Counterpoint is easy, if you let it be...
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- Опубликовано: 25 июл 2024
- #polyphony #harmony #musictheory
Take a few easy steps from simple melody to multi-part polyphony. Tricks for a sort of pseudo-counterpoint. This won't fly in the conservatory, but let's dip our toe in the water.
00:00 intro
00:29 what's counterpoint?
03:03 Basic Melody
03:30 contemporary harmonization
04:13 extending chord vocabulary
07:02 drop 2 - add roots
08:08 adding voices
09:34 more layers
10:50 conclusions
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Beethoven was obsessed with doing counterpoint exercises. I use the program Ars Nova to practice an exercise daily using16th century counterpoint rules. One should understand that counterpoint can help create a cool bass line if someone wants to know what the minimum benefit would result from doing these exercises. Pick up a Beethoven Symphony score to know the greater result from many hours of counterpoint exercises. Rimsky-Korsakov told Stravinsky he would not teach Stravinsky unless he first studied counterpoint. Schoenberg focused on counterpoint at UCLA even though his composition students were more interested in the 12-tone system.
Johann Fux book "Counterpoint" and Bach scores were probably Beethoven's bible.
Just stumbled on this channel and I’m really enjoying it. Very simple and easy to comprehend but also there’s something unique about your approach. It’s not too “heady” or “academic” nor is it too reductive and promising simple “hacks”. Your content seems to be very practical for composers. Thanks!
many thanks. just the sweet spot i'd like to always hit.
I'm starting my studies at a music academy this year at the age of 25, after a 9 years hiatus from music-related studies. Now I'm on a journey of recovering my music theory knowledge, and this video, like other music theory lessons on this channel, has been the best I've stumbled across. Thank you so much for making it fun and easy!
I love watching your thought process of creating a chord sequence, and then spicing things up with the different levels of counterpoint. A few times I remember half-listening to the radio and a song that used interesting counterpoint would come up. The counterpoint would bring the song to my attention, and I'd think, "hey there's some really interesting structure going on here!" Thanks for walking us through this.
This step by step process is absolute gold. Thank you so much. 👍🏼
This step by step process is absolute gold. Makes so much sense. Thank you so much. 👍🏼
I'm so glad I stumbled across your channel, so much good information. Awesome video
Yu demystified some aspects of counterpoint and brought it into the real world. I loved this lesson. Thank you.
I created a kind of synthesis of both of the approaches. I'm really into extended harmony but I wanted to incorporate that with counterpoint, so after seeing the channel 'Gil Evans inside out' and the author's approach towards harmonization, I got the idea - what if I write the melody, the bass melody and then write only the upper notes of the chords, treating them as a counter-melody. Then, I either fill up the rest of the notes of the chord or write chords by filling up one voice at a time. I feel like this is the best approach for me, since it gives me a lot of freedom with the most audible voices - the main melody, the bass and the highest notes of the chord progression (the first voices you write aren't that constraint by the surrounding lines and thus they can be the most interesting melodies).
Excellent explanation of a complex topic! As usual :)
Thank you! This was very easy to understand and I'm going to try it. Very useful!
Thank you; that was very interesting!
thanks Maaike, that means a lot coming from you.
Great explanation, thank you.
Very helpful...thanks! I've been practicing counterpoint consistently for about two years now and have been making progress. I kept getting frustrated and giving up years before that.
Very informative, fun, and yet made simple (or simple enough). Cool video!
Thanks Randy, that means a lot!
Thank you 🙏🏾
This was nice...thank you
Over 40 years ago w took a music theory course and was confounded when the instructor discussed species. Now I see it’s not so complicated - thank you
it's just a weird word to use to describe this process. i will say that this video is sort of 'pseudo' counterpoint. we're not preparing for any tests here.
It reminds me of when I was in the first year of music studies at the University of Arts.
This is a really great lesson. Have watched it a couple of times, super informative and an excellent thorough process. You're a great teacher :)
Glad it was helpful!
That drop voicing plus root was nice.
Brilliant thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
We will subscribe without you ever asking.. Great Content !!!
Thanks for video (:
You bet!
great video
Thanks!
This sounds like a good way to pound home F lydian in a bridge I am writing. I subscribed.
(:
Welcome aboard!
Great video. It's very useful _/\_
I enjoyed this presentation, but I kinda wish you'd have pointed out the individual lines in each species, to emphasize the concept of creating chords by intertwining melodies. The idea being that each line should have it's own melodic integrity...no matter how simple it is. Maybe in a follow-up?
💛
hello, can you please tell me if the guitar playing on the song Que Vida by Love is an example of counterpoint?
@@psalmtwentyfiveeight it’s not.
I like your goatee
Are you always meant to start with block chords as the foundation before adding offset notes?
i'll say, cautiously, no. when you've got a strong foundation built, plenty of experience doing this, you can dive in at any step. this is a great way to teach it, of course.
@@ImpliedMusic Got it. Thanks! And finally, how can I apply the relatively archaic concepts of first, second, third, and fourth series counterpoint to modern pop music? I feel that most pop producers/writers don’t generally perceive harmony to be an extension of melody. There is usually a dichotomy between the two even though they are very much codependent. How can counterpoint be used to help pop producers/writers make better decisions?
@@leaveitorsinkit242 huge question that i'm still sorting. my current take on this is that there's not much room for counterpoint in pop. certain unplugged arrangements can really use it, but in most contexts the end user (listener) is going to be tracking the melody, then the bass line, then at a distant third any contrapuntal ideas. however, good voicing and voice-leading is directly related to counterpoint, and the study of each informs the other. voice leading and general voicing is crucial to good pop arrangements. i guess it shows up there...
when you harmonize each note of the melody do you just think of a progression you want to follow witout much care on the degree of that note in that specific chord? I m new here but very fascinating about this context. I had in my mind that each melody note has to be a chord tone if not chord root of the chord you build on it. i dont know the notes u are using and their relation to the chords (i should check that) but the idea of just throwing the diatonic chords and progressions on a melody seems very cool. although i have to check how it is sound!
Actually i got the answer here "Harmonizing Melody | Danny Boy level 1" ruclips.net/video/L58iLta7AJw/видео.html&ab_channel=ImpliedMusic
It’s a deep study. Experience is the best teacher, but as a guideline consider the essential tones of the melody first, and build out from there. Often there’s a simple harmony that can be elaborated (or not). Find that harmonic arc, and embellish it to please your ear.
much understanding come out of this things. I start studing the "Connecting Chords with Linear Harmony " and i found out that a books works good for me. What book would you suggest for counter point studing for somebody to start with ? Thank you for your time@@ImpliedMusic
Hi I’m a highly experienced musician who briefly studied counterpoint. I want to study it again. Is there software to aid in hearing my counterpoints to various cantus? I don’t want to play them but want to hear them within an app. I would want to alter the parts just to see the results.
Thank you
I don’t know of one. Great idea, of course. There’s a music theory group on Facebook that has many technical minded academics that may have more insight. Can you pose that question there? I might do it myself.
I think it is important to mention that the counterpoint used by Bach was not the Fux counterpoint but a type of counterpoint called harmonic counterpoint. As you started this video showing Bach choral and moved to Fux it may caused some misunderstanding.
thank you so much. the academic distinction is important to make. of course what we're showing here is only a sort of polyphony, not textbook certified in any way.
I don't understand how each layer of a song works together. Does each instrument layer have a rhythm or follow the same rhythm? I get very confused, I see composers add hi hats, kick, lead, etc wherever they want and it's still coherent. But when I follow the steps it becomes a mess. I know there are texture types with their support functions, but I don't see anyone worrying about that while composing.
Could anyone help me understand or point me to something that could help me understand please?
Pretty cool how people didn't care to create chords, they were just a byproduct of the counterpoint.
Love the lesson, but I think it'd be more engaging if you included sheet music so we could read what you're writing as well
thanks. as a point of note, we don't use sheet music on this channel very often. the great proportion of my subscribers aren't musically literate, and a key part of my mission is to bring material that's conventionally taught with notation to them.
@@ImpliedMusic I see! Well, keep on rocking!
In 2025 there will be the 300th anniversary of Johann Joseph Fux’ Gradus ad Parnassum (1725, comprising 278 pages of lectures & contrapuntal exercises for a student walking in cold to the subject) that will no doubt spawn several new English translations with footnotes over the next several years - Alfred Mann translated 1/3 of Fux’ Latin text of the ‘Gradus’ in 1948 into English and translated another 1/3 of Fux’ text into English in 1958 up to page 217a-
Unfortunately for us rabid contrapuntalists he was not able (or willing) to translate the remaining 1/3 of Fux’ Latin text of 1725-that work remains to be done which covers the Pythagorean ‘mathematical ratio-proportional’ underpinnings to consonances & dissonances pp. 1 to 39;
Mann also omitted translating into English the very tail-end of the book (pp.217b-279) covering various additional aspects of music in his own day such as ‘On Anticipations & Variations’, starting on p. 217b, ‘On the Modes’ starting on p. 221ff, ‘On handling more than one fugal Subject’ p. 231ff, ‘On the Ecclesiastical Stile’ beginning on p. 242ff, ‘On the a Capella Stile’ beginning on p. 243ff l, ‘On the Recitative Stile’ starting on p. 274ff (& the Errata list on p. 279), with a very humorous section ‘De Gustu’ beginning on Fux p. 239) where he cites examples of good and bad taste-ending up agreeing with Cicero’s dictum ‘de gustibus non disputandum est’ -‘there is no Accounting when it comes to the subject of taste in general, neither can there ever be an Arbiter to decide good from bad-to each his own’
Or as Miss Brodie said in the play about her ‘prime’ : ‘For those that like that sort of thing that’s the sort of thing they like !’ LoL
I’ve carefully translated the missing 1/3 of Fux’ Latin text into modern readable English using Mann’s approach as my model & might put it up online for the Tercentenary of the first publication of the Gradus -
And until then I’m compiling footnotes with references to Aristoxenos of Tarentum, Pythagoras, Adrian Willaert, Zarlino, Padre Martini, Abbe Mersenne, Marpurg, Haydn’s annotations preserved by C.F. Pohl & Mozart’s contrapuntal teaching exercise book compil’d by his English student in Vienna Thomas Attwood (1 August 1785 to 4 March 1787) which sheds great light on how counterpoint was taught in the late 18th century using ‘equal temperament’ systems …
Since the 1791 ‘London paraphrase’ of Fux’ Gradus ad Parnassum into English left out nearly half of the Fuxian explanatory & introductory material in the original 1725 publication it seems to me that it is high time a literal sentence for sentence English translation of the whole is call’d for…with ZERO omissions-for, as Abbe Vogler the organ-builder (and maverick composer) said in 1772 : ‘We Have No School but Fux’
This awesome
As a string player, the moving parts need to be played out!
Who gives counterpoint a bad rap?
Exactly
This is interesting, but unfortunately it's not counterpoint as developed in earlier centuries. Fux's book does indeed set out rules, and there is a lot more to it than simply adding in faster note sequences. Elaborate counterpoint includes beautiful polyphony, possibly imitation, and the various species exercises from Fux's book are indeed just that - Exercises - intended to help composers develop styles of embellishment. Also there are underlying assumptions that composers and players will be familiar with the embelishment styles fashionable in each time period. Important concepts to pick up include melodic fluency, melodic independence etc., and a few other concepts which may enable composers and players to create music which is meaninful to them, and to their listeners.
agreed. we're trying to get the kids to think a little differently here. as i say in the video, it's a sort of introduction to the idea of independent lines.
@@ImpliedMusicYes - a good idea to get a bit more motion and interest in - though the concept of independent lines could be emphasised. Maybe your later videos do more on this.
Why is it a danger at 1:27 ? If it were of any other heritage it'd be celebrated and worshipped as gold!
"If the world hates you, remember that it hated me before you."
So its not a new thing to hate the One who created you but repent and believe and you shall be saved
thanks nicholas. i've got subscribers of every religion. not exactly a 'danger', just something to be aware of for our other brothers and sisters. btw, i've cut that section. it was misleading.
The 'Christian Heritage" underpins western music and all art for that matter. Those who knock or mock it are simply undermining our (European tradition) culture. Much of our music was written to the glory of God.... get over it.
thanks. no shade intended. i play music with roots in many traditions, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist. I have subscribers of various faiths and beliefs. My point is, you may not be a Christian... but yeah, play some Bach.
@@ImpliedMusic Hi, OK Sorry, I may have overreacted and missed your slant on things. Keep up the excellent work🤝.
That would mean a lot more if Christianity were a choice back then, but it was compulsory. I have no problem undermining the darker sides of my own culture's history. We should all be open to criticizing our history