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If you live in the U.S. you don't have to do a thing to have your music protected by basic copyright law... in theory. Once your work comes into existence it's supposed to be protected. But to prove that you own something in a court of law it gets more difficult. People used to mail themselves copies of their compositions, but that doesn't really fly in court. But, unless you are some type of celebrity, music collaborator, or owner of your own music business that involves composition, I see little need to register your works with the U.S. Copyright Office. DO register your works with a performance rights organization (ASCAP or BMI), but registering with the U.S. Copyright Office is a waste of time and money for most people. Take what I say with a grain of salt since I'm no lawyer, though I will add that the chances of someone consciously stealing your music and trying to make a profit from it or using it in a way you disapprove of are slim to non-existent. Just write your music and don't worry about it unless you start making substantial money from what you're doing. Then consult a lawyer if you still care.

To clarify, the C Clefs are from the original score. The G clefs have been substituted for ease of reading - the top one designates actual pitch, while the bottom one indicates that the written pitches sound an octave lower (only i the second example - in the first, both clefs are the same.) If you really want to have fun with clefs, pull up Bach's the art of fugue... I also see you're having good fun with Fux :santa:

It's to show what the original clef was. Just read the G clef as standard.

Emotion/Symbolism Emotion is a concept that a human attaches to a certain situation - a sight, an image, an incident and to music. The human brain works with the use of symbols. We look for and use symbols to think. We witness a tragic accident. Later on we create a link between a smashed up car, and the incident we saw when we were ten years old. We link a tuba playing short phrases to humor. We link a flute playing an Indian scale, to a wonder eyed musical feeling. A composer/creator begins to become aware of this connection and uses it in his/her work. Music sometimes has a purpose, sometimes none other than to satisfy the composer/listener. When you start to write music on demand or if you've studied or written for long enough you are aware of that on some level. Sometimes music is inspired and seems to flow out of us, other times, other times we must rely on our experience of or lessons, or devices we have learnt to help us to get something done. I think good music sometimes guides us to an emotion, but tricks us by thinking we got there on our own. How we respond to music is somewhat culturally transferred. Music being played by 16 string players, in enherantly more important that something being played by a rock quartet. Before the advent of the internet we were more isolated as to the different types of music we could hear. That has changed, now music is like a 24 all you can eat buffet. There's an extreme assortment of variety, and you can mix/match/contaminate/expound/create a different flavor. I come for a rock/pop background. I used synthesizers (back in 60's) The synthesizer was still very crude back then, but it had an extreme range of what it could create.I often got booked to put fake strings on arrangements. Looking back, those sounds were pretty rough, and my knowledge of string arrangement pretty poor. But that synthesizer put a label of 'legitimacy' to the music. If it vaguely sounded like strings, it must be a 'legitimate' piece of music, who would go to all that trouble to adorn 'crap'. It was then I became to realize why an orchestra sounded to good. It has had hundreds of years to evolve. It has found the right instruments, with the right harmonics, in the right proportion, to accomplish many goals. Because we are emotional beings, we constantly look to reinforce this. We assign emotion to sounds, harmony, polyphony, rhythm, just as we do to images. When we first heard the riff from Jaws, or Psycho, the music reinforced the fear we that was building up from plot, the actors, even our own fears. Now years later, that riff creates almost the opposite effect, because it so stereotypical, we laugh at it.

I understand for simplification but not all time signatures were 2/1 or 4/2. Rather time signatures were based on either 2 or 3 beats per measure. Often they were mixed or sections of duple time was followed by triple time (check Victoria's music). The main difference between 18th and 16th century counterpoint was one was strongly vocal based while the other was instrumental and influenced greatly by figured bass. Figured bass arose from the birth of Opera (check out Peri's music and of course Monteverdi's operas). Fux's treatise on counterpoint was pedagogically revolutionary but musically the counterpoint was 18th century interpretation of 16th century polyphony. Note: both 18th and 16th century counterpoint were used in many church services. The difference again is church music was getting more influenced by opera so that by the time you have Zelenka's Mass which is structured like an opera, where portions of the text are broken up in ways that may make impractical for church service - more a concert spiritual it would be used for. Nevertheless, composers continue all the way till today to write music for the mass, though the first peak was in 15th - 17th century. I'd say with Messaien there is a new resurgence in writing music for functional use in the church. Ok, pardon the tangent. Finally, one of the best ways to understand counterpoint is to study it from various periods. Get Oxford Anthology of Medieval Music just to see how Renaissance counterpoint arose.

Well, i know this post is getting to be a month old, but counterpoint is one of those misunderstood things that's kinda easy to fake, but trained musicians can hear and see through it instantly. First off, there are 2 main schools of thought on counterpoint. The kind of counterpoint in Palestrina's time, 16th century counterpoint, was focused entirely on independently developing melodies. All of the harmonies created were the result of moving melodies, there is not a "harmonic structure" of any sort. The other school is the 18th century, Bach era counterpoint. This is independent melodies that move through chords, basically. one of the biggest differences between this and the other is that by the 18th century they were writing for instruments, while back in the 16th century most of the music, and nearly all of the counterpoint was written for church services. Also keep in mind that all of the "rules" of counterpoint were compiled a few hundred years after the music was written. Joseph Fux, a very important figure in counterpoint and music history, wrote Dr. Gradus ad Parnossum around 1725, and the rules in that book were about how Palestrina approached counterpoint. The most important thing about this book is that it broke counterpoint down pedagogically. It used to be that composers would learn first species counterpoint, and then were expected to write florid counterpoint right away. What Fux did is break down counterpoint concepts into smaller, easier to learn and master techniques. Anyway, that's the super brief history if you want to really study counterpoint. If you want to learn it the right way, you've got to know the history of it too. There are 5 species of counterpoint 1. whole note against whole note 2. half note against whole note 3. quarter note against whole note 4. syncopated half notes against whole notes 5. florid (free) counterpoint. also, you'll need this terminology fusa - eighth note semiminim - quarter note minim - half note semibreve - whole note breve - double whole note another thing, they didn't write bar lines or time signatures (this is all 16th century that i'm telling you now). all the time signatures were 2/1, or 4/2 to make it a little simpler. whole note is about 60-80 bpm. If you want I can give you a rundown on the different species and the different hard and soft rules for each, but if this isn't quite what you're looking for than I'll just leave it there :)