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pedrorf · Post by **pedrorf** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 11:57 am

Inspired by an old thread, I got Fux's book on Counterpoint.

I have a question regarding the second exercise of the first chapter, where the student is asked to write the counterpoint on the voice bellow the cantus firmus. It starts with a D on the CF (dorian mode), and the student writes a G on the octave bellow. The professor marks it as an error, because that G "throws the beginning out of the mode".

I'm a bit confused with this sentence. Is Fux saying that there is a modal ambiguity here (D dorian / G mixolydian)? On other words, when the CF is in the upper voice, should one avoid a 5th on very beginning, and always start with unison or octave intervals to clearly establish the mode?

beboop · Post by **beboop** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 1:21 pm

pedrorf wrote: I'm a bit confused with this sentence. Is Fux saying that there is a modal ambiguity here (D dorian / G mixolydian)? On other words, when the CF is in the upper voice, should one avoid a 5th on very beginning, and always start with unison or octave intervals to clearly establish the mode?

yeah you've got the basic idea. It's not that it's ambiguous, he's saying that starting with G in the bass below D unambiguously establishes a mode other than dorian.

That's a great book, takes a while to work through it but well worth the time. While you're at it pick up Knud Jeppesen's counterpoint book, if for nothing else but the historical overview in the first half of the book, and also for Jeppesen's critique of Fux re Palestrina. The musical examples in Jeppesen generally use movable C clef, kind of a slog if (like me) you're not used to it, but just the text alone is invaluable.

At some point you'll want to pick up Mann's 'The Study of Fugue' which contains the rest of Fux's Gradus -- haven't worked through it yet, but the gist of it is applying the principles acquired in the species counterpoint exercises to free composition (free as in unrestricted by a cantus firmus).

Ogg Vorbis · Post by **Ogg Vorbis** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 2:21 pm

pedrorf wrote:Inspired by an old thread, I got Fux's book on Counterpoint.

I have a question regarding the second exercise of the first chapter, where the student is asked to write the counterpoint on the voice bellow the cantus firmus. It starts with a D on the CF (dorian mode), and the student writes a G on the octave bellow. The professor marks it as an error, because that G "throws the beginning out of the mode".

I love this book and went through the whole thing on my own years ago. I use the principles that I've learned in it daily.

The CF has a starting note, D. Remember that the CF is responsible for establishing the tonality. Josephus did in fact add a perfect consonance below. But the resulting perfect 5th establishes G as the tonality rather than D.

This also creates a situation where the CF starts on the fifth degree of the mode (not a standard thing to do if your job is to nail down the tonality!).

This stuff is very powerful knowledge. Counterpoint seems so anachronistic in today's musical vocabulary, but it is highly relevant...incredibly more than the average person might think!

pedrorf · Post by **pedrorf** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 4:28 pm

Glad to see I was kind of understanding it

Thanks for the extra suggestions, beboop. I'm getting really interested in this stuff, and I hope to get to those books later on. Cheers to Ogg Vorbis, too, who's to blame for my interest in counterpoint, thanks to an old post of his.

F Nasty · Post by **F Nasty** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 1:15 am

OMG an actual counterpoint thread.... makes me feel like a kid in a candy store....

Thank you for the book references.. i was definitely getting tired of doing rhythmic reductions of Bach inventions.

dougsyo · Post by **dougsyo** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 2:53 am

Somewhere on the web - I don't remember where now - there was a PDF of Fux's Counterpoint (I think it was a college prof's website?) Dunno that it was a legitimate copy though.

Doug

Ogg Vorbis · Post by **Ogg Vorbis** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 2:48 pm

Too bad nobody famous studied Fux.

Orphoneus · Post by **Orphoneus** » Thu Aug 27, 2009 11:46 am

pedrorf wrote:When the CF is in the upper voice, should one avoid a 5th on very beginning, and always start with unison or octave intervals to clearly establish the mode?

Yes, "the bass always wins". If it begins with G, then the mode is mixolydian no matter what the upper voices play. But since we want the dorian mode, we have to put a D in the bass, too.

Aroused by JarJar · Post by **Aroused by JarJar** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 12:41 pm

In yee olde school, you start with clearly establishing the tonality, with either an octave or a fifth above the tonic. Putting a G below D establishes G and the fifth above it, D.

So it won't work for Fux. There is also an acoustic reason for this, as we tend to try to put things in order in our heads, and that order is guided by the harmonic series. A D is simply the third harmonic of G brought down by one octave. If you do a spectral analysis you'll see many of the partials of the D being kind of "absorbed" into the harmonic series of the G, so you're making sort of a really fat G. Po-mo people might get upset to hear this, but there is a very simple natural explanation as to why G-D usually sounds like G is the tonic, not just social conditioning.

Speaking strictly, you're stuck with writing another D below in this situation.

question about Fux's counterpoint