Hello can we talk about counterpoint? Doesn't have to be theory heavy, but theory talk is welcome. Mainly I'd like to hear if anyone has pinpointed any patterns or "tricks" they discovered and tend to use when not chording up a part of their arrangement.

More specifically I'm aiming at a concept know as "horizontal" vs "vertical" movement. Basically you can call stuff with lots of chords "vertical" and stuff with lots of independent lines(counterpoint) "horizontal". It's also known as homophonic texture vs polyphonic texture(this is stuff you can google if you're curious).

Getting a solid grasp of 'bassline <-> chords <-> melody' is much more simple than understanding the slippery intricacies of contrapuntal interaction in a solid way. I see it as like, harmony^2 or somethin. In fact there are very few books and 'theories' on the subject, and pretty much all of them but one is useless in terms of really showing you anything inspirational. It's a complicated thing, so much of it has to be learned through your own experiences.

However there are the obvious techniques such as trial by fire(trying stuff until something works), intuition(just do what sounds good), or arpeggiating through chords(bland imo and quite 'vertical' sounding). What techniques do you use?

Warning: excessive and hopefully not too pretentious analysis of my own pieces ahead

Intuition with me. I can't really explain how I come up with ideas. My composition process, like most others I'd assume, is often just stream of consciousness. My thought process basically goes 'the melody needs to go here, now this bit sounds a little empty so I'll put in a little ditty on another line, now this next bit needs sparseness to not overwhelm the listener, now I'll repeat that other motif'.
I don't often do more explicitly polyphonic/contrapuntal bits (I mean, they take effort and I'm lazy). That one bit in my last midi where the flute and clarinet have a little duet, I consciously thought through most of their movements. I kind of alternated between having one follow the general shape of the other but delayed, and having them move at the same time and complement each other. The more they have in common, the less overwhelming it is for the listener and the more it just seems to flow smoothly.
You can also hear me do this at the bass clari/bari sax duet at 0:47 in Aviary. At 1:00, there are basically three moving lines besides the bass and chords - the flutes with the erratic movement, the trumpets with the melody and moderate movement, and some clarinets which you can't hear particularly well with hardly any movement. The three lines are distinguishable, but the audience (in theory) won't be distracted by the fast movement of the flutes because it's just a repeat of the idea at the start. The clarinets provide a contrast against the moving chords by holding the B flat, but it's the melody you hear because it's the most obvious melodic part.
1:12 is more counterpoint, but simply formed by echoing the melody (except I put the echo first because I felt like it). 1:35 is another case of counterpoint by echo, but I echoed the melody in another key before the first melody had even finished, because that drives tension and made interesting harmonies.
2:28 is just me putting the same ideas over and over, in different keys, instruments, and timings. Again, the fact that it's all recognizably from the same idea hopefully reduces the confusion. 2:38 is my favorite moment in the entire piece because the sudden entry of a melody from earlier (counterpoint!) suddenly makes sense of the confusion.
3:48 is my second favorite moment. I figured about halfway through writing the piece that I wanted the climax to feature both melodies from 0:47 and 1:00 at once, although I edited the latter slightly to fit harmonically. Again, easy counterpoint right there - introduce a melody, introduce a clearly separate melody, and wait what's this? The melodies weren't so separate after all!
The rest of the counterpoint/polyphony in the piece follows the same guidelines - take some of the ideas you've come up with, and smash them together and see what happens. Remember, you want to keep it interesting, but you don't want to overwhelm the audience with too much new material where they're not sure what they're meant to be listening to.
Echoing the melody, while the melody is actually still developing, is something I think I'm starting to do a fair bit. Take the glock at 1:49 of 'girl with chestnut hair' for example - I deliberately did that in a way that echoed the melody. Or 0:26 of penguin ritual.

Hope some of this helps/is interesting!

Thanks for the great reply! stewboy I'm glad you listed some examples to examine here, that really helps. This is exactly what I was hoping to focus on here.

I noticed you choose the word 'movement' to describe your intuition and thinking process. I think that's what I'm curious about is how people personally utilize movement to create harmonic texture.

The first minute of Aviary is a good example I think. Like, the music is all just a swirl of harmonic texture and movement. There aren't any 'chords' at any point that you can drive a vertical stake through and say precisely what the harmony is at that moment. The texture is so lively and dynamic and it's just beautiful.

It's something that you can't exactly predict where it's going so it keeps you in the moment. I love that.

I've been classically trained to a degree, but I've had way, way more jazz instruction. The thought process with jazz and anything pop related is way different cos it's the general style to sorta think in comping 'blocks'. LIke, with jazz or pop you can write a chord progression and people can be like 'oh, okay got it' and fill it in with their own stuff. Do you know what I mean?

I definitely have a ton of my own experiences with "smash them together and see what happens", but there's never much consistency with that. It really is just like experimenting and seeing what happens with your lines when they come together, but I'm wondering how one could be more consistent and solid. I certainly can hear when a composer had a solid grasp on horizontal writing, like they're definitely past a certain phase of not knowing what's going to happen.

yea charlotte I'm definitely at that (bach) phase as a writer. moreso than his use of motives, the way he strings together pockets of harmony is something that I can't exactly wrap my head around. any kind of typical theory analysis just doesn't explain anything past how to write really boring four part chorales lol

"going thru history of counterpoint and then going "why did this change into this" and then trying to synthesise them all??" <- good advice, yea. and it does sound fun

i think if you wrote a four-part chorale and gave it a more interesting arrangement & song structure with post-baroque harmony then it could be pretty neat. and break the """rules""" a bit, or more than a bit. all the skills you need to do so are skills you already have; you just need to synthesize them.

this is just an idea; i have not tried it myself and please sign this waiver

I've thought of this before actually! Even tried it out a few times but it didn't work out very well for me. My conclusion was that four-part writing is a style which Bach perfected specifically for the harmonic tendencies of the time. It's kind of a very sensitive recipe, and besides that there's the creative problem of trying to inject ideas into a framework.

What charlotte said is actually really good advice lol, it's so obvious and simple too.

Jangler, like there's this original style of counterpoing called organum I remember studying a bit in school. It's a Very interesting style and it's really like no other style of writing. The types of textures it produces are very unique but it's something that only organum can do.

It's so weird how sensitive this stuff is

edit: oh, charlotte posted before I refreshed while writing my thing lol.

charlotte yea that's the kind of stuff I like to see, thanks for sharing. I'll sit down with those and stew with them. we already see eye to eye on a number of things


btw Jangler here is some late organum music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aySwfcRaOZM

I love it, very incidental. Not much strict theory involved and the singers improvised a lot

editx2: lol charlotte actually I Really want to discuss what you just wrote, give me a bit to chew on this

was it coincidence to post this 7 minutes after agargara plugged his largely polyphonic new album?

thanks for the link, gyms! i will check it out

lol Jangler yea it's weird, you posted that while I was writing this. I listened to a few tracks after my initial post and was like, 'wtf well dang here's a good example jeez' lol

@charlotte atm I'm trying to parse Why the seconds and thirds must alternate in a non trivial/imposed way(outside of "well cos they just fall on the whole tone scale otherwise")

I'm not seeing the M2/m2 within the third tho, hmm

in my mind:

-within OCTAVE(C~C)
--C~G(fifth)
--G~C(fourth)
okay check

-within FIFTH(C~G)
--C~E(M3)
--E~G(m3)
okay check

-within (M?)THIRD(C~E)
--C~D(M2)
--D~E(M2)
not check

perhaps I'm missing the logic provided by the tuning ratios? I don't quite understand them in relation to this(atm)

charlotte I think your logic is contained within the tuning ratios, I'm taking a closer look at it(btw maybe you should make a harmony thread and we can continue on that, this convo is about to branch way off of counterpoint lol)

no it's fine I was half joking. I'm actually running a lot of math and logic checks against your stuff rn lol. trying to understand and also I really want it to objectively check out! the philosophy behind it is really good and I'd like to play around with it in the same way I can play around with fifths.

thing about fifths tho is they are literally a physical law of nature(on this planet at least). the circle of fifths is more like a law of fifths. it's also a very simple interval, but the history of tunings make even such a simple interval become slightly impure. the rest of the intervals fall out of purity respective to their added coplexity and distance from the fifth.

what you're saying about the approximation is exactly what I was thinking but I'm over here scribbling around and doing research cos I'm fascinated to see if your system can be proven!

another thing i thought of on the train: i think it's annoying and misleading to describe counterpoint, as it is often described, as being "independent" melodies/voices. the voices are not independent; they are interdependent. i think most people realize this implicitly, but if you do not then you will write substandard counterpoint.

edit: perhaps this happens due to a casual conflation of polyphony and counterpoint; all contrapuntal music is polyphonic but not all polyphonic music is contrapuntal.

edit 2: i am not an expert in music theory and it's possible that the definitions of these terms that exist in my mind are not strictly correct. yell at me if i'm wrong please

tfw I understood maybe about 5% of this entire thread lol

Regarding vertical vs horizontal movement, I think 99% of the time the music I write is very vertically-oriented (using the bassline/chords/melody approach). I think the only time I ever write horizontally is when I'm restricted by channel limitations and spamming chords over everything is impossible to begin with. When faced with these limitations, my approach is usually to avoid redundant harmonies (unisons, octaves) between the voices as much as possible. The idea here is that I try to have all the voices outline a chord at all times, while simultaneously making them sound "melodic". I think the best example of me using this method would be this entry. I had to put a lot of thought into writing the "guitar" part so that it sounded good as its own melodic line, but also added to the harmony. If I had wrote this song using my usual methods, the guitar part would have been much lazier bc I'd just use chords to define the harmony instead. (The bass still isn't very melodic though so maybe this isn't Technically considered counterpoint... but it's the closet example I have ok :c)

@ charlotte, I have some responses for you but I'm gonna wait until my thoughts come together more concisely first


@ jangler, yea even if you look up the definition of polyphony you'll find "consists of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody" or something similar making use of the word 'independent', which is certainly kind of uh, false. the topic I was getting at in this thread was definitely the implicit 'interdependence' of polyphonic despite the title I used lol. I guess I'll correct it.

the main thing I'm definitely NOT talking about is homophony, which is the bass>chords>melody>drums route

god I mean, polyphony really is a slippery subject to discuss or even study.


@jimmyoshi, I don't think horizontal movement is better than vertical or anything, but I do know that vertical is much easier to control and understand than horizontal and that's probably why a lot of people stick with it(including me most the time).

it's more like something charlotte mentioned earlier(I've thought about this a lot and it's why counterpoint and polyphony have been on my mind a lot lately): "keep textures varied and fresh to the ear"

that means to be comfortable in both of these textures and be able to creatively express yourself in both at will, and use them both to compose and create exactly what your imagination is capable of. my favorite music definitely uses both musical textures in dynamic and fun/interesting ways

I don't mean to be a buzzkill but I don't think about any of this when I'm composing. Theory just shows you what you're hearing, once you know, you can recreate it without worrying about anything else.

So, when I exercise traditional Fux counterpoint it's because I want to thin out the voices for a moment, it might only last for a pattern before returning to the sound of chords and rhythms again.

Me, while trying to comprehend what's going on in this thread

fwiw my personal answer is that i don't have any particular conscious methodology for harmony except that i sometimes choose to be aware of fifth/fourth root relationships in chord and tonality changes, and i've come to think of my usual approach to melody as something like "scribbling over the chords"—so unsurprisingly, i don't have any particular techniques that i use for writing counterpoint, when i do write it.

however! this conversation reminded me of brainprom.it

, which is a section i transcribed from savestate's brain promenade channel f entry. the format has only two melodic channels, but a polyphonic texture with three four voices is implied. the implied tonality & chords are also pretty clear and solid.

problem is, i couldn't get the piece to work when i tried to expand it into a more relaxed format, where you'd have as many channels as you want for different melodic voices, bassline, and block chords. i'm wondering if anyone else has a take on this!

@chunter, I guess it's not obvious but I think it does go without saying that neither I nor charlotte nor anyone else who has theoretical musical discussions directly consult theory when creating. At some earlier point, did you not have to directly focus on what the note names are, understand a basic 'scale', figure out the concept of a 'chord'? These are all manmade abstractions that get taken for granted as if music as it is now was always available this way. It wasn't! I'm sure you're aware that something as basic as our tuning system is quite complicated and was contemplated and debated over hundreds of years via philosophy, mathematics, and trial-and-error.

In a way, what you're implying is that Bach was merely pursuing an exercise in futility thinking so much about what he was doing with his whole 'major/minor' system idea. These types of discussions are about invention and discovery!


@MiDoRi(and Jimmyoshi), we've been discussing this

and this

and that

. It appears to me that charlotte has intuitively stumbled across a simple and credible extension to the concept behind the circle of fifths. Idk what to make of it yet tho, that's why it's being discussed!


@Jangler, yea I'm actually the same. The only thing I really am directly aware of(sometimes) while working on something with harmony is how different types of modulations and resolutions relate via fifths. Melody and structure is always 100% intuition and feeling. However my intuition isn't very powerful when it comes to more involved polyphony, which is why I'm pursuing ideas on how one could practice in an effective way.


***Again I think the best advice so far has been to just study the history of counterpoint/polyphony in detail, starting from its roots in organum, and have a fun time synthesizing them all. It's good to also directly know it's a method that worked for someone else(who's really good at it, btw).***


edit: okay so I'm not high enough level to separate my replies in multiple posts, so this'll have to be one huge ugly wall of text(I'm trying my best to make it look not so ugly). Want to respond to charlotte now:

@charlotte, okay so I've given your system and, more specifically, your premises a lot of careful thought and consideration. Unfortunately, the logic behind your premises don't exactly hold under closer investigation so I'm failing to see how the rest of your conclusions can follow without a bunch of welding and duct tape(I know this is just a forum thread conversation so it's not like you're being precise, but I think it's beneficial(and fun) sometimes to put ideas like these under a microscope to see what's going on exactly). I'll explain:

---
"harmony is organised roughly by paths thru their most consonant intervals (the fifth, then the third in its cracks, then the second in Its cracks)"

This supposition requires me to accept that a second is more consonant than a sixth. Outside of my own subjective experience, which tells me a sixth is more consonant than a second, 5:3(perfect sixth) is a much simpler ratio than 9:8(perfect second) numerically speaking. My initial confusion with how and why you're alternating the major and minor seconds stems partially from this contradiction.

---
"circle of fifths instead of being simply C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb/F# B E A D G C etc (fifth, ~3rd partial) can b reformulated a stage deeper with thirds (~5th partial) to get C A F D Bb G Eb C ... A F# D B G E C"

Okay so here's where logical consistency with the original circle is a requirement if we're going to somehow build a reliable extension of the circle of fifths. To actually build a thirds extension that's logically consistent, you'd have to approach the exact same process Pythagoras did with 3:2(perfect fifth), except you'd be doing it with 5:4(perfect third).

I'm not even going to get into the details of how insanely complicated that would be. And once you're done with that process, you'd then have to inject and approximate the results into 12TET, which has an architecture based on 3:2 from the ground up. Some actual logically consistent thirds extension would be an absolute mess, not to mention we haven't even tried to contemplate the questionable seconds.

---
From here, your patterns only have a solid connection if you assume the logically flawed premises. I gotta say tho, they are very cool patterns and I think that's part of what our ear/psychology picks up on with sounds and music is that there is in fact a self-contained and consistent pattern going on. However I don't think your patterns here have enough actual solidarity with the original circle of fifths to be considered some hidden extension.

Actually, I'm extremely curious to hear what a tuning system based off of 5:4 would sound like. I don't think anyone has actually done that before, I bet it'd sound so completely alien and cool!

One thing is certain tho, it is impossible to get simpler than 3:2. I mean look at them, they're the first two prime numbers! Also, we interpret consonance and 'good sounding' intervals precisely because they are literally and physically the least complex. Our tuning system evolved from a perfect premise.

Bach: The exercise isn't futile when you don't know what that will sound like yet, but I think that's the point you wanted to make. I learned much of those basics you listed in childhood, so although there was a time when I couldn't spell out chords, I don't remember it very well.

Is Charlotte trying to make this? https://i2.wp.com/geargods.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Coltrane-circled-tones-bnw.jpg?w=863

The 12 tone system gives us other places where there is the same kind of symmetry as in the circle of fifths, and sometimes we can exploit that, too.

What Charlotte said, using multiple tonal centers with modes/scales that share the same notes can be quite interesting indeed. Something I should be doing as well some more

chunter, a lot of what charlotte has been saying kind of reminds me of the axis system

a very condensed version of my huge post above would be: you can draw circles to describe these relationships, but relating them directly to the circle of fifths can't possibly have an inherently significant meaning

@flappy this is probably pointless to post since i'm sure charlotte will address it, but i think charlotte's logic is (roughly) that a sixth is just an inverted third, which is more consonant than a second.

the problem with that is charlotte then goes into using actual tuning ratios, which deal with acoustics rather than 12-tone theory. acoustically speaking, the order of consonance is determined by how you apply the harmonic series to an interval(an octave in most cases)

edit: another problem is doing calculations in cents. they're logarithmic units based on 12TET, so reaching outside of 12TET while using 12TET units is doing a lot of wonky stuff. doing calculations based on Hz would be much better I think

Personally, I don't normally think much about "chords" when writing. The first concern is making a coherent melody line in each part, and chords that form are just a consequence of melody writing. I think about what chords they might be after writing them.

You could talk about scales and keys and tonality and chords and voicing and whatever else but really I think the important thing is just to try to write e.g. 4 good melodies.

For each line of melody:

- Where does it begin, and where is it going?
- Does it sound well by itself?
- Does it sound well with the others?
- Does its rhythm match or complement the others?

Don't try to write a series of 8 chords or something. The chords will already exist just by trying to make them sound well together. Write lines that sound good on their own, that would be fun to sing or play. Start with the most prominent voices... you can also write slow "chordal" melodies first as a framework, and then gradually fill in extra notes once you've established a harmony.

You can think about scales and I V I and all that if you want, but all of that is really something that will form naturally from the other constraints you're using.


I'd like to hear if anyone has pinpointed any patterns or "tricks" they discovered and tend to use when not chording up a part of their arrangement.

Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum is the original textbook on counterpoint. It's an interesting read, though there's a modern textbook by Robert Gauldin called A Practical Approach to 16th Century Counterpoint that covers the same material a lot more clearly. I'd highly recommend studying either of these.

Maybe it sounds strange to single out "16th century counterpoint" but it's actually a very good starting point. Scales were still modal and major vs. minor hadn't set in yet, a lot of the ideas about harmony were still open, yet counterpoint by itself was well developed by then.

for me, melody is one of the least interesting aspects of music. the only good melody is the one in the head of "boplicity"

I think that I have begun to realise that my general approach to composition is more rhythm-centric than tonality-centric, and I apologize if I'm not using the appropriate Academic Terminology to describe those things.
That's one reason I got really into NES music for a while, because it actually forced me to branch out from a nominal rhythmic approach and really think about how to squeeze the most harmonic texture from the limited monophonic channels.
I really enjoy hearing music that is more "horizontal" as you stated, flappy, but I think I don't usually approach composition from that more cerebral area as much as I would ideally like. It's more of an intuitive thing.
Lately I've been trying really hard to branch out from my usual harmonic patterns, which are very much based on quartal harmony because I just like it.
One thing Marc Vee (jazz/rock guitarist that I play with) has taught me from working on records with him is that everything should serve the melody, when melody is the carrier for the message you are trying to convey as a composer.
Very often we will arrange string/synth lines that weave in and out of the melody in decidedly unpredictable ways. It's counterpoint, but it's secondary/supplemental to the main focus which is a singular melody.

So I guess for me it's largely a textural approach rather than a purely harmonic one.
Joe Zawinul got into the territory of "through-composed" jazz around the time of the "Mr. Gone" album with Weather Report.
It's kind of exhausting to me to write that way, but it's fascinating.
It's this strange confluence of classical ideas and jazz idiom, but done in a linear fashion. There became less and less repetition of motives, and more of this thing of moving a structure from point A to point B like the snake eating the little dots on your Nokia phone.
Listen to the tune "Young and Fine" for an example...There is repetition of themes, but suddenly there are these compelling things that happen only once and then you're in a completely different place.

I also like the idea of creating arrangements based on a gamelan-like approach.

ty rainwarrior. your bullet points regarding melody is in line with what I've been thinking as well so it's reassuring to see someone like you write them out. it's like the resulting harmonic textures should just be a byproduct of interacting melodies.

thanks for the book recommendations. did you ever look at Schoenberg's counterpoint book?
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-----
@charlotte, one point I'd really like to discuss at some point(and it's an area I think you're overlooking and jumping to conclusions(perhaps)), is why do you 'split' again and again? there needs to be a solid justification for doing this.

It's easy to justify the initial 'split', because the reason would be, "it's the primary, most simple division possible". so we're dividing the octave range by 2. however if we just automatically 'split' it again, we jump right into dividing the octave range by 4.

splitting again and again keeps doubling the number of divisions each time, and this is inconsistent with identifying the most consonant intervals. to properly identify the order of consonance, you'd have to actually break it down as a series(1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5...) instead of a somewhat arbitrary 'splitting'(1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16...).

I actually broke down the octave as a series myself and approximated the results into 12TET, which gave some extremely interesting results. I wonder if you'd come to different conclusions if you saw the data as a series instead of 'splits'. I wanna avoid discussing that data here and now tho cos it'd absolutely explode the whole thread lol

I'm actually in support of what you're trying to prove, cos I think you have a point(it's something I've thought about myself, tho more specifically about key centers), however I think the foundation is off by a few good degrees and it's causing you come to conclusions in the slightly wrong areas.

but I'm seeing evidence of what you're trying to say. for example, what you said about the dominant seventh coming from splitting the fifth and the fourth. I actually produced that result on my own and went "oh shit!" before I even read your last post. my method produces a much simpler result tho(focusing on Hz instead of equal temperament ratios), so I suspect you're making things more complex than they need to be.

I want to investigate this for a while before I talk about it anymore tho

edit: charlotte, an example of what you missed by 'splitting' instead of doing the series approach is that you find a beautiful second inversion major triad when you divide the octave by 3

Wow, that is some food for thought re: the whole splitting of the harmonic series thing. This whole discussion has been really stimulating and inspiring but I think I should probably refrain from mentioning some of the concepts that it brings to mind, simply because they're outside the realm of this discussion.

Anyway, thanks for this!

who the FUCK writes in classical counterpoint these dyas

charlotte, one last thing I guess. a picture explains it a lot faster: http://imgur.com/a/oGDiA

this shows why that old classical V7->I voicing sounds so great. it even shows why second inversion sounds so good(second inversion looks to be the 'true form' of a major triad). you can see how a lot of detail is passed over if you just split over and over

Torchkas: people who can also write stuff like this https://agargara.bandcamp.com/album/dovetail-groove-method


charlotte: no I'm not against splitting the octaves. I think there needs to be a justifiable reason to split by powers of two over any other type of series. which, given the premise, there really isn't one. following the harmonic series is the only one that makes sense.

it's exact and thorough this way, and actually shows which intervals are objectively more consonant since the model follows the logic of the premise.

I really don't think it's necessary to achieve an aesthetic like the thing you linked with the kind of theoretical common practice period counterpoint you'd expect. I really do agree with what some other have said that just going by feels is a good way to just get good voice leading. Trying shit out that works and shit that doesn't. Studying music is more valuable than studying theory if you ASK ME. I view theory more as an after the fact thing.

i like counterpoint its good

Theory is good to get different perspectives, but I feel like it can be limiting in a lot of ways. Especially if you start avoiding or doing things out of principle instead of out of a musical reasoning. Acquiring more methods is always good, but it should be seen as a tool that's at your disposal and never as a rule.

flappy: just a quick note about 16th century counterpoint, one of the most important ideas that you'll find in Fux's approach is the idea that in some regular rhythmic unit (he'll call them "species") you have parts of the beat where the harmony is important (i.e. consonant), and on other parts of the beat there harmony is unconstrained (i.e. anything goes).

It sets up the idea that there is something to do "between" chords, and that leading a line from one place to another might be more important than preserving harmonic relationships at every possible step.

The idea of a "sus" chord is something I find really a complicated idea if all you know are chords, but in contrapuntal terms it's just something that naturally happens on the way from one chord to another. An emergent property of the system, rather than a whole new set of special chords to learn.

(Also, yes I've read Schoenberg's books. I'm a huge fan of his. His Harmonielehre was a landmark textbook, with nothing better than it when it came out but TBH I think some modern textbooks lay out the same ideas more clearly. In particular I'd recommend Robert Gauldin again, a book called "Harmonic Practice", I think his writing is very straightforward.)


Torchkas: a lot of modern music, popular or otherwise, has very direct connections with classical counterpoint. Just because you don't think about it, or even that people writing it don't think about doesn't necessarily mean they're not using it. (I'm not sure if you're distinguishing "classical" i.e. 18th century from 16th century here, either, but that's another point entirely...)

I never said "write 16th century counterpoint" though, I said "study 16th century counterpoint". Do Fux's exercises, and get some ideas, and those ideas might help in other places.

The point is to get your head around why and how chords form. Fux sets up the conditions with a scale, a way of treating rhyhthm, and one or two rules for leading voices, and if you try them for a bit you'll find that all sorts of well known progressions of harmony fall right out of it.

One of the coolest things about this is that you can change any one or even all the conditions and see how the potential harmony changes as a result. Use a different scale, use some different rules about which harmonies are allowed; or just use your ear and decide what sounds "consonant" and "dissonant" and you'll probably get some consistent set from it anyway; you don't have to be super-rigorous about it, the ideas still apply whether or not you have a conscious theory for every part of it.

It's a set of basic tools that can be applied in lots of different ways, and I find them incredibly useful. You don't have to use them to make 16th century counterpoint specifically (unless you really want to, there are some funky sounds worth stealing from it).

rainwarrior thanks so much for elaborating on fux and for the recommendations.

regarding suspensions and counterpoint, yea I know what you're talking about. I think where it really hit me was when I was listening to a bunch of renaissance era madrigals and noticed how rich the harmony was in certain places through their use of suspensions.

@Torchkas, theory is limiting only if you actually rely on it to be creative. And I think your assumption is that this is the context of these conversations, but it's not.

@sean_booth, the reason I used Hz instead of cents and tuning ratios is because I want to focus on what's actually happening physically first and then abstract it into a tuning system later. You can't use cents and tuning ratios to explain a premise that's based on something physical, which is what I've been trying to communicate to charlotte this whole time.

@charlotte, yea again it's a nice and clean pattern but if you can't justify why you'd use powers of two instead of the harmonic series, then whatever conclusions you derive are just coincidental and abstractions based on arbitrary reasoning. Aka, you're fitting whatever best fits the conclusion you want to see.

That's why I'm being a stickler about it, cos personally I want to see conclusions that are objectively valid and justifiable. The reason you'd use the harmonic series is because it represents taking the path of least resistance, which is how it works in nature.


oh yea, one thing I want to piggypack on rainwarrior's point in saying how studying music and theory historically helps you out in places you don't think about:

I ended up studying four part writing in school, which was really boring and lame, but one area where it benefited me tremendously is showing me why you shouldn't cross voices in your accompaniment(more specifically, not to cross voices in a section of the accompaniment which is made of the same texture). voice crossing over a similar texture(and direction, if you're mixing) robs your accompaniment of clarity and impact.

to this day I intuitively process this without even thinking about it

I have a bad habit of crossing voices every time I create vocal harmony arrangements, which sometimes get pretty complicated...I just end up hearing an inner voice that I want to add, some close harmony, so I'll just throw it in there on another part. It makes for some tricky singing!
If I wasn't so lazy, I'd re-arrange the entire thing and un-cross the voices. This is certainly not something I would do for (to) anyone else!

@Torchkas – i don't think anyone who's spitting theory in this thread is treating it as a set of rules to compose by. also, most of the existing corpus of music theory that we're referring to *is* a result of "trying shit out that works and shit that doesn't", and then analyzing what seems to work and why. this theory is a *result* of having studied music, and knowing it will give you a background that will make it easier for you to study music as well.

(i'm not even sure what this thread is anymore)

moot, I think you can get away with voice crossing if you pan the crossing enough so that it doesn't get lost in the soup. I think the original practice of avoiding it comes from the fact that in real life all the singers are standing together, so the sound source is coming from one direction where voice crossings can make lines fade in and out of detection. this is also why they tell you avoid parallel fifths cos those make lines fade in a out as well.

jangler, half of the thread is experimental theory conversation gone slightly awry lol

maybe the dovetail groove method is actually a secret counterpoint technique

I absolutely hated writing 4-part chorales in school, partly for the reasons you mentioned earlier...It's so hard to actually inject any sort of original ideas into such a rigid framework. It felt more like playing musical sudoku or something. I do really enjoy writing/arranging vocal harmonies though. It's a fun mental exercise and the results are usually very satisfying. The track I'm working on right now has between two and four parts in the BGVs at different points in the song, and I sang each part 4 times...so in the end there are up to 16 tracks of vocals just for the BG vox...Even though it doesn't sound like it!
I'm learning that lots of classic RnB and pop BGV arrangements are much more elaborate than they actually sound.
Michael Jackson's "Rock With You" was a fun one to figure out. I think I did 8 parts on that.
When I almost inevitably end up crossing some voices, it's nothing more than a mixing problem (or cutting and pasting some phrases between tracks), but as you said, not something I would wanna do for a live ensemble.

OK, so the reason I'm a bit skeptical towards theory is because I have a hypothesis that it's completely possible to make a piece of music that makes sense theoretically that won't make sense musically. Now I don't know if something like that has been tested (you'd need someone without musical understanding to do it). Most people who study theory actually do have musical understanding. I don't think studying theory on its own is bad, it's something I want to do more often too, but I do think it's important to realize the way it can affect how you make music. Putting restrictions is always good as a creative exercise, but how do you move forward musically if you tie yourself to those restrictions?

"I have a hypothesis that it's completely possible to make a piece of music that makes sense theoretically that won't make sense musically."

It is. It's called keffie's music. ;^)

edit: though by that definition wouldn't theory be the opposite of restrictive since it encompasses more things than just those that work musically? Or perhaps (more likely) theory is too restrictive in some aspects and not restrictive enough in others. I'm assuming you mean the latter... in which case I think I agree. In my opinion, theory is at best only an approximation of what does/does not constitute music. Which is why I think it's important not to consider theory as a set of strict rules to follow but merely a set of guidelines. Like "hey, this probably will sound good!" or "hey, you probably shouldn't do this! (but you can try it if you want)". That's my take on it anyway.

to say theory is restrictive is like saying math is restrictive. you don't learn new maths and then say, 'OK! from here on out, all of my human senses must be truncated into mathematical abstraction! this is what math is for!'

that's not what math is for, and it's not what music theory is for either

That's not what I said anyway.

well, you did say:

"I don't think studying theory on its own is bad, it's something I want to do more often too, but I do think it's important to realize the way it can affect how you make music. Putting restrictions is always good as a creative exercise, but how do you move forward musically if you tie yourself to those restrictions?"

presumably the second sentence has some connection to the first; even if you didn't mean to say that theory is restrictive, i hope you can see why someone would think that's what you meant!

Hey I've been working on some music lately and came across a problematic section that I think would serve as a good, actual example of why studying theory doesn't limit you.

Here is the problematic section:
http://picosong.com/7Vk3/#
http://picosong.com/7VkK/#

I like the instrumentation and texture I have going on there, but it sounds really muddy for some reason(voice crossings everywhere). I recognized that all the mud came from voice crossing, so I fixed them.

Here's the result:
http://picosong.com/7VYY/#
http://picosong.com/7VYS/#

To my ear, fixing the voice crossing makes everything much clearer and cleaner sounding and feeling(which is what I want). Pick an instrument and try to keep track of it in the problematic version - it's much harder to do than the fixed version. If you're doing production stuff, this helps an awful lot when it comes to mixing.

It's very important for me to mention, I didn't consult any theory books or reference material when I was fixing the voice crossing. I already put in all the work and exercise when I studied 4-part 18th century chorale writing years ago. I learned it, and in the process of forgetting it I was left with a bit of intuition that I didn't previously have.

That's nice, but my point was more that it shouldn't be seen as a rule. I'm not saying theory is bad, just that when you learn about theory that it's important to be aware how it affects the way you write music and if it could be constricting you. If you avoid voice crossing 100% of the time you might be missing out on some cool stylistic choices. Same thing goes for counterpoint regarding consonants. It's cool to share different ideas, totally, and theory can sometimes help if you're going for something specific, but I don't think it's some kind of holy law.

I won't deny that it influences your writing when you're learning new things, you're right and I agree with you on that.

It can't be helped, but it's not like you're in danger of losing your own unique voice because you're studying other people's ideas about how music works. Are you afraid it will brainwash you?

My concession is: be aware that it affects you, but also be aware that you gain intuition in the wake of forgetting it after you move on. That's why I get excited about theory discussions, cos I think, "what possible intuition could I absorb from playing with this idea?" They're not holy laws, they're toys!

Part of what I was trying to show is that I didn't 100% avoid voice crossing while I was writing that thing, that's how I ended up with a muddy arrangement in the first place. I didn't avoid or focus on anything at all, I was just having fun and making whatever felt good. But when I hit a snag I didn't like hearing, I knew exactly what the problem was and fixed it because of the intuition I gained from studying a particular theory about how arrangement should work with 3 to 4 voices packed together.

Sometimes it's preferable for something to be loose and sloppy, but what do you do if you don't want loose and sloppy and you're stuck trying to fix it without a clue?

I agree

To me (READ: to me -- my opinion):

Making sense musically to one's taste (subjective) >>>>>>>>>>> making sense theoretical (objective)

Theory helps in the process, with things of were to lead your melody and progressions and with interesting ideas, but won't make your song itself and have emotion and stand out directly: see Shine on You -- the first couple of minutes are only in 1 to 3 chords (but mostly only in 1 chord), but the way it is filled is not based upon theory, but the emotion put into it is something that shouldnt and wasn't intended for a theoretical analysis. The first 3-4 minutes of this song are literally perfect and it still makes me cry sometimes of its perfect nature and that is, to me, not something explainable why exactly.

Honestly, if you ask me, I see music theory as a powerful way to analyze how great music is done, and to develop yourself into other styles.

(sorry if the folowing doesn't relate to counterpoint, I should elaborate on that)

I believe composing music comes out of experience;
and if you really try, you can put theory behing any music, to explain it.

It's like building a house: the architect doesn't constantly rely on math to prove the house doesn't collapse; Yet, you can use math, physics, and structural mechanics to explain why it doesn't.

Instead, he might do it out of experience or even use a simulation to see how it stands (like us with our trackers that play back as we write, an amazing tool that orchestrators didn't have centuries ago, thus relying heavily on orchestration theory and rules)

Sometimes, music theory isn't able to explain why a certain tune or melody sounds better or catchier than another.

If it was the case, computers would be creating the soundtracks of our lives

thanks to this thread I can't not notice voice crossing in music I listen to now and hearing it everywhere is actually bothering me, lmao

It's like watching that one video about The Lick in jazz

Crossing voices is Good.

yeah, any song that doesn't sound like shit uses music theory even if the person doesn't know they know music theory

Jimmy, I suspect you say it's 'good' because it's simply easier to not worry about it. That's what I also suspect in general with people who seem somewhat offended when threads like these happen.

Also, it's very important to note that the interactions which constitute 'voice crossing' change depending on the harmonic texture. If you're doing a lot of chordy stuff, your melodic lines aren't going to get lost when they glide over a sustained chord(jazz fusion arrangements do this a lot).

Clarity is the point.


btw I have another relevant example related to this. Recently I've been transcribing/covering this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX6qdsXaeu4 (I love this game and ost very much)

Here is what I have at this point(it's still wip; needs strings and many performance and velocity nuances): http://picosong.com/7mhA/#

Regardless of which version you like more, I think you can easily appreciate the differences between the two arrangements outside of the sounds being different. Objectively speaking, my version was rearranged so that strict melodic lines were present and there are no voice crossings anywhere.

And here's the main point(something Torchkas already mentioned and something I agree with): it's neither inherently 'good' or 'bad' to cross voices. I still find that original King's Field 4 tune to be incredibly emotional, and knowing there are voice crossings and weird melodic lines all over the arrangement doesn't change that one bit. There's definitely something unique in there with all the overlays and crossings.

It has an undeniable charm and feeling to it, which is what I like about a lot of VGM really. Tho, admittedly most VGM sounds very lighthearted and doesn't really dig into my soul like more 'serious' music you find in the classical realm of things. There are some VGM OSTs that are quite technically heavy and rich tho, take just about anything from Motoaki Takenouchi for example.

But in general I find arrangements with voice crossings to sound and feel quite amateurish and flat. It's like listening to the composer laying down transparent sheets of music on top of one another, one layer at a time. The music doesn't actually interact with itself wholly and it's something I definitely feel and hear. I don't like being aware that the music has an author while I'm listening to it.

Again, I'm not saying that these kind of technicalities ruin or detract from the emotion of a piece, but in most cases it's similar to saying, 'hmm this track would sound even better if it were mixed well!'

@RazerBlue6, I think Shine on You is great for a lot of other reasons besides just looking at what the notes are doing tho. Despite what you might guess, I'm very responsive emotionally to organic textures and sounds. Shine on You has an absolutely beautiful space of sounds and instruments, plus the recording and production feels so clean and refreshing. These kind of things contribute greatly, if not mostly, to how a piece feels(to me).

Everyone has their own tastes of course. I think it's interesting what Jangler said earlier, that he finds melody to be the most boring aspect of music. Personally I emotionally value harmony, melody, and sonics the most, in that order.

But having said that, I think you can definitely still discuss and evaluate what makes a piece of music have that special quality. There's a very special limitless universe that forms when you combine arrangement, instrumentation, recording, and production. Using a spring reverb over a plate reverb will give you different feelings for the exact same sound source, etc.

charlotte, I realize something after digesting your statment: "where r ppl getting the idea that u only use theory to write really complex music? u can also use it to write simple music....really fast"

I'm actually very against that lol. And I think I understand where some people feel threatened or irritated around theory talk.

From a certain angle, what you're saying devalues 'simple music'. To insinuate something like, 'well that's a simple tune, it's just theory!' almost trivializes any emotional attachment to the tune and the process of making it.

And of course, the defense(and the truth) is, "wtf there's more to the music than just the theory behind it".

I still back Fripp so hard when he said, 'craft is the path back to innocence'

Flappy, YES! Robert Fripp phrased that more succinctly than anyone I've ever heard talk about this. That's absolutely my relationship with the "science" of any discipline. Fripp also said, "discipline is a means to an end, not an end in itself."
Words to live by, I think!

Robert Fripp is my favourite musician, for real.

What are these quotes from though? I'd love to get the rest of the context.

On a side note; this has to be one of BotB's longer/longest(?) forum posts, right? Haha

Rainwarrior, he is definitely in my Top 5 biggest influences/favourite people who make music. The quote that I shared was one on one of the editions of the album, Disclipline. I don't remember if it was on the original LP or not. But wherever I saw it, many years ago now, I never forgot it. There are a ton more things that the man has said that have resonated with me deeply, and that only deepened my appreciation for him and his music.
By the way, Lizard is my favourite King Crimson record.
My lizard is the lizard of King Crimson. :)

rainwarrior, my quote comes from this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ0_IlD7c14 . I've shared this interview in another thread already I think.

Quite a few people seem to think Fripp is really pretentious and full of himself, and I really don't understand why. His ideas and philosophies surrounding music resonate deeply with my own.

oh rainwarrior, btw I was looking more into your guy Robert Gauldin and I've come to discover a lot of his academic papers as well. Have you looked into his other published papers? A lot of them are really neat. There's one I'm reading now titled, "The Theory and Practice of Chromatic Wedge Progressions in Romantic Music".

This is the first time I've been so overtly thankful for having access to academic databases lol

I might have a long time ago, but mostly I just remember thinking his textbooks were pretty good.