24 May Counterpoint
Let’s start with this: Counterpoint is an art, like all my books say. It’s an art that requires many years to master, and that doesn’t have an application whatsoever. It’s like studying Latin: if you’re the Pope maybe you can use it once or twice… but common people don’t speak Latin. So Counterpoint is more or less the same: it gives you a certain skill, it opens up your mind, but let’s face it: it’s not a piece of music.
That being said, Counterpoint is very similar to the music Johann Sebastian Bach made; the only difference is that Bach himself didn’t actually follow every rule, otherwise it probably wouldn’t have sounded as beautiful as it does.
I love Counterpoint, and I always tend to relate it to sudoku. I will briefly explain to you what it looks like.
There is a cantus firmus, (fixed song) that’s a leading part that will be your guide to build up the other voices (just like in Harmony), but the rules are unbearably strict.
If this line is on the bass clef, and you’re making a simple 2 voices counterpoint (the first species), you have to build another line with whole notes, like this: 
The rules are vertical, meaning that you can only choose between 4 options per note; horizontal, meaning that you cannot place any note but you have to be mindful of the direction of your line; and are some rules regarding repetitions (the worst thing you can do is place two fifths or two octaves in a row, it’s basically the equivalent of a really bad grammatical error).
So this is the easiest type; the second species has haf-notes like this:
The third species has quarter notes:
The forth species has syncopations:
The last species has a combination of all the styles together, and it’s called fiorito (flowery):
You might have noticed that I used the same cantus firmus for every Counterpoint I made; but you can also use the same cantus firmus in the treble clef, so things get a little bit more difficult. And when you think that you finally reached the end, you discover that there are counterpoints for three voices, and for four, each with all the different species.
IT. IS. MADNESS.
But you will eventually make it, and you’re going to feel like you have superpowers. Just like when you complete a sudoku.
Here is an example of one of my latest assignments:
:
Next time I will put some new tunes!