John Rahn: }} The separation of harmony and counterpoint is not absolute. It is impossible to write simultaneous lines without producing harmony, and impossible to write harmony without linear activity. The composer who chooses to ignore one aspect in favour of the other still must face the fact that the listener cannot simply turn off harmonic or linear hearing at will; thus the composer risks creating annoying distractions unintendedly. Bach's counterpointoften considered the most profound synthesis of the two dimensions ever achievedis extremely rich harmonically and always clearly directed tonally, while the individual lines remain fascinating.

The Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach wrote most of his music incorporating counterpoint, and explicitly and systematically explored the full range of contrapuntal possibilities in such works as The Art of Fugue.

The student gradually attains the ability to write free counterpoint (that is, less rigorously constrained counterpoint, usually without a cantus firmus) according to the rules at the given time.

As before, fourth species counterpoint is said to be expanded when the added-part notes vary in length among themselves. The technique requires chains of notes sustained across the boundaries determined by beat, and so creates syncopation.

This is not true; although much contrapuntal music of the common practice period adheres to the spirit of the rules, and often to the letter of them, the exceptions are many. Fux's book and its concept of "species" was purely a method of teaching counterpoint, not a definitive or rigidly prescriptive set of rules for it.

First species counterpoint is required to be all dissonances, establishing "dissonance, rather than consonance, as the rule," and consonances are "resolved" through a skip, not step. He wrote that "the effect of this discipline" was "one of purification." Other aspects of composition, such as rhythm, could be "dissonated" by applying the same principle (Charles Seeger, "On Dissonant Counterpoint," Modern Music 7, no. 4 (June-July 1930): 25-26).

Other composers who have used dissonant counterpoint, if not in the exact manner prescribed by Charles Seeger, include Ruth Crawford-Seeger, Carl Ruggles, Henry Cowell, Henry Brant, Dane Rudhyar, Lou Harrison, Fartein Valen, and Arnold Schoenberg.

Source: Wikipedia > Counterpoint