Species Counterpoint

[Leslie Sanford]

I've been studying species counterpoint lately. I ran across some helpful videos on YouTube

Unfortunately, the volume of the videos is very low, so you'll have to turn up your monitors to hear the speaker.

I particularly like on four part counterpoint.

My understanding is that species counterpoint is based on 16th century practises. My question can you "evolve" the results of species counterpoint into something that sounds more like a product of the Baroque era than the Renaissance? If so, how would you approach it?

[PaulSC]

Interesting question. Species counterpoint was a pedagogical cornerstone for later generations of composers, so it makes sense that the species discipline can extend to later styles. Broadly speaking, what differentiates 16th Century from 18th Century contrapuntal style is a more fully evolved sense of tonal harmony in the latter (versus the modal basis of the former). So extending the species idea might be a matter of injecting tonal principles into the framework.

Two texts come to mind that embody this notion. First, there's Salzer and Schacter's Counterpoint in Composition, which focuses on species counterpoint as a foundation for the voiceleading principles of tonal music in general. (This idea stems from Salzer's teacher Heinrich Schenker.) Theorist and pedagogue Robert Gauldin has pair of textbooks dealing with the two contrapuntal disciplines:
http://www.waveland.com/Titles/Gauldin-16th.htm
http://www.waveland.com/Titles/Gauldin-18th.htm
The second of these texts begins by building on the species model established in the first. I don't find them to be as strong as the Salzer & Schacter text, but you may find them useful.

[JumpingJackFlash]

My understanding is that species counterpoint is based on 16th century practises. My question can you "evolve" the results of species counterpoint into something that sounds more like a product of the Baroque era than the Renaissance? If so, how would you approach it?

16th Century counterpoint is based on simultaneous melodic lines. The "chords" arise from that and any harmonic progressions are incidental.

Baroque counterpoint (which may be called 'Free' Counterpoint), is built up on a preconceived chord basis and a knowledge of the harmony of the period is essential.

[Leslie Sanford]

16th Century counterpoint is based on simultaneous melodic lines. The "chords" arise from that and any harmonic progressions are incidental.

Baroque counterpoint (which may be called 'Free' Counterpoint), is built up on a preconceived chord basis and a knowledge of the harmony of the period is essential.

If species counterpoint is a procedure for realizing 16th century counterpoint (at least pedagogically), is there a similar procedure for realizing 18th counterpoint?

It could be that the 'free' aspect of 18th counterpoint gives it such variety and breadth that it [edit]cannot[/edit] be nailed down with a set of strict rules. I'm thinking of musical forms like concerto grossos in which counterpoint seems to be employed as an effect.

Still to my ears, I hear repeated patterns and cliches (I don't mean that negatively) in baroque music. I would love to see exercises that would take a chord progression idiomatic to the time and embelish it in such a way that the end result sounds like a fully realized baroque piece, something beyond harmonizing chorales.

[Gamma-UT]

16th Century counterpoint is based on simultaneous melodic lines. The "chords" arise from that and any harmonic progressions are incidental.

Baroque counterpoint (which may be called 'Free' Counterpoint), is built up on a preconceived chord basis and a knowledge of the harmony of the period is essential.

If species counterpoint is a procedure for realizing 16th century counterpoint (at least pedagogically), is there a similar procedure for realizing 18th counterpoint?

It could be that the 'free' aspect of 18th counterpoint gives it such variety and breadth that it can be nailed down with a set of strict rules. I'm thinking of musical forms like concerto grossos in which counterpoint seems to be employed as an effect.

Still to my ears, I hear repeated patterns and cliches (I don't mean that negatively) in baroque music. I would love to see exercises that would take a chord progression idiomatic to the time and embelish it in such a way that the end result sounds like a fully realized baroque piece, something beyond harmonizing chorales.

Alfred Mann's translations of Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum are probably a good place to start, especially if you want to emulate the idiom. For what you want, The Study of Fugue is probably closest. This contains some of the second half of GaP mixed in with Mann's own commentary, but is primarily about 18C Baroque composition styles. It's also worth mugging up on Figured Bass playing as this will help with emulating the idiom.

Gradus ad Parnassum is much shorter and looks at species counterpoint but very much from the point of view of the 18C composer and Mann's notes contain some useful clues on how Baroque composers such as Fux approached part writing. Particularly Fux who lay on the boundary between modal and tonal harmony.

[Leslie Sanford]

[edit]oops, meant to edit my previous post and hit reply to instead[/edit]

[Leslie Sanford]

Alfred Mann's translations of Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum are probably a good place to start, especially if you want to emulate the idiom. For what you want, The Study of Fugue is probably closest. This contains some of the second half of GaP mixed in with Mann's own commentary, but is primarily about 18C Baroque composition styles. It's also worth mugging up on Figured Bass playing as this will help with emulating the idiom.

Gradus ad Parnassum is much shorter and looks at species counterpoint but very much from the point of view of the 18C composer and Mann's notes contain some useful clues on how Baroque composers such as Fux approached part writing. Particularly Fux who lay on the boundary between modal and tonal harmony.

Thanks for your suggestions. I will check out Alfred Mann's work. Just wanted you to know that I also read your reply to my other Baroque post; I've been teaching myself figured bass since. It's been fun going through a work of Handel's or Corelli's and playing through the figured bass part. Certain aspects of the music come to light as I work through the chord changes with their inversions.

[Gamma-UT]

Thanks for your suggestions. I will check out Alfred Mann's work. Just wanted you to know that I also read your reply to my other Baroque post; I've been teaching myself figured bass since. It's been fun going through a work of Handel's or Corelli's and playing through the figured bass part. Certain aspects of the music come to light as I work through the chord changes with their inversions.

As I wrote that bit I thought it had a familiar ring to it: I'd forgotten about that earlier post.

[Ogg Vorbis]

Gradus ad Parnassum is much shorter and looks at species counterpoint but very much from the point of view of the 18C composer and Mann's notes contain some useful clues on how Baroque composers such as Fux approached part writing. Particularly Fux who lay on the boundary between modal and tonal harmony.

I always say, "if it ain't Baroque, don't Fux it."

[jlocri]

Thanks Paul for your suggestion, I just found it and it doesn't seem all that bad. I do agree that Salzer's and Schacter's book is better, but it's a little difficult to find except for the cities where it's a staple textbook in the local conservatories.

I'd also suggest Kent Kennan's Counterpoint book, which says it doesn't go into Schenkerian style counterpoint, but it sort of does. It mostly focuses on an 18th century style with lots of examples from Bach.

Walter Piston also has a nice book on counterpoint, which accompanies a good book on harmony (but read Counterpoint first). It has lots of examples from 19th century music, but it's a bit simple if you already know more complex styles of counterpoint.

I always say, "if it ain't Baroque, don't Fux it."

If you mean that counterpoint isn't useful these days, I couldn't disagree more . Even the majority of Romantic composers used counterpoint in some way.

I think the fact that electronic musicians these days are remixing European art music for their own material is enough to want to learn counterpoint. It's one thing to download a midi file of some classical song, then import it into whatever host and apply synths/effects, but it's another thing to actually create the composition yourself.

[mattie]

maybe you can try to write two 'fifth species' lines without cantus firmus, but with a modulation every 4 beats. It will sound barok.

[VicDiesel]

I've been teaching myself figured bass since. It's been fun

I think that among the many imperfections of western notation, figures bass stands out as something that is just monumentally wrong. When you put a # under the bass to indicate that it's unexpectedly major, that's fine. But since everything has to be related to the bass, you have to go through contortions to notate chords where the bass is just a passing note.

C chord, c in bass: nothing to notate.

C chord, b in bass: 2 4 6. WTF? Minor changes in the notes should have minor changes in the notation.

Victor.

[llatham]

Leslie,

If you really want to learn counterpoint, I suggest "A Practical Approach to 18th Century Counterpoint" by Robert Gauldin.

It uses *actual musical examples* and a very, well, practical approach. More like real music, and not "academic exercises" as in the Fux.

And if you're interested in earlier counterpoint (which the Fux is modeled on) Gauldin also has "A Practical Approach to 16th Century Counterpoint".

Both are much more "realistic" than the Fux.

Steve

[llatham]

I think that among the many imperfections of western notation, figures bass stands out as something that is just monumentally wrong.

Victor.

Victor,

You need to understand that Figured Bass evolved at a time when musicians weren't thinking "chordally" in the way we do today. That type of chordal thinking we exhibit is largely based on what Rameau's Treatise on Harmony spelled out in around 1725. He still even uses the "old" language to describe chords, some of which holds over today:

C-E-Bb is a "seventh chord" - he called them "chord of the seventh".
C-E-A is a "sixth chord" - chord of the sixth.
C-E-G we just call a "chord", but to him it was a chord of the fifth.

What this means is, people before Rameau (and still during his time) didn't think of C-E-A as a "first inversion". They thought of it as a "sixth chord on C".

They figured from the bass up. A "sixth chord" contains a diatonic 3rd and 6th above the bass note.

Of course the bass note is written as C, so 6/3 is E and A.

And until Rameau sort of spells it out for us (even though the language is older), musicians didn't care about any particular relationship between C-E-G and E-G-C. To them, one was a "chord on C", the other was a "chord on E".

So it's ALL about the Bass(which makes sense, because that's how dissonances were figured too, and we still figure roots and inversions from the Bass).

C-E-G and Bb-C-E-G are two totally different chords to them - so they used two totally different figures: none (which was an abbreviation for 5/3) for the former and 6/4/2 for the latter.

If you understand the historical evolution, Figured Bass makes perfect sense, and is highly practical as a performance tool in much the same way jazz charts are today. You just have to take it in context and not try to use it for something else.

Best,
Steve

[VicDiesel]

Victor,

You need to understand

Thanks for the explanation. I did realize I was being somewhat unhistoric.

But damn, that experience trying to accompany some Bach from figured bass has scarred me. With his tendency to tie notes over between chords, you get the most gawdawful mess in your figurations. You have what is (to me) a one-note change to a simple harmony, and that turns into complete algebra soup in the bass. Not (again, to me) the way things ought to be.

Victor.