16th Century Counterpoint - 2 Voices, 1st Species Primer

Well, let me know if I did this right.

I am not completely sure..

Edit: corrected!

1st species.pdf

I think the only truly wrong thing is bar 8, where you exceed the allowed range, although bars 9-11 have a few nasty parallel motion things.

Hey Composerorganist,

Just wanted to pat you on the back for this wonderful work you do here! And you are so gentle with the students, a very good personality trait!

All the best,

Janno

Dead Chicken - Good work -- see it wasn't that hard! I love the contours of your melody and how well you kept to the rules, despite your initial trepidation.

OK, M is D mentioned two points which I want to clarify and mention another:

1) Now M - D's comment about range is a great point to discuss. For instrumental music the high C is fine, for vocal, possible, but you are very near the limit and only for a very, very good choir. Even so, if this were a choral piece the high C would have to be prepared slowly - stepwise motion before leaping to that note. Just things to keep in mind. However, for this exercise, your high C in msr 8 is allowable, especially as I never disallowed or set the range. Thanks M _ D.

2) Now, you have only ONE case of parallel octaves. Check around msrs 9 - 10. Recall it is best to avoid SIMILAR motion to octaves and 5ths. See where that happens and correct it.

3) Last, you must start your melody on the tonic or dominant note of the scale (in our case C or G). Again, I may not have been clear about this but this is common 16th century practice (as well as 17th, 18th, and most of 19th century). SO the E in your first measure is not allowed.

So, msr 1 and somewhere aroung msr 9-10 you need to fix two small errors. After that transpose the bass I gave to the treble register and write a new bass according to the rules.

Janno - Ah, thank you very much. But the pleasure is all mine, I learn alot from everyone who has aparticipated in this thread.

Okay,

I did the next assignment (New baseline), I brought it up one octave to keep it more comfortably in the 'middle' range. I felt a little more at ease knowing what to do this time around. Hopefully I did it right.

EDIT: Uploaded a corrected fist assignment in my original post.

1st species NB.pdf

Okay,

I did the next assignment (New baseline), I brought it up one octave to keep it more comfortably in the 'middle' range. I felt a little more at ease knowing what to do this time around. Hopefully I did it right.

EDIT: Uploaded a corrected fist assignment in my original post.

I don't think you can begin with a perfect fifth when the cantus firmus is in the upper part: it doesn't fit with the mode.

DC - Very good work on the secondand good work fixing the 1st. Very melodic bass!

M is D pointed something which I should clarify - you can start on a fifth but the correct mode must be established. So you have for the Ionian mode on C ( eg our C major scale) only two choices for the P5 - if G is the first bass note then any C above it is the only choice for the P5, if C is the first melody note, then you cannot use the P5. Why? Well, as you wrote in your exercise the bass note F forms a correct interval, but does NOT establish the Ionian mode. Rather, you establish Lydian, the white keys on the piano F to F or solfege - do re mi fi sol la ti do (fi means the fourth tone is raised ti the seventh tone raised).

For your first assignment you caught the parallel octaves - great! Unfortunately you chose the P 4th. Recall that P4, with 2 voice one-to-one counterpoint, is considered a dissonance. So for measure 10 you have a choice of 3s, 10s, or 6s (if you moved to P5 you would have parallel 5ths).

Very good work DC, good lines and except for one or two slips, very good counterpoint. I'll be doing another thread soon on this. Be ready!

I decided to give this a whirl, and it was much more difficult to create a nice melody while keeping to all the rules than I remembered from when last I read Fux and did any exersies like this - possibly because since I've become accustomed to 18th century rules of dissonance treatment and from much much more experience with 20th century music 7th, 9ths and even tritones sound quite consonant to me now :)

Anyway, here it is; two attempts, one with your cantus firmus in each voice.

Thanks very much for doing this, it's a great idea :D

1st Species.pdf

Mark - overall good work. It is hard to create varied and flowing melodies in this species. Your melodic line is good. I'd say toward the end of the first exercise the melody feels a little static because you move B - C - A - C- B - C. The leading tone B being heard before the final cadence diminishes the cadential feel and the movement from A to C doesn't offer much contract to the B to C movement. Your second exercise's melody is excellent - by spending a little time around E, you create a delayed feel of "rest" so that when you approach C at the end it sounds like a cadence.

As for counterpoint, main error is hidden fifths. I count 2 instances of hidden parallel fifths in the first exercise and one instance in the second. Remember - to avoid parallel and hidden fifths and octaves AVOID approaching these intervals in the same direction. So if you move two voices both downward from a 6th to a 5th, you have hidden parallel fifths (eg voices form a maj 6th, F - D, hold the F and move the top voice to C, now move both voices to form E-B. You will hear and see the hidden fifths)

Why don't you look for the hidden fifths and let me know where they are Mike? Also, if you have time, see what you can do to make the ending of the melody of your first exercise more convincing.

I've found the hidden fifths (not terribly well hidden, I prefer the term direct fifths, makes more sense to me :)) and reworked those parts. I was aware that direct fifths are frowned upon in some contexts, but I suppose I've always been a little lazy about them, never paying them the same attention as I did parallels. I do think, however, that the sound of the exercises is much improved without them. I've also sorted out the slightly boring sounding last few notes of the first exercise, introduced a little more variety. One thing I'm wondering about, what's the deal with a leap in one line while the other line moves by step in similar motion? I can't remember if this is allowed or not =)

Another thing I've been thinking about, and indeed have been wondering about since I first read Fux: Is there any way of obtaining some kind of harmonic progression (or regression, I suppose, just any kind of harmonic motion) in this style of counterpoint, and if so, how? I always feel that in the music of for example Palestrina there's a kind of sense and logic and motion that's very different to tonality and that I find exceptionally beautiful. I feel like they all know something I don't, if you know what I mean :P

Thanks again

1st Species.pdf

Excellent work on the revised exercise.

As for your question about the harmony behind there works. I am not that well versed in this particular subject but I can offer some info. First off they used modes (that is the scales generated from starting from d - d, E- e etc on the white keys of the piano). These modal scales had secondary tonal areas (eg dominants) which were kept in mind. But often the harmony arose from contrapuntal concerns - the use of raised thirds to create an ending, avoidance of the tritone between voices allowed for harmonic movement that differed from the major/minor tonality. If you really want to learn more i recommend you get the Jeppesen counterpoint book as he offers a great overview on this subject. I am still learning about this particular area of polyphony.

Thanks :)

My counterpoint textbook ("Modal and Tonal Counterpoint - From Josquin to Stravinsky") seems to have an awful lot to say about all sorts of renaissance polyphony - half the book's on it, but I've only really focussed on the 18th century sections in any detail (everyone loves fugues :D).

here is my attemp at this.

untitled.mid

here is my attemp at this.

I think a .pdf, would be really helpful. ;)

Ok going just by ear you have going to from the 3rd to 4th chord a hidden fifth - that is you approached the fifth in similar motion in both voices - this is illegal in this species.

Everything else sounds ok except the ending - it is legal but going from an octave to a fifth even in contrary motion still gives a feeling of squareness due to the consecutive perfect intervals.

Please post a pdf aso I double check my ears. Then I can double check my assessment.

will do.

here is the sorch file-

untitled.sib

Ok, first off good work. Measure 3 -4 is CORRECT. I heard the 10th initially as an octave.

Second there is an error - mm 10 - 11 - top voice goes from B to F. You cannot move down or up a diminished 4th (tritone).

Pardon my prior error - little rusty identifying my intervals. Fortunately i am taking an Ear Training review course to rectify it.

I think i fixed the error or tried to.

Pardon, the odd sound. I was using a different sound library at the time, and I don't know how to plug into sroch.

untitled.sib

untitled.pdf

Great on fixing the tritone leap BUT now you created another error - you approached an octave with both voices going in the same direction! This creates hidden octaves which are illegal.

Why not just try another one with a new cantus firmus? Look thru the thread for alternative cantus firmus I gave.

here is my 16 c.p. with a new a bass line.

16(3).sib

Checked your identification of your 6ths. one of them is NOT a 6th but a 7th which is illegal - 7ths are dissonances. Otherwise looks good.

Here is my fixed version.

16(3).sib

looks good - try somemore when you have spare time