What's the difference between voice leading and counterpoint?

[IncarnateX]

Aaah I don’t care about you at all dude. I’m just confirming with examples and bibliography that you are spreading wrong information.

Sure mr. Mute material. You remembered the superior attitude, made the references but forgot the arguments, you entered by misunderstanding what was at stake and you misinterpreted my statement about chorale harmonization and counterpoint to mean the opposite of what it did and called ME confused. A true oracle by definition.

[pabloaldunate]

Aaah I don’t care about you at all dude. I’m just confirming with examples and bibliography that you are spreading wrong information.

Sure mr. Mute material. You remembered the superior attitude, made the references but forgot the arguments, you entered by misunderstanding what was at stake and you misinterpreted my statement about chorale harmonization and counterpoint to mean the opposite of what it did and called me confused. A true oracle by definition.

Bye! Keep your day job!

[IncarnateX]

Keep your day job!

Stunning argument again, so I will of course. After all, YOU came here and said it, though we never really got to know what you disagreed about beyond your own misinterpretations. Say hallo to Mozart and the other dead composers and say I could not care less about their counterpoints now a day, I make my own, thank you.

[fmr]

My objection isn't with your definition, it's about starting a noob discussion with nuance point #234502834.

Believe me, I have some experience in dismounting myths, and come up with clear explanations that people are able to understand. Although I am not currently teaching (will get back soon, eventually) I teached for many years, and I had students like what you describe, that became upset each time they hear something resembling "classical OLD music".

First point is: OK, it is what it is, but there's no need to be frightened. This is easier than you think.

Second point is: Start demistifying things, and showing the points of contact between the different genres and subsets.

Third point is: Start establishing the "rules" (keeping them as straight and simple as possible at first). Always keeping in mind that we are talking about "tools", not "laws". Always trying to listen to examples where these "tools" have been applied in "real music", to help students realize that this stuff actually IS useful.

From my POV, people have all to win by starting establishing things the correct way, with all the historical background in place, and then learn the specifities, rather than segmenting things, and thinking that "voice leading" is something different, exclusive to rock, or jazz, or whatever when, in fact, it is nothing else than some simplified subset of a reality that exists for ages, and has ramifications all over.

[IncarnateX]

Basically my view on counterpoint is quite trivial and harmless. Take a simple bass figure: boom-boom. One two. Tonic-lower Fifth, Tonic- lower Fifth. Then start sing the lovely disney song from Snowwhite’s party with the Dwarfs above it. Is this counterpoint to you? It is to me in so far that the bass figure is a melody itself that moves from tonic to fifth and back and the song is a another independent melody interacting with it. From this point you can go into any complexity you like and even restrict the definiton of counterpoint to certain authorities, styles, period and not at least the species but this does not violate the fact that counterpoint happens all the time in modern music in a trivial sense of interacting melodies.

Edit: Seems like I was exhausted yesterday, so I just corrected the stupid bass figure proposed with something more suitable for snowwhite.

[fmr]

You want a simple and effective example of modern counterpoint? Here it is:

[IncarnateX]

Yup. That is all I am saying. And who gives a damn about which century old rules he breaks? It is the spirit of it that defines it, imo.

[fmr]

Yup. That is all I am saying. And who gives a damn about which century old rules he breaks? It is the spirit of it that defines it, imo.

Please, leave it. All composers I quoted broke counterpoint rules. Difference is they simply did it because they need to, and when and where they need to, perfectly knowing what they were doing. That's the difference between a conscious, knowledgeable and informed decision, and simply breaking the rules "because I don't know and I don't care".

Do you really think Harold Faltermeyer did this by chance, in a trial and error basis? Just read a little about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Faltermeyer

And here is another example of good modern counterpoint, this time by Angelo Badalamenti:

[IncarnateX]

Yup. That is all I am saying. And who gives a damn about which century old rules he breaks? It is the spirit of it that defines it, imo.

Please, leave it. All composers I quoted broke counterpoint rules. Difference is they simply did it because they need to, and when and where they need to, perfectly knowing what they were doing. That's the difference between a conscious, knowledgeable and informed decision, and simply breaking the rules "because I don't know and I don't care".

Do you really think Harold Faltermeyer did this by chance, in a trial and error basis? Just read a little about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Faltermeyer

Where did I say that it was made in trial and error and that he did not know what he did? You are completely off track here. What is your game now? Haven’t I told you several times that training the species helps you to break the rules in the end and make your own. Haven’t I told you several times that every applied instance of counterpoint is breaking the rules of the species to more or lesser extend and now you turn this against myself as I have said the opposite? You could have stopped this shit by just complying to the minimal definiton of counterpoint as posted but you choose a path based on strawmen instead. I would friggin be the last to claim that you do not have to know or give shit about it. Great interpretation, pal

And, mate, still: No one HAS to do anything in music as if they had a gun to their but make choices)

[Dewdman42]

There are a lot of people talking past each other on this thread.

first, counterpoint should not be limited to Fux. That is certainly one of the first treatsie's on the subject and just about every serious student of composition has studied Fux ever since.

In a traditional university students will also study voice leading and in that context the rules they will be taught are mostly derived from Fux counterpoint, but in a more restrictive way since its connecting two known chords. Voice leading, will have for example, a rule about no parallel octaves or 5ths, as does counterpoint. The voice leading principles are still derived from the same place as counterpoint.

Since Fux, more theoretical books on the subject of counterpoint have been written by numerous composers and academics that get very deep into the subject and how it applies to all manner of music, including contemporary. Berklee even teaches it and has a book you can buy on amazon about it, which covers the application of counterpoint to not only 16th century examples, but also jazz and other contemporary examples and stuff in between.

In the end, counterpoint is just the study of how voices work in combination, establishing independence yes of course, but also counterpoint covers how consonance and dissonance are handled, back and forth, and basically the study of counterpoint can also include the study of melody in general, but not only melody, its also about how one melody works against another melody, creating intervals (i.e., harmony), motives, canons, etc.. its all related to the study of counterpoint. Even a simple bass line in a rock/pop tune against some other parts would be considered "counterpoint"

Ultimately "voice leading" is a watered down version of it that involves simply connecting two chords as they are voiced. Some thought is put into not only connecting them the "easiest way" but actually applying some of the rules of counterpoint so that inner lines are interesting too, so that the bass line has contrary motion against the melody, etc.. This is basically counterpoint, but in voice leading, you are applying a subset of counterpoint rules to the task of connecting two chords, that's it.

[fmr]

Where did I say that it was made in trial and error and that he did not know what he did? You are completely off track here.

Sorry if I misinterpreted you. We are in sync then.

So, better leave it at that. We agree that study is fundamental to allow people to make informed and knowledgeable choices, and that's pretty much it.

[SJ_Digriz]

Third point is: Start establishing the "rules" (keeping them as straight and simple as possible at first). Always keeping in mind that we are talking about "tools", not "laws". Always trying to listen to examples where these "tools" have been applied in "real music", to help students realize that this stuff actually IS useful.

This is where we differ just slightly, and probably why there is so much argument when there isn't really a disagreement. Most people I know come at these issues while trying to learn an instrument, not while trying to learn music theory. If you were starting with theory, I can buy into all the stuff you wrote. The issue is that in an instrument first approach, the thing that comes up is "why am I playing the right chords, just like the fake book says, but it sounds all wrong". The answer is invariably, "it's a thing called voice leading". That isn't the time to introduce counterpoint if you ask me, or call it tonal counterpoint or something else. Voice Leading in a chord context in support of melody makes perfect sense when you learning your chord voicing. At least on guitar it does. It is simply about why I'm choosing specific chord shapes and leaving out specific notes in a particular voice of the progression. Adding more into it is what makes it more complicated. At the end of the day, we are just arguing about a label.

rather than segmenting things, and thinking that "voice leading" is something different, exclusive to rock, or jazz, or whatever when, in fact, it is nothing else than some simplified subset of a reality that exists for ages, and has ramifications all over.

As far as I know it is not taught as "something different, but it is in practice as a player, two sides of the same coin. When I got to the actual counterpoint part no one said it was an entire new thingy. In fact, if I recall correctly the teacher said something along the lines of "remember when we were doing voice leading and we were choosing some notes and not others at certain spots". It's just looking at the same issue from a different direction. I still think that is true. At least it makes it easier for me to use as a tool when I think of it that way.

[SJ_Digriz]

and we are 100% in agreement, that the process is simply a tool or device to use or not use at your convenience.

[fmr]

and we are 100% in agreement, that the process is simply a tool or device to use or not use at your convenience.

[IncarnateX]

Sorry if I misinterpreted you. We are in sync then.

Apology accepted. Yes we can meet at this minimal definition. And yes, studying helps a lot. We can always bitch about the complexities elsewhere but Axel F is a very nice place to land for the two of us for now, methinks.