Counterpoint helps you focus
on the forward trajectory of music.
It challenges both the logical
and creative sides of your brain,
and it will make your music richer and more sophisticated.
Now, counterpoint is a subject
that takes multiple semesters at the college level,
so I'm not going to go crazy deep here,
but you should get a good enough understanding
of the basic principles.
So when you do eventually take a course
or read a 300 year old textbook,
you'll have a strong foundation and understanding
of what's going on.
Counterpoint is the art of writing
multiple melodic lines that sound good when played together.
The challenge is that you have to balance three things.
The lines should sound good when played on their own.
They should sound good when played together.
They should maintain their independence
and sound like separate lines.
So let's get into those three things.
Percy Goetschius, "Gooshus"?
This guy Percy has a great book
called "Applied Counterpoint,"
and he outlines a few good rules of thumb
for a good melodic line.
Basically the root third and fifth scale degrees
will always sound stable.
The second fourth and sixth scale degrees
have a natural tendency to resolve down,
and the seventh scale degree has a natural tendency
to resolve up.
Also a leap wider than a third should turn
and step in the opposite direction.
There's a bit more to it,
but basically if you're mindful
of the natural gravity of the major scale,
you'll have a melody that feels natural and satisfying.
Now, for getting two lines to sound good
when played together.
In counterpoint, there are three kinds of intervals:
the perfect consonances,
which are unisons, fifths, and octaves,
the imperfect consonances,
which are thirds and sixths,
and dissonances, which included seconds,
sevenths and fourths.
Now the fourths are a little confusing,
'cause we usually call those perfect fourths,
but in counterpoint they require
a little bit of special treatment.
So for now, we'll just put them
in the dissonance category.
In general, consonances sound good and dissonances don't.
It doesn't mean that dissonances are bad.
It just means you need to know how to resolve them properly,
so they sound like a nice harmonic rub
and not like a mistake.
The third thing to balance
is how to keep the lines independent.
So there are three different ways
that the different lines can move.
Again, notice that grouping of three.
Parallel, meaning both lines move in the same direction,
oblique, which means one line moves
while the other stays the same,
and contrary, where one line goes up
and the other goes down.
Good counterpoint blends all three kinds of movement.
If you only had parallel movement,
the lines wouldn't sound independent.
It would just feel like a thickened line.
If you only had oblique motion,
then one of the lines would be stuck,
and that wouldn't be a very interesting melody.
And if you only used contrary motion,
it would be hard to write a natural sounding melody,
because you'd be so restricted by the way you could move.
So we want to write good melodies,
we want them to sound good when played together,
and we want them to still sound independent
when played together.
So how do we do it?
For hundreds of years, the traditional method
of teaching counterpoint is called species counterpoint.
There are five species,
which is really just kind of a weird way
of saying five levels of difficulty.
In first species, you write one-to-one counterpoint.
For every note in your starting line,
you write a note in the counterpoint
in the exact same rhythm.
By the way, that line you start with
is called the cantus firmus, which is Latin for fixed song.
It basically just means we already have this line.
We're not gonna touch it.
We're only writing a counterpoint to go with it.
So when you start writing a counterpoint,
you need to start with some melody to write it to,
and that's our cantus firmus.
So we have the cantus firmus here in the bassoon,
but before we get started, let's actually listen to that
to know what we're working with.
(light bassoon music)
And now we're gonna write a melody in the clarinet
that sounds independent, but like a good line
and also works harmoniously with the bassoon.
There are different opinions depending
on the book you read or the teacher you work with
about which note you're allowed to start and end on,
but basically in counterpoint exercises,
you want your first and last measure to be your one chord.
So you're gonna be looking to pick out the root, third,
or fifth at the beginning and at the end.
we're gonna start with a one chord.
So we have C in the bottom here,
'cause we're in C major.
Our choices are the C, E, or G.
For now, let's just keep it simple.
Let's start on middle C right there.
So we're gonna start on this nice big octave.
(light music)
Obviously they work together.
Now we have to decide what note to write next,
but there aren't actually as many options
as you might think.
In first species,
most methods recommend you avoid dissonances completely.
So we really only have to choose
between the perfect and imperfect consonances.
The imperfect consonances, thirds and sixths,
you're free to use whenever you want.
They pretty much always sound good.
But the octave and fifth have some restrictions,
and maybe you've heard of this before.
A fundamental rule of counterpoint
is that your voices cannot move
into a perfect interval in the same direction.
The reason is that it destroys
one of those fundamental aspects of balance,
which is independence of voices.
It's like all of a sudden, for a moment,
you go from two lines to what sounds like one.
I like to think of it as if you're listening
to the song in stereo,
and all of a sudden for like one beat, it goes to mono.
You might not even realize what happened
or why it felt wrong, but for a moment,
something just seemed kind of off.
So even though consecutive fifths
might not jump out at you as wrong notes,
you still will get the sense
that the independence has been broken.
Going from octave to octave is called parallel octaves,
going from a fifth to a fifth is called parallel fifths,
and going from a different interval
into an octave or a fifth is called
direct octaves or direct fifths.
If you're writing like a four-part counterpoint
and you have direct fifths in the middle voices,
a lot of times people will let that slide
'cause you can't really hear it.
But when you're working in two-part counterpoint
or dealing with your soprano and bass,
just avoid parallel octaves and fifths
and avoid direct octaves and fifths.
Just a good rule to follow.
All right, back to our counterpoint.
So we look at the G and we think about all of the notes
that will work with it.
We've already talked about how we're not using dissonances
at all in first species counterpoint,
so we're only gonna work with the perfect
and imperfect consonances.
So that means above this G, we can have the unison.
So we could go down to the G down here,
which I don't think is gonna be a very good sound,
'cause it's gonna sound like the G disappears.
(light music)
That doesn't really work for me at all.
Another option would be the third above the B.
We could also go to the D above the fifth.
The reason I won't do that is because the fifth,
we're moving in the same direction in both voices.
That would be a direct fifth.
We don't want to do that.
We could go to the sixth, the E,
and that would probably sound pretty nice.
We could go up to the G.
That would be an octave.
However, then we'd have direct octaves.
I'm gonna restrict myself to either the E or the B.
So let's listen to both of those.
(light music)
I like the B better.
Neither one is wrong.
Either one would work in some contexts, but in this case,
I think the B has a nice sound to it,
so I'm gonna go with the B.
Now we go to the next measure,
and we go through the same thing.
We say, okay, what are our choices?
We could do the unison,
which would be going all the way down to the E,
which I don't think we want to do,
into the third and fifth, the sixth,
the octave, and then that compounds,
the third, the fifth, the sixth, the octave all the way up.
I don't want to get crazy high,
so I'm probably gonna rule out these guys here.
I'm also worried about getting crazy low,
so I'm gonna probably rule out these guys here.
So these are some of my more reasonable choices.
Any of these would probably work.
Going to B here, we'd get a fifth in oblique motion,
which is fine.
Here to the C, we'd have contrary motion into a sixth.
Going here, leaping up into the E
we'd get contrary motion into that octave
and leaping up to the G into the sixth.
So we're gonna hear,
what do all those different things sound like?
Let's go right from the beginning,
'cause it's not too far back.
(light music)
That sounds pretty nice to me.
(light music)
That works.
There's also independence.
And then just going back to the C.
(light music)
That's also pretty nice.
And our last choice here was the B.
I don't like that one.
That's my least favorite.
So for me, my favorite choices were probably either the C,
(light music)
or up to the E.
(light music)
I'm gonna go with the E,
because I'm looking ahead a little bit
at what our choices are coming up.
And I can see here that what would go well with the F,
again, we're thinking of perfect consonances
and imperfect consonances.
So root, third, fifth, sixth
are kind of our options, and octave.
And I can see that the D would make a nice sixth here,
with that bassoon part.
I like the contrary motion we get,
where one is stepping down and one is stepping up.
So here's what we've got so far.
(light music)
Now, I feel like we're just kind of hovering
around the same space here,
so I think to make this a kind of satisfying line,
I'm already thinking can I go up?
Can I get somewhere a little more interesting?
Where could I leap to?
So what's gonna work?
What are some leaps that would work well with the A?
Well, if I'm leaping up, I want to avoid fifths or octaves,
'cause I don't want direct fifths or direct octaves.
So really I'm kind of limited to a C or an F.
So leaping up to the F would give us this kind of sound.
(light music)
Not as dramatic as I would like.
What if we go all the way up to that C?
(light music)
I think that's gonna work, because I'm looking ahead.
I'm already seeing what we could be doing
for this conclusion here.
This feels like harmonically,
when you want to still think about your chord progressions,
this feels like a five-one chord progression.
So the third above the G is a B.
We go from third to a third in parallel motion.
And then here we can resolve that B.
We talked about how the seventh
wants to resolve up into a C.
Now, I realize this is,
like I said, this is a crash course.
I'm moving a little quickly.
It's just to give you the overall general idea,
but let's hear this line.
(light music)
The only thing that's bothering me a little bit is
I feel like cause leap up a seventh is a little drastic.
You know, what I'm gonna do
is I'm gonna move this whole thing up an octave,
and that is gonna give us a bit
of a climax on the line here,
But also, it's smoothing over that D.
That leap up to seventh was a little jarring,
just for the kind of pure,
old fashioned context we had here.
So I think that's gonna be a little bit of a smoother line,
which the top line is...
(light music)
That's a nice little tune.
It's a little step wise, but it's not horrendous.
And then together, they sound like this.
(light music)
Honestly, you need a lot of practice with this
before you should move on,
and ideally get a teacher to check your work.
But because this is a crash course,
we're gonna move right into second species.
In second species, or level two,
you write two notes in the counterpoint
for every note in the cantus firmus.
And this is where things start to sound
a bit more like real music.
We also get our first taste of dissonance,
because not every note is going to be a chord tone.
There are several categories of non-harmonic tones,
including passing tones, neighbor tones,
appoggiaturas, escape tones, suspension, and anticipation.
There are two ways to write a second species counterpoint.
You can start by writing a first species counterpoint,
and then adding those non-harmonic tones,
or you can go straight into working
with two beats against one and see where it leads you.
I think for a beginner, starting with the first species
and then adapting it is a bit easier,
so I'd recommend you do that first.
So how do we do it?
Well, when you're starting out,
I think it's really helpful
to keep a list of your available options,
those passing tones and neighbor tones
and arpeggiation and all those things,
and then actually mechanically check each one
and hear how it sounds.
Now that sounds like a lot of work going one beat at a time,
going through all your options, and at first it is.
But with practice, you get used to it
and it becomes pretty quick.
Eventually you won't really even be thinking about it.
So here's an example of taking
that first species counterpoint we did
and changing it into second species.
So we're looking for different kinds of passing tones,
neighbor tones, and arpeggiation
and different things that can just add
more movement to that top line.
One thing that you could do that works nicely
is start this on the second beat.
And then what's really nice about that
is then the entrance of the clarinet
is gonna be very clear and it's gonna really help
with that independence of voices.
So let's hear that right from the beginning.
(light music)
We get this real separation between the parts.
It's very clear that these are different voices happening,
because they're happening at different times.
So then the next thing to do is look at here,
how can we bridge the gap from the B to the E?
So we want to run through, like I mentioned,
you want to kind of consider all your different choices
and see which ones are gonna work.
Could we arpeggiate?
We're kind of outlining a G major chord here
with that G and B, so could we arpeggiate to the D?
(light music)
It feels pretty good to me actually.
Or could we do kind of a leap above and settle down into it?
(light music)
I kind of like that melodically.
What I noticed, what I heard,
is that we're moving into an octave here.
And so even though our first species counterpoint,
we were going in contrary motion to that octave,
by introducing the second note,
I've created parallel octaves.
So I want to avoid doing that.
So I think what we're gonna do is go with the D,
which was this sound.
(light music)
This should be nice.
And then this is a sixth,
so we don't have to worry
about parallel movement of any kind.
There's some different things we could do.
We could anticipate the D.
(light music)
We could go neighbor tone dip under the D.
(light music)
That's kind of nice.
So coming from before.
(light music)
We could do an escape tone.
So this E would go up to the F, but then drop down.
(light music)
That's my favorite. Definitely my favorite.
So let's go with that.
So, so far, this is what we have.
(light music)
That's a nice little line.
Here is an opportunity.
We could do an anticipation,
which is where we play that next note before it happens.
(light music)
That works.
And here we could do dipping under A.
What would that be like?
(light music)
That works.
Now this neighbor tone underneath.
And then the other thing we have to do
is just this last one.
So we could mimic this, where we step above.
We'll do a neighbor above the sea.
That would sound like this.
(light music)
If I do that here, I'll write that in.
If I do that, then we get the fifth here
going in downward motion into the octave,
which, again, we've talked about.
You really don't want to do that throughout your line.
However, for the cadence where everything is ending
and we're coming to a conclusion,
I don't think it's really a problem if we lose independence,
because it's like,
that's almost the point of this last note.
Everybody's kind of joining forces like, oh, okay.
We can totally, we can all be happy and harmonious together.
So that might be okay, actually.
(light music)
We could also push this forward a little bit.
And by doing that,
we would avoid that direct fall into the octave,
because we'd be going up into the third
and then falling down.
Again, that sounded like this.
(light music)
I think that works.
I think that covers us.
I think that kind of hides the underlying
direct octave we have there.
And again, I'm hiding it in a place
where I don't really personally feel like you need
to hide it that much anyway in a cadence.
So playing this from the beginning,
we took our first species counterpoint.
Now we're adapting it to a second species counterpoint,
which means we went from one note against one note
to now two notes against one note.
So first let's listen to just
that new melodic line all by itself.
(light music)
So something we've maintained,
which I think is good, is we're still hitting
a melodic high point and a climax here,
so that melody still has a bit of an arc and a shape.
It sounds a little bit more like real music
in second species.
So now let's hear them both against each other.
(light music)
And then the other thing you can do
is you don't have to stick with half notes
against whole notes.
So you could start to think about a rhythm.
Even there, even just every other bar,
changing that to a dotted half to a quarter,
start to make this sound even more like real music.
(light music)
In the spirit of a crash course,
I'm gonna keep you from getting too far ahead of yourself
before you've mastered the fundamentals.
I'll just briefly go into what the other levels are like.
In third species,
we move from going to two notes against one
to four notes against one.
It's not really that much different from second species,
and you can even start with a second species
and adapt it to four against one.
Fourth species focuses on suspensions.
So what do you do when one part ties into the next bar
but the change in the other line creates a dissonance?
How do you resolve that and make it sound good?
This is a really crucial step in that aspect
of creating independence between the voices,
because when one part ties over the bar,
you get this rhythmic syncopation
and it really helps create separation
between the different parts.
So fourth species really deserves
a lot more attention than at first it might seem.
And finally, fifth species or level five
is called florid counterpoint.
It basically means you take everything you've learned
in the other four levels and use it freely,
so you're just making music now.
When you're ready to take
learning counterpoint more seriously,
there are a lot of good options out there.
ScoreClub has a fantastic course
called Practical Counterpoint.
There's also plenty of textbooks in the public domain,
so they're free like that Percy Gershes one
I mentioned earlier.
I'll put a link to it in the description.
For another approach to writing counterlines
where you already have the chord progression worked out,
watch this video here,
where I write a countermelody to "Zelda's Lullaby"
and then add a second countermelody on top of that.