Still here? Good! This is going to be part of a set of guides into the sections of music composition that people seem to forget, or find a bit daunting.
Things like counterpoint (ala this guide), dissonance, key changes, unconventional chords, voice leading and many more will be covered when I have time to do them.
This is NOT for basic composition. I will be assuming that you do know basic theory already. If you don’t, this website is a good place to start.
Still here? Oh thank goodness. I was worried I’d have no one to talk to...alright, lets delve into what we’re going to be looking at today.
1) What is Counterpoint?
This guide is going to look at counterpoint and countermelodies. But what on earth are they?
The Oxford Music Dictionary (it’s Oxford, so you know it’s legit) defines counterpoint as:
‘The ability, unique to music, to say two things at once comprehensibly.’
That’s actually quite vague, so we’re going to add to that and say that counterpoint is when you have two or more melodies that work together, but remain independent.
Now I can hear you saying “Two melodies? I have trouble with one!” That’s okay, as later, I will be giving you a walkthrough of how to make one.
But in the meantime, a bit more on what counterpoint is.
We’ve already established that it’s multiple melodies, but how do they interact? Well, usually there’s some kind of similarity between them.
The most common (and the one you’ll undoubtedly keep to) is that they’re harmoniously linked. For example, they could be in the same key, so they slot together nicely.
I think the best way of thinking about counterpoint is like a jigsaw puzzle. When you have one melody, you’ll have one jigsaw piece with a portion of a picture on it.
Some counterpoint is another jigsaw piece which slots with your original piece, but has a different part of the picture on it. They fit together nicely, but have different things printed on them.
That’s like counterpoint! Two or more melodies which fit together nicely, but are quite different.
As an extra, countermelodies are essentially counterpoint, but the extra voices are much more melodious than normal. In a way, this makes it regular counterpoint.
I just confused myself...
2) An Example of Counterpoint - Warriors of the Balloon
Now that we’ve established what counterpoint is, lets look at an example. I’m going to use my piece: Warriors of the Balloon.
Why? Well, because I know the piece, so it’ll be easy to decipher and it shows that you don’t have to be a musical god (aka Bach, Beethoven, Freddie Mercury) in order to do this thing.
We’ll specifically be looking at the bit from 2.40 to the end, as the first iteration of the melody is very syncopated, so wouldn’t be very helpful.
Here’s the main melody and the counterpoint underneath, see if you can hear them both:
And the score (enjoy reading the alto clef):
As you can see, the top line is quite active. Lots of quick movements up and down its respective range. The lower voice however, is quite static, using fairly long and metric note values.
But it is still quite melodious.
So they’re obviously very different to each other. When creating this, I devised the 2nd melody from the first and built up this lovely counterpoint.
Now, I originally put them in very different ranges to show their differences, but here they are together:
Looks a bit more complicated now, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, this is meant to look complicated, it’s a sign of a good counterpoint! But note how each melody interacts.
There’s some points where one goes down, one goes up, both go down and both stay the same. This interaction is crucial for counterpoint as the more interactive each melody is with each other, the better!
Lets see HOW I made it now.
3) How the Counterpoint Example was Made
I mentioned before that I devised the 2nd melody from the first. But how?
Simple! I treated it like how you’d normally write a melody, but with more limitations.
I started by deriving what the chords were of the original melody. Here it is, with chord names and roman numerals underneath:
It’s not too complicated a chord progression. Besides the Italian 6th, all the other chords fit into fminor nicely.
Using this information, I created the counterpoint. The beginning chord is fminor, so I could use F, A or C on strong beats.
The next one is C, so I could use C, E or G on strong beats. And so on.
Looking back at the counterpoint:
You’ll see that I used an F for the first bar and then an E and C for the second.
But what about the 3rd and 4th bar? What did I do there?
Well, I followed the chord progressions, but I also created a descending sequence that iimitated the top line, so there’s some interaction!
Note that in order to do this, DbMajor had to become DbMajor7, to incorporate that C. Still worked perfectly though!
The remaining counterpoint followed each chord as its guideline.
So basically, I created a new melody, with the limitations of the other one.
4) A Counterpoint Exercise
If you’re still reading this, chances are you’re so close to asleep that I could type yawn and you’ll fall down unconscious.
yawn yawn yawn yawn
Still awake? Good, you can do this then.
I figure that the best way to learn is to do, so here is a nice melody:
It’s more of a classical melody, but I made it in 5 minutes, so there. You can check out the piano roll equivalent yourself.
HERE IS THE MIDI!!!
I have given you the chords. What I want you to do is to try out your own counterpoint using the information given.
Have fun and to help you along, here’s some tips:
There’s 3 instances of a rising sequence in there, specifically Bars 1, 3 and 5. What will your counterpoint do? Copy it? Go in the opposite direction? Hold a note there?
Bars 2 and 6 just have crotchets. Maybe make the counterpoint more dynamic at these points?
There’s a triplet in Bar 4. Will your counterpoint have any triplets?
There’s nothing stopping you from breaking the rules a bit. Want to make one chord a 7th chord? Feel free!
The final Bar just has a held note. Will you put a flourish in, or just have it as a big final chord?
I hope this has helped in any way, shape or form and I hope orchestral musicians now take time in their pieces to produce wonderful counterpoint!
If you want some feedback on any counterpoint you make, feel free to give me a buzz!
Dr Dissonance
Tumblr Version: http://drdissonance.tumblr.com/post/313 ... unterpoint
Google Docs Version: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JUk ... S4fWU/edit
I was thinking the same thing as I read through this [nevertheless wonderful] guide.
