Dr Lindsay Davidson torsdag 2 januari 2014 kl. 20.02.22 Europe/Copenhagen

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Species Counterpoint - Introduction

Palestrina wrote some of the most stunningly beautiful choral music that has everbeen created. His style is timeless in every respect and can give us a musicalchance to escape from our daily routines. The general style of the day has been superbly described from Gradus adParnassum to today in a system of teaching counterpoint known as ‘speciescounterpoint’. This teaching method wasn’t invented until well after Palestrina’sday (by Fux when he wrote Gradus ad Parnassum), but is a truly superb way ofunderstanding the musical style from the middle of the renaissance until earlyrococo. The idea behind this is that there are five steps, or species in learning to write.These are covered in the index below. Furthermore, this gives a strong grounding in the understanding of the relationshipbetween melody and harmony, and voice leading. Additionaly, we can develop ourown new styles of composition using the same basic format – but by changingsome of the root assumptions about dissonance and melody…. There is also the simple fact that writing this kind of counterpoint can betherapeutic and highly satisfying – like sudoku or a good crossword. It is suggested that you try out for yourself a good number of exercises applyingeach rule, as given, in the order given, to develop first an understanding of melodicstyle, and then how separate melodic lines work together.

Part of the reasoning behind this resource here is to suggest trying to mix speciescounterpoint with mantroch technique to create event matrices in a very differentstyle.

Please remember though, that species counterpoint is a method of instruction ingeneral counterpoint, not an end in itself. Going through this should make you veryable to lead voices when writing to make what is attractive counterpoint, in yourown style.

Counterpoint IndexModes

Cantus Firmus1st Species

2nd Species3rd Species4th Species5th Species

Examples

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