S&S Counterpoint study group. Anyone?

[Z1202]

Hi all

Assuming arturito is about to get his copy of the book, I'd like to suggest the following (unless others have better ideas). We should read through the first chapter ("Cantus firmus") until the exercise section. Probably there'll be some questions which we would like to discuss. After we feel that we discussed enough, we proceed to the first exercise (criticise cantus firmi). I'd say we first criticise the first two and exchange and discuss our critics.

One other suggestion. IMHO while reading the book, it makes sense to sing all the examples, not only the ones at the end of each chapter. This should help to gain more intimate and intuitive knowledge of the subject. I didn't do it in the beginning and now I regret this. The first chapter seems really easy, but then it provides very important background for further chapters and, in my experience, one has to face serious problems in subsequent sections of the book, if the understanding of the basic material is not firm enough.

Back on Wednesday

Regards,
{Z}

[Z1202]

Arturito, where are you? Did you get the book?

[arturito]

Z, Victor, something went wrong with the disribution of the book. I'll get an answer from the shop (where I ordered the book) at the end of the day.

[arturito]

Just got the shop on the phone; something went very wrong with all the orders of that day. So they had to order the book again. It will take another 2 weeks! Dammit. So if you guys want to start already, I'll catch up with you..

[Km7]

So, it seems some of you are not satisfied with the other counterpoint texts? The Kennan's textbook (eventually with the Piston's one as an addition) is quite sufficient for me. Of course, this depends on the reader, his/her approach and what he/she extracts from the book. But what I'd like to write is that my and your opinion & approach have an area in common.

Regards,
Kamen

[Z1202]

So, it seems some of you are not satisfied with the other counterpoint texts? The Kennan's textbook (eventually with the Piston's one as an addition) is quite sufficient for me. Of course, this depends on the reader, his/her approach and what he/she extracts from the book. But what I'd like to write is that my and your opinion & approach have an area in common.

Regards,
Kamen

Hi Kamen

I don't completely understand the point of your post. Do you wish to join the group, or this is just a comment? Regarding other counterpoint texts, I've got a number of them, including the ones you mentioned. S&S just seemed to me the best option to begin with. Of course, it was my personal preference, but also if you google, you can find even some people claiming that it's the best music textbook ever. If you're interested, we could discuss differences, pros, and cons in the approaches of Kennan/Piston and S&S (besides the obvious 16/18 century clash ), it might be really educative. But then maybe it needs another forum topic. Also keep in mind, that I've just started working on S&S (I'm at the second species now) and I have no tutor, so my opinion is probably quite far from the ultimate truth

Edit: it's also my feeling that S&S can provide solid background for further study based on Kennan/Piston, which is coincidentally exactly what I have been thinking to do (at least partially) afterwards. On the other hand, if I took it now, I think I'd miss lots of points due to insufficient development of my basic contrapuntal hearing/thinking.

Regards,
{Z}

[Z1202]

Just got the shop on the phone; something went very wrong with all the orders of that day. So they had to order the book again. It will take another 2 weeks! Dammit. So if you guys want to start already, I'll catch up with you..

Hi arturito. Sorry to hear that. Of course I'm eager to start ASAP, but then Victor and me would need to find a way of communication such, that you also can participate. Otherwise we'll need to wait for you.

Victor, what do you think?

Regards,
{Z}

P.S. Actually, your problem was not the only thing that went wrong. For whatever reason my subscription to notifications of replies to this thread went off

[VicDiesel]

Victor, what do you think?

I don't mind waiting a bit. I have yet to open the book.

Victor.

[arturito]

Z, Victor, Kamen,
the book arrived finally.
I'm playing this week. So expect some first reviews by the end of next week.
Cheers

[arturito]

Z, Vic,
I began with the book this week. It feels very promising!
Here are my answers to exercise 1 on page 12:
1a
- there is an excessive upwards motion
1b
- the climax (f) is being repeated.
- the repetition of the three notes f e d is disturbing
1c
- there is an excessive downwards motion
1d
- cantus should at least be 8 notes
1e
- there are to many leaps
1f
- the frequent recurrence of the note d creates an imbalance
1g
- the two big leaps are too big intervals
1h
- the climax shouldnt be a dissonant (septiem)
I didnt feel the need to correct them, i rather write some more cantus firmi with the second exercise.

Victor, Z, maybe we can use Anvil Studio (free) for the exchange of our exercises?

I'm looking foward..
Arthur

[Z1202]

Hi arturito. Great, that we can start now.

Z, Vic,
I began with the book this week. It feels very promising!
Here are my answers to exercise 1 on page 12:

I'm glad you liked the book. Here are my thoughts. They might sound as the ultimate opinion, but they are not. I'm studying as well as you do, so please take them with a grain of salt

1a
- there is an excessive upwards motion

It doesn't sound to me as really excessive. I think there are other problems though.

1b
- the climax (f) is being repeated.
- the repetition of the three notes f e d is disturbing

I think there's one additional (although not 100% critical) problem.

1c
- there is an excessive downwards motion

I would also add that the large skip sounds inappropriate, although the tone repetition feature of the octave mitigates the effect to some extent.

1d
- cantus should at least be 8 notes

I would rather put it the following way: cantus sounds too short. After all these rules IMHO are not to be taken for granted, but to be matched against what we hear.

1e
- there are to many leaps

To aggravate that effect, the skips are grouped in pairs of two. Besides there's a subsidiary climax on the leading tone. There also seems to be another forbidden feature which you missed.

1f
- the frequent recurrence of the note d creates an imbalance

I'd say the recurrence itself is not that frequent. However, being accented by two neighbor skips and being 'inverted' (downward looking) peeks emphasizes these notes beyond acceptable.

1g
- the two big leaps are too big intervals

Additionally 3 leaps in a row (third,tenth,fifth).

1h
- the climax shouldnt be a dissonant (septiem)

Actually, I seem to have missed the point where the climax is not allowed to be dissonant to the tonic. I would appreciate if you could direct me to the relevant page. Anyway, I would agree, that the minor seventh doesn't make a convincingly sounding climax to me, although it seems to be occasionally used in exercises for more than one voice, where the effect is less disturbing.

I didnt feel the need to correct them, i rather write some more cantus firmi with the second exercise.

I think it's worth correcting these cantus firmi. From my experience of writing exercises for subsequent chapters I can say that this is an important experience, because you'll need to do same things to your melodies, except in the more complicated circumstances. So it makes sense to try it first in an easier environment.

Victor, Z, maybe we can use Anvil Studio (free) for the exchange of our exercises?

I installed it and it's looking scary to me. Lilypond feels a much better option. Particularly, you have flexible notation control options and it's easy to exchange the files by just pasting them into the messages. I would like us to try using Lilypond first. I'll try to post a short intro in the next message.
Regards,
{Z}

[Z1202]

OK, Lilypond intro.

Code: Select all

\include"english.ly"
{ \key c \minor \clef "C" c1 c' cs' af b b, }

The first line switches to the english notation which I'm using here (default is Dutch I think). The second line has the following:
'\key c \minor' sets the signature to the one of C minor.
'\clef "C"' declares the alto clef (you can use "G" for treble and "F" for bass).
The first note is small octave C (one octave lower than middle C). The '1' at the end sets the duration to the whole note (subsequent notes will have the same duration, so there's no need to specify it again).
The second note is one-lined C (the middle C). The one-lined octave is indicated by the ' sign after the C (otherwise the small octave would've been taken).
cs' - the 's' stands for sharp. Again one-lined octave.
af - no ' sign, so small octave again. 'f' stands for flat. Notice the absence of the flat before the A in the pdf file, because the signature assumes A flat by default.
b - small octave b. The signature assumes B flat, so the natural sign is displayed.
b, - a great octave natural b.
Try to paste the test into a .ly file and check the output.
BTW the two line octave would obviously be c'', d'' etc. Don't hesitate to ask questions if anything is unclear.

Regards,
{Z}

[arturito]

Hi Z
1a

It doesn't sound to me as really excessive. I think there are other problems though.

after the first leap there should be a stepwise motion? what problems are you thinking of?
1b

I think there's one additional (although not 100% critical) problem.

tell me
1e

There also seems to be another forbidden feature which you missed.

there is an forbidden interval (septiem) g - f
1h

I would appreciate if you could direct me to the relevant page

unresolved melodic tension page 7/8

Z, which sequencer do you normally use?
A.

[Z1202]

Hi arturito

I'd like to postpone answering to your questions to give Victor a chance to come up with his solutions, if he wishes to do so. Victor, are you there?

Regarding the unresolved melodic tension, I didn't find anything which mentions that the climax shouldn't form a dissonance with the tonic. On the reverse, the last statement in that section implicitly allows the use of minor 7th degree as a climax. What the section was talking about is outlining a dissonant interval with a motion in one direction. So in the case of cantus 1h it's the same of course, because there's no change of direction in between. On the other hand the distance of 5 or 6 tones mitigates the effect of the interval somewhat. In example solutions to subsequent exercises there's sometimes a tritone outlined by 4 tones, which seems not really nice, but still acceptable under certain circumstances. So I think the problem with that cantus is different than a minor 7th.

arturito, it's my understanding that you're not going to do the corrections, right? Or do you just need a little more time? Victor, should we wait for you, or should I post my solutions, so we can discuss them?

BTW, arturito, do you sing these cantus firmi to find out the problems? In my experience, this way it's really easier to spot the problems and also to get a feeling how bad are they in the given context (will be very important once we proceed to the 1st species). Because I've got an impression that maybe you don't. Of course in the end it's up to you.

Regarding the format which we use to exchange the solutions, I see the following benefits for the Lilypond:
1. Free (this would also allow others to join the group without problems if they wish to do so)
2. It's very easy to post in the forum (you still have to explain to me how can I post here a MIDI file if we are to use Anvil Studio).
3. It's exceptionally quick and easy (assuming you learned the basics) to enter the score material. You just have to press a few keys (2-3 keys per note on the average). I'd hate to have to mouse in each single note, although of course I could live with that. I agree that it's not easy to do the exercises using the Lilypond, but then nobody is going to. I'm going to do them on the paper, you probably in some sequencer. Then we just can put them into the Lilypond form before posting.
4. It's very easy to combine several solutions to get them onto the same sheet of paper (just copy-paste) against the same cantus.
5. It's easily possible to workaround the copyright problems on the cantus firmi in the book. If we do species exercises against one of the cantus firmi in the book, posting a full solution would violate the copyright, since this is a publicly open forum. Avoiding this problem in other notational programs would be a hassle.
6. It's flexible in notation control. I didn't play too much with Anvil studio, but can one for example use an alto clef there or have three separate staves running in parallel?

Anyway, I can understand your personal dislike of the software, but I can't believe that using Lilypond is really a problem.

As the bottom line, I definitely can live with the inconveniences of Anvil Studio, or whatever other software, but then someone has to explain me how do we solve at least the problems 2 and 5 from the above.

Also I'm interested to hear what is Victor's opinion.

Regards,
{Z}

[arturito]

you didnt answer my question:

Z, which sequencer do you normally use?

BTW

BTW, arturito, do you sing these cantus firmi to find out the problems? In my experience, this way it's really easier to spot the problems and also to get a feeling how bad are they in the given context (will be very important once we proceed to the 1st species). Because I've got an impression that maybe you don't. Of course in the end it's up to you.

you're begin' to sound like my grandmother.
If you want me to study with you for a few years..

A.