I would really appreciate a pair of expert eyes. I hope the noteheads are clear. If too much of a hassle, ignore. Thanks.

https://preview.redd.it/v4u11b8tv68e1.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7e4086a71963733fc875ebc94c31e08220d176f5

I think that I can recognize counterpoint when I hear it, so I want to hear your guys' opinions on a simplified definition I thought up.

"Counterpoint is a musical technique in which two independent melodies with their own distinct directions are played simultaneously in order to form a series of harmonic intervals that add a third musical layer on top of the two independent voices."

Hi everyone! As mentioned in the last thread, this workshop provides an opportunity to learn species counterpoint. We use selected material from Knud Jeppesen's Counterpoint: The Polyphonic Vocal Style of the Sixteenth Century.

In second species, two notes are set against each note in the cantus firmus.

1. Read pp. 114-117 in Jeppesen’s Counterpoint carefully. You can find a summary of the rules here, read p. 3.
2. Study the examples on pp. 117-118. If you find it difficult to read C-clefs, write letter names below the staff or copy the examples using familiar clefs.
3. Choose one or two cantus firmi from pp. 107-108. Write a counterpoint above or below the cantus firmi.
4. Submit your exercises in this thread. If you want to submit handwritten exercises, make sure that they are legible.

Good luck! I will try to give feedback on your exercises. Let me know if you have any questions! Links to all workshop threads can be found in the wiki. Feel free to submit exercises in previous threads.

Do you want to give feedback on exercises submitted in this thread? Please read the guidelines given here.

Just as the title says, decided to practice some counterpoint and pulled some cf’s from the web. I’m really bad at it in all honesty but I’d appreciate corrections and advice if possible! Thank ya.

Hello everyone,

I was recently going through my bookshelf, and found a counterpoint book that I never gotten around to reading. (I was likely gifted it in my undergrad days, and forgot about it.) I figured I would check here to see if anyone has read this, and knew if it had anything to offer over the Fux text. Here is the book:

https://preview.redd.it/mi2eu5hjx45e1.jpg?width=2250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=364cab125c9f32249af7b42f4d715eb5aee5acf4

The purpose of this workshop is to give an introduction to species counterpoint. We will primarily use selected material from Knud Jeppesen’s Counterpoint: The Polyphonic Vocal Style of the Sixteenth Century. Make sure that you have read Introduction to Modal Theory and Composing a Cantus Firmus carefully before proceeding further.

There are five species of counterpoint. We begin with first species in two parts.

1. Read pp. 109-112 in Jeppesen’s Counterpoint carefully. You can find a summary of the rules here, read p. 2.
2. Study the examples on pp. 112-114. If you find it difficult to read C-clefs, write letter names below the staff or copy the examples using familiar clefs.
3. Choose two cantus firmi from pp. 107-108. Write a counterpoint above or below the cantus firmi.
4. Submit your exercises in this thread. If you want to submit handwritten exercises, make sure that they are legible.

Good luck! I will try to give feedback on exercises submitted in this thread. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Do you want to help beginners?

If you are familiar with the rules presented in Jeppesen’s Counterpoint, feel free to join me in giving feedback on exercises submitted in this thread. Species rule sets differ somewhat from one textbook to another; we want beginners to feel a sense of accomplishment, so when you give feedback I kindly ask you to refrain from mentioning rules that are different from or not covered in Jeppesen’s Counterpoint (eg. Jeppesen allows voice crossing; it is not, as some teachers say, a mistake).

Links to all workshop threads can be found in the wiki.

I am proud to announce the new /r/counterpoint moderation team. Our community is very small right now, so I am counting on this team to help create an environment to grow the subreddit with their expertise in counterpoint and other areas of music theory.

/u/resolution58 has expertise in 16th-century counterpoint and has offered to spearhead a guided reading of the species counterpoint chapters in Knud Jeppesen's influential study, Counterpoint: The Polyphonic Vocal Style of the Sixteenth Century.

/u/IWishIShotWarhol is well-read in twentieth century music and has contributed several resources on atonal counterpoint—an area that is all too easy to neglect.

/u/of_men_and_mouse moderates /r/partimento. Partimento has a strong affinity with traditional counterpoint studies, so I am counting on them to contribute historical knowledge and show some practical applications of counterpoint.

In order to provide tools for the study of counterpoint, we have two major projects on the horizon:

• Species counterpoint workshops. Threads dedicated to learning and practicing species counterpoint, with feedback from our userbase.

• /r/counterpoint Wiki. We will collate various resources and make an FAQ and cram whatever else we can think of in a central spot to aid students and researchers.

If anyone has ideas for things we can implement to make /r/counterpoint a good place to learn and get feedback, please don't hesitate to tell us below.

With all that said, please join me in welcoming our new mod squad.

Alan Belkin's Applied Counterpoint

My answer

Author's instructions

I've been trying to use the site Artinfuser Harmony, and it's been gradually driving me crazy. For some reason it's constantly finding wrong ranges or crossing of ranges. Anyway, considering it's just the first set of exercises and I haven't been taught every rule, I don't think this should be as strict as all that.

Still, does this look correct so far?

##"The journey of a thousand-voice fugue begins with a single melodic line."

– Ockeghem, probably.

#Contents

1. Introduction

2. Pitch Content

3. Melodic Intervals

4. Finals and Modal Ranges

5. Beginnings and Endings

6. Resolving Leaps

7. Compound Leaps

8. Contour

9. Things to Avoid

10. Summary

#1. Introduction

A good counterpoint consists of multiple good melodic lines. This post discusses the composition of melodies suitable for species counterpoint exercises, and specifically the cantus firmus.

Cantus firmus (plural: cantus firmi) is Latin for "firm chant" or "fixed song." Cantus firmus technique refers to the practice of writing new melodic lines (called "counterpoints") against an existing melody (the cantus firmus). "Cantus firmus" is abbreviated "CF." Sometimes the Italian canto fermo (plural: canti fermi) is used.

In medieval polyphonic church music, plainchant melodies moving in long notes, often of equal rhythmic value, were used as cantus firmi. For example, the tenor in the Kyrie of Guillaume de Machaut's Messe de Nôtre Dame is built upon Kyrie IV, "Cunctipotens Genitor Deus," on the Feast of the Apostles (audio).

If you're interested, this website catalogs chant melodies: https://www.globalchant.org/

Chants can easily get quite long, so counterpoint teachers often contrive their own cantus firmus melodies to encourage focused practice on limited melodic phrases. For example, Johann Joseph Fux's famous counterpoint treatise, Gradus ad Parnassum, uses six cantus firmi corresponding to the six finals of the twelve-mode system: D, E, F, G, A, and C. These cantus firmi are considerably shorter than the plainchant melody used in Machaut's mass, with the longest at only 14 notes. Cantus firmi for species counterpoint textbooks are modeled as single phrases with a single cadential goal; longer cantus firmi from the plainchant repertoire often have several cadential goals along the way. The rest of this post will concern the composition of the shorter variety of melody.

#2. Pitch Content

For these exercises, you should only use diatonic notes, e.g. the ones found in the key signature.

#3. Melodic Intervals

The intervals used in species counterpoint can be classified as steps, skips, or leaps.

• A step is a second.

• A skip is a third.

• A leap is any interval larger than a third.

The last category can be divided into consonant and dissonant leaps:

• Consonant: 4, 5, 6, 8.

• Dissonant: 7, all augmented and diminished intervals, all compound intervals.

Steps should be the predominant melodic motion in your lines. At no point should you see leaps and skips running without a step to resolve melodic tension.

Modern students also have a tendency to go crazy with thirds. Resist the urge. If your melodies regularly outline arpeggios, they will not work for the purpose of species counterpoint.

We will revisit the resolution of leaps shortly.

#4. Finals and Modal Ranges

In the 7th century, Saint John of Damascus published a collection called Octoechos, meaning "eight sounds" or "eight tones," categorizing the liturgical chants within according to a modal scheme. In the Octoechos, there are four "finals" (like tonics in tonal music) with two modes each:

In the 16th century, Heinrich Glarean proposed the addition of modes with finals on A and C in his Dodecachordon from 1547:

These modes aren't just a collection of abstract pitches, but are defined by their range. Authentic modes have the final as the lowest note (with perhaps one more step below) and extend roughly to the final pitch an octave above. Plagal modes extend below the final by a fourth (a fifth in the case of Mode IV, to avoid the instability of B) and go up to a fifth above the final (with perhaps one more step above).

Gioseffo Zarlino illustrates these modal ranges in Le institutione harmoniche from 1558.

I've updated the graphic with friendlier clefs and a bit more information. Each mode is broken up into a fifth and a fourth, depending on where the final sits. If the final is on the bottom, it is an authentic mode: there is a fifth between the low scale degree ^1 and scale degree ^5, and then a fourth between scale degree ^5 and the higher ^1. If ^5 is on the bottom, it is a plagal mode: there is a fourth between the low ^5 and ^1, and then a fifth between ^1 and the upper ^5. Thus, while modes I and VIII have the same range, they have different finals and are altogether different modes.

In practice, the ranges of melodies were not always so clear-cut, and theorists tried to formulate more flexible and nuanced systems to deal with modal ranges. You can read about one of these systems in Jay Rahn's "Marchetto of Padua's Theory of Modal Ranges".

Returning to the previous example, notice that Zarlino does not include modes with the final B. This is because it was considered a theoretical mode, as it was not in use. Glarean has names for the B modes: Hyperaeolian for the authentic version and Hyperphrygian for the plagal version; we could call these Locrian and Hypolocrian, to use modern terminology. However, Glarean agrees with Zarlino that these are theoretical modes.

To summarize the twelve modes in the 16th century:

(Later, in 1573, Zarlino reordered the modes to start from C to eliminate the gap between A and C.)

The choice of modes in composition is a complex matter that is not so easily covered here. You may find it useful to stick with modes IX, X, XI, and XII while you are learning because they correspond to the modern minor and major modes. But I would encourage you to write cantus firmi in all of the modes, since they show up in the counterpoint literature.

#5. Beginnings and Endings

Chant melodies sometimes end in a different place than they began. But when you are writing cantus firmi, you should begin and end on the final of the mode, which we will designate with the scale degree ^1.

In addition to ending on ^1, it is necessary to approach the final by a cadence. There are three cadential motions ending with ^1:

• Tenorizans: ^2–^1
• Cantizans: ^7–^1
• Bassizans: ^5–^1

Depending on the counterpoint manual you are looking at, you will see all three of these in use. Salomon Jadassohn changes the cadence on the cantus firmus depending on which voice it appears. However, in the interest of keeping everything diatonic and facilitating the clausula vera when we get to two-voice counterpoint, you should stick with the tenorizans cadence: ^2–^1.

The smoothest way to end a counterpoint is to approach the cadence by step. Approaching by skip is also acceptable, and may even be preferable for certain effects. However, leaping into the cadence creates an abrupt ending and should be avoided.

Cadence formulas:

• ^1–^2–^1
• ^3–^2–^1
• ^4–^2–^1

Heinrich Schenker regards the ^–4–^2–^1 ending as not good, but it's fairly easy to find examples in other counterpoint texts, and ^–4–^2–^1 in the cantus firmus allows you to do a nice ^–6–^7–^1 in first species counterpoint (which is very nice if you are in the minor mode and get to use the melodic minor), so I tend to disregard him on this specific matter.

#6. Resolving Leaps

Leaps of a fourth or greater are big events in a melodic line: they stand out from the mostly stepwise texture of normal melodic activity and give a lot of character to the melody. However, they need to be used with care. Any consonant leap is OK (4, 5, 6, 8); dissonant leaps should be avoided (7, all augmented and diminished intervals, compound intervals). Ideally, a leap is prepared by a step in the opposite direction of the leap, and then resolved by another step in the opposite direction. If a leap is not prepared, it's not the end of the world. However, if a leap is not resolved, it begins to distort the contour. Therefore, it is good to build a habit of both preparing and resolving leaps. This image summarizes these points.

A leap can be prepared or resolved by skip, but it shouldn't be prepared and resolved by skip.

#7. Compound Leaps

The rule on the immediate resolution of leaps in the opposite direction can be somewhat bent through a "compound leap." In a compound leap, a leap is extended in the same direction by a step, skip, or even another leap. The compound leap should be treated as one large leap, and resolved in the opposite direction by step (preferable) or skip (not prohibited at all, but check that you know what you're doing first).

Compound leaps should be organized by what Peter Schubert calls the "pyramid rule" (Modal Counterpoint: Renaissance Style, 2nd edition, 22):

When you use skips [NB: leaps] or steps in the same direction, the larger intervals should be below the smaller ones. This is called the "pyramid" rule, on the theory that larger intervals are heavier and support smaller ones. (The example shows picture of pyramids right side up and upside down.) You could also think in terms of energy or momentum: you are more likely to take stairs two at a time when you start going up, switching to one at a time near the top. Going down you would be more likely to start taking the stairs one at a time, skipping nearer the bottom (Don't try doing the reverse!).

H.K. Andrews has a neat graphic for explaining the pyramid rule in An Introduction The Technique Of Palestrina.

#8. Contour

For a line to sound coherent and compelling, it should have a clear sense of direction. A survey of existing cantus firmi will bear out the pattern of starting out at a low point, perhaps going lower if the CF is in the plagal range, and reaching a single high point (or peak or climax) before descending to the final with one of the cadence patterns discussed above. In any case, you do not want to repeat the high point. The second chapter of Kent Kennan's counterpoint book discusses issues of melodic contour more fully, albeit not in the context of cantus firmi.

It is instructive to try to write using the entire range of the mode, creating a melody with the range of an octave or ninth. If in the authentic range, you can dip to the note below the final. If in the plagal range, you can reach to the note above the upper ^5. Example.

It takes a while to develop the full range of a mode, so if you are writing a cantus firmus of less than 13 notes, you may find that the CF is comfortable with the range of only a fifth, sixth, or seventh.

For full octave melodies, expect for slightly longer CFs in the 14-17 note range.

You can leap into the climax, but be cautious about leaping away from it. It is better to leap to the climax and step down gradually than to step up and leap away.

#9. Things to Avoid

Outlining Dissonant Intervals

Avoid creating dissonant intervals (7ths, augmented fourths) between a local high and low point (Peter Schubert calls this the "temporary" high and low points). Here are some examples I composed to illustrate.

You can outline a diminished fifth (but not an augmented fourth) provided it is completely filled in with steps and followed by a step in the opposite direction. From Schubert's Modal Counterpoint: Renaissance Style, page 22, and here is an example cantus firmus.

Arpeggios/Successive Skips

Many thirds after one another can easily outline a dissonant seventh, and arpeggiation tends to make the harmony stagnate by projecting a single chord over a long span. Example. When adding additional parts in counterpoint to the CF, such harmonic stagnation severely limits your choices too.

Tautology

"Tautology" is another way of saying "redundancy" or "circularity." Cantus firmus is perhaps the most compact genre of composition in Western music, so there is little room for excess. Every little nuance is felt on the whole of the line. When the line starts to repeat itself, or returns to an area that you already spent effort to get away from, it stagnates the melody and destroys momentum. Therefore, you should always try to keep the momentum of the CF going and project towards a goal: either the climax, or the cadence. Milling about in the same two or three notes is the opposite of what we want here. Usually, you can fix a bad melody simply by sculpting it a bit more.

#10. Summary

To write a cantus firmus:

1. Pick a mode/modal range.
2. Begin on ^1.
3. Write a roughly arch-shaped melody in whole notes that conforms to the range of your mode.
4. Use primarily steps, with an occasional skip, and some well-placed leaps to make the line interesting.
5. Resolve leaps by step in the opposite direction, or execute compound leaps (which you will then resolve).
6. Achieve a single climactic high point, then work your way back down for the cadence.
7. End the CF with one of the following melodic formulas: ^1–^2–^1, ^3–^2–^1, or ^4–^2–^1.

https://hugoribeiro.com.br/biblioteca-digital/Norden-Fundamental_Counterpoint.pdf

If you are starting out, I think the linked text is a great introduction to species counterpoint. It doesn't introduce you to a lot of the more abstract conceptual parts of counterpoint that make the subject so important, but if you are interested in eventually studying Taneev but feel it's too advanced for you, or you hear about Schenker but feel you lack basic technique someone usually gets working through species, I think this book is a great unpretentious and pragmatic foray into the topic. It's not flashy, and it really shouldn't be your only counterpoint text, but it is simple and focused and as opposed to giving you a bunch of abstract conceptual theories he spends his time giving you technical strategies for doing the exercises.

A few years ago, we had a counterpoint challenge series at /r/musictheory that was run by /u/powersurgeee. You can view the old threads here. Since this is the counterpoint subreddit, we should probably have something along those same lines. What I have in mind is making a thread going over the rules for a given species and drawing on the community (as it were) to give feedback and help educate newcomers to counterpoint.

Probably, at the beginning anyway, the focus would be on creating the format and establishing how to participate. As each species or topic gets covered, there would be a repository of lessons that could easily be collected into a weekly/monthly thread down the line.

Does this sound interesting? Do you have any suggestions? Let me know below.

https://www.scribd.com/document/494101434/Charles-Seeger-Dissonant-Counterpoint

A very famous perspective deeply important to the early twentieth century American modernist. Often times people wonder: in a post-tonal context, is the study of tonal counterpoint useless? I think understanding the historical development of post tonal practice and its connection to counterpoint can help one bridge the rift between one's studies of tonal music and the writing of post tonal (pitched, lattice) music.

https://www.scribd.com/document/150315905/Ernst-Krenek-Studies-in-Counterpoint-Based-on-the-Twelve-Tone-Technique-1940

One of the clearer books from the early twentieth century that tries to build a pedagogy out of Seeger's dissonant counterpoint. Unfortunately doesn't go into the rotation procedures that he was famous for in his Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae but I think it might be a fun book to work through and compare to your tonal counterpoint work.

This list covers the progression of several important counterpoint treatises going back to the 10th century and leading up to Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum in 1725. It is divided into four stages: organum, discant, counterpoint, and species counterpoint. The last section is adapted from Ian Bent's chapter in the Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, Steps to Parnassus: Contrapuntal Theory in 1725, Precursors and Successors (with the addition of Lanfranco's Scintille di musica).

Organum

Anonymous - Musica enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis - ~900

Guido d'Arezzo - Micrologus - 1026

John of Afflighem - Musica - 1100

Anonymous - Ad organum faciendum - 1100

Discant

John of Garland - De mensurabili musica - ~1250-1279

Franco of Cologne - Ars cantus mensurabili - 1280

Anonymous IV - De mensuris et discantu - 1280

Counterpoint

Prosdocimus of Beldemanis - Contrapunctus - 1412

Tinctoris - Liber de arte contrapunctus - 1477

Franchinus Gaffurius - Practica musicae - 1496

Pietro Aaron - Toscanella in musica - 1523

Gioseffo Zarlino - Institutione harmoniche - 1558

Species Counterpoint

[Giovanni Maria Lanfranco - Scintille di musica](https://imslp.org/wiki/Scintille_di_musica_(Lanfranco,_Giovanni_Maria\)) - 1533 - (Translated by Barbara Lee in 1966) - Gives rules for consonances and describes first, second and fourth species, as well as combined counterpoint.

[Giroloma Diruta - Il Transilvano](https://imslp.org/wiki/Il_Transilvano_(Diruta,_Girolamo\)) - 1593, 1609 - (Translated by Edward John Soehnlein in 1975) Distinguishes between strict and free counterpoint, contains rules for 1:1 ("first species" in Fux), 2:1 (2nd species), 1:1 displaced (4th species), 4:1 (3rd species) and mixed (5th species).

[Adriano Banchieri - Cartella musicale](https://imslp.org/wiki/Cartella_musicale_(Banchieri%2C_Adriano\)) - 1613 - 1:1, 2:1, 4:1, 1:1 displaced, fugato, ostinato, canon, double counterpoint

[Ludovico Zacconi - Prattica di musica](https://imslp.org/wiki/Prattica_di_musica_(Zacconi%2C_Ludovico\)) - 1622 - 1:1, 2:1, 4:1, 1:1 displaced, diminished/mixed (5th species), improvised counterpoint

[Giovanni Maria Bononcini - Musico prattico](https://imslp.org/wiki/Musico_prattico%2C_Op.8_(Bononcini%2C_Giovanni_Maria\)) - 1673 - Simple counterpoint – 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1. Compound counterpoint – 1:1 displaced, mixed (5th species), fugato. Also talks about species of fugue.

Johann Joseph Fux - Gradus ad Parnassum - 1725 - (Partially translated by Alfred Mann in The Study of Counterpoint and The Study of Fugue) 1:1, 2:1, 4:1, 1:1 displaced, florid (5th species)

Just pages and pages of Fux's six cantus firmi from Gradus ad Parnassum and a quick summary of the rules for each species. Goes up to four voices. Sorry, no fugue. https://www.ianstoner.com/pdf/fux_workbook_0.1.pdf