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Counterpoint is a very general feature of music (especially prominent in much Western music) whereby two or more melodic strands occur simultaneously – in separate voices, either literally or metaphorically (if the music is instrumental). Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Music Wikicities has a wiki related to this article: Music Look up Music in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Music City : a collaborative music database All Music Guide: includes a comprehensive and flexible Genre and Style system MusicWiki: A Collaborative Music-related...
}} Wiktionary has a definition of: Melody In music, a melody is a series of linear events or a succession, not a simultaneity as in a chord. ...
The term comes from the Latin punctus contra punctum ("note against note"). The adjective shows this Latin source more transparently: contrapuntal. By definition, chords occur when multiple notes sound simultaneously; however, chordal, harmonic, "vertical" features are considered secondary and almost incidental when counterpoint is to the fore. Counterpoint focuses on melodic interaction rather than harmonic effects generated when melodic strands sound together. It was elaborated extensively in the Renaissance period; but composers of the Baroque period brought counterpoint to a kind of culmination; and, broadly and with many exceptions, it may be said that harmony then took over as the predominant organising principle in musical composition. The late Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach wrote most of his music exploiting counterpoint, and explicitly and systematically explored the full range of contrapuntal possibilities in such works as the Art of Fugue. In music and music theory a chord (from the middle English cord, short for accord) is three or more notes sounding simultaneously, or near simultaneously over a period of time. ...
Renaissance music is classical music written during the Renaissance period, approximately 1400 to 1600 CE. Defining the end of the period is easier than defining the beginning, since there were no revolutionary shifts in musical thinking at the beginning of the 15th century corresponding to the sudden development of the...
Baroque music is Western classical music from the Baroque era, after the Renaissance music era and before the Classical music era proper. ...
Harmony is the use and study of pitch simultaneity and chords, actual or implied, in music. ...
Johann Sebastian Bach, 1748 portrait by Elias Gottlob Haussmann Johann Sebastian Bach (March 21, 1685 (O.S.) – July 28, 1750 (N.S.))[1] was a German composer and organist of the Baroque period, and is universally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. ...
The Art of Fugue or The Art of the Fugue (Die Kunst der Fuge), BWV 1080, is an unfinished work by Johann Sebastian Bach composed in 1748-1749 and published after his death in 1750. ...
Given the way terminology in music history has evolved, such music created from the Baroque period on is described as contrapuntal, while music from before Baroque times is called polyphonic. Hence, the earlier composer Josquin Des Prez wrote polyphonic music. Baroque music is Western classical music from the Baroque era, after the Renaissance music era and before the Classical music era proper. ...
Polyphony is a musical texture consisting of several independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony). ...
Josquin Des Prez Josquin Des Prez (diminutive of Joseph; latinized Josquinus Pratensis) (c. ...
Homophony, by contrast with polyphony, features music where chords or vertical intervals work with a single melody without much consideration of the melodic character of the added accompanying elements, or of their melodic interactions with the melody they accompany. As suggested above, most popular music written today is predominantly homophonic - governed by considerations of chord and harmony. But these are only strong general tendencies, and there are many qualifications one could add. Homophony is music in which the top line has a dominant melody, and all the voices accompany it with chords in the same rhythm. ...
In music and music theory a chord (from the middle English cord, short for accord) is three or more notes sounding simultaneously, or near simultaneously over a period of time. ...
In music theory, an interval is the distance in pitch between two notes, the lower and higher members of the interval. ...
The form or compositional genre known as fugue is perhaps the most complex contrapuntal convention. Other examples include the round (familiar in folk traditions) and the canon. For the use of the word in psychology see fugue state In music, a fugue is a type of piece written in counterpoint for several independent musical voices. ...
A round is a musical composition in which two or more voices sing exactly the same melody, beginning at different times. ...
This article is about the musical use of the word canon. For other uses, see canon. ...
Counterpoint is one of the most essential means, in musical composition, for the generation of musical ironies; a melodic fragment, heard alone, may make a particular impression, but when it is heard simultaneously with other melodic ideas, or combined in unexpected ways with itself, as in canon or fugue, surprising new facets of meaning are revealed. This is a means for bringing about development of a musical idea, revealing it to the listener as conceptually more profound than a mere pleasing melody. Musical development is the transformation and restatement of initial material, often contrasted with musical variation, with which it may be difficult to distinguish as a general process. ...
Species counterpoint
In 1725 Johann Fux published Gradus ad Parnassum, a work intended to help teach students how to write counterpoint, a method for learning to compose. In this, he describes five species. Johann Joseph Fux (1660 – February 13, 1741) was an Austrian composer, music theorist and pedagogue of the late Baroque era. ...
In first species counterpoint, each note in an added part* (or parts) simply works against one note in the given part (the cantus firmus). Notes in all parts are sounded simultaneously, and move against each other simultaneously. The species is said to be expanded if any of the added notes is broken up (simply repeated). In music, cantus firmus is the basic material to be set using polyphony. ...
In second species counterpoint, two notes in the added part (or parts) work against each longer note in the given part. The species is said to be expanded if one of the two shorter notes differs in length from the other.
In third species counterpoint, four (or three) notes move against each longer note in the given part. As with second species, it is expanded if the shorter notes vary in length among themselves.
In fourth species counterpoint, a note is sustained or suspended in an added part while notes move against it in the given part, creating a dissonance, followed by the suspended note then changing (and "catching up") to create a subsequent consonance with the note in the given part as it continues to sound. Fourth species counterpoint is said to be expanded when the added-part notes vary in length from each other. The technique requires chains of notes sustained across the boundaries determined by beat, and so creates syncopation. In poetry, dissonance is the deliberate avoidance of patterns of repeated vowel sounds (see assonance). ...
Consonance is a stylistic device, often used in poetry. ...
In music, syncopation is the stressing of a normally unstressed beat in a bar or the failure to sound a tone on an accented beat. ...
In fifth species counterpoint, sometimes called florid counterpoint, the other four species of counterpoint are combined within the added part (or added parts).
It is a common and pedantic misconception that counterpoint is defined by these five species, and therefore anything that does not follow the strict rules of the five species is not counterpoint. This is not true; although much contrapuntal music of the common practice period indeed adheres to the rules, there are exceptions. Fux's book and its concept of "species" was purely a method of teaching counterpoint, not a definitive or rigidly prescriptive set of rules for it. He arrived at his method of teaching (or so he believed, at least) by examining the works of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, an important late 16th century composer and one who in Fux's time was held in the highest esteem as a contrapuntist; works in the contrapuntal style of the 16th century—the "prima pratica" or "stile antico," it was called by modernist composers then—were often said by Fux's contemporaries to be in "Palestrina style." Indeed, Fux's treatise is a rather accurate compendeum of Palestrina's techniques. In music the common practice period is a long period in western musical history spanning from before the classical era proper to today, dated, on the outside, as 1600-1900. ...
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (Born in Palestrina (Praeneste) or Rome, 1525, latest February 1, 1526 – February 2, 1594 in Rome) was an Italian composer of Renaissance music. ...
* (Note: in counterpoint, the parts or individual melodic strands are often called voices, even if the music is thought of as instrumental.)
Contrapuntal derivations Since the Renaissance period in European music, most music which is considered contrapuntal has been written in imitative counterpoint. In imitative counterpoint, two or more voices enter at different times, and (especially when entering) each voice repeats some version of the same melodic element. The fantasia, the ricercar, and later, the fugue (the contrapuntal form par excellence) all feature imitative counterpoint, which also frequently appears in choral works such as motets and madrigals. Imitative counterpoint has spawned a number of devices that composers have turned to in order to give their works both mathematical rigor and expressive range. Some of these devices include: Renaissance music is classical music written during the Renaissance period, approximately 1400 to 1600 CE. Defining the end of the period is easier than defining the beginning, since there were no revolutionary shifts in musical thinking at the beginning of the 15th century corresponding to the sudden development of the...
The fantasia (also English fantasy, German fantasie, French fantaisie) is a musical composition with its roots in the art of improvisation. ...
A ricercar (or ricercare; the terms are interchangeable) is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. ...
In music, a fugue is a type of piece written in counterpoint for several independent musical voices. ...
A choir or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. ...
In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions. ...
A madrigal is a setting for 4–6 voices of a secular text, often in Italian. ...
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- Inversion: The inverse of a given fragment of melody is the fragment turned upside down – so if the original fragment has a rising major third (see interval), the inverted fragment has a falling major (or perhaps minor) third. (Compare, in twelve tone technique, the inversion of the tone row, which is the so-called prime series turned upside down.) In a completely separate sense, a contrapuntal inversion of melodies being simultaneously sounded by voices is the subsequent switching of the melodies between voices, so that for example an upper-voice melody is now sounded in some lower voice, and vice versa.
- Retrograde refers to the contrapuntal device whereby notes in an imitative voice sound backwards in relation to their order in the original.
- Augmentation is when in one of the parts in imitative counterpoint the notes are extended in duration compared to the rate at which they were sounded when introduced.
- Diminution is when in one of the parts in imitative counterpoint the notes are reduced in duration compared to the rate at which they were sounded when introduced.
For non-musical meanings of inversion, see inversion. ...
In music theory, an interval is the distance in pitch between two notes, the lower and higher members of the interval. ...
Twelve-tone technique is a system of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg. ...
This article is about retrograde motion. ...
In music and music theory augmentation is the lengthening or widening of rhythms, melodies, intervals, chords. ...
Diminution, from Italian diminuimento, is a musical term used to mean different things in the context of melodies and intervals or chords. ...
Dissonant counterpoint Dissonant counterpoint was first theorized by Charles Seeger as "at first purely a school-room discipline," consisting of species counterpoint but with all the traditional rules reversed. First species counterpoint is required to be all dissonances, establishing "dissonance, rather than consonance, as the rule," and consonances are "resolved" through a skip, not step. He wrote that "the effect of this discipline" was "one of purification." Other aspects of composition, such as rhythm, could be "dissonated" by applying the same principle (Charles Seeger, "On Dissonant Counterpoint," Modern Music 7, no. 4 (June-July 1930): 25-26). Charles Seeger (Mexico City, Mexico, 1886 - 1979) was musicologist, composer, and teacher. ...
The aspects of music are any characteristic, dimension, or element taken as a part or component of music. ...
Seeger was not the first to employ dissonant counterpoint, but was the first to theorize and promote it. Other composers who have used dissonant counterpoint, if not in the exact manner prescribed by Charles Seeger, include Ruth Crawford-Seeger, Carl Ruggles, Dane Rudhyar, and Arnold Schoenberg. Ruth Crawford-Seeger (July 3, 1901 in East Liverpool, Ohio - November 18, 1953 in Chevy Chase, Maryland), born Ruth Crawford, was a modernist composer. ...
American composer Charles Sprague Ruggles (March 11, 1876 _ October 24, 1971), better known as Carl, wrote finely-crafted pieces using dissonant counterpoint, a term coined by Charles Seeger to describe Ruggles music. ...
Dane Rudhyar (born Daniel Chennevière March 23, 1895 in Paris, France - September 13, 1985 in San Francisco, CA) was best known as a modernist composer and humanistic astrologer. ...
Arnold Schoenberg, Los Angeles, 1948 For the American music critic and journalist, see Harold Charles Schonberg. ...
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