Contrapunctual writing

[japjisingh]

Can anyone explain me what is contrapunctual writing?

[nyiregyhazi]

Based on my understanding of etymology,  I believe it's writing which is in opposition to being on time.

[cudo]

Can anyone explain me what is contrapunctual writing?

it means "punctus contra punctus".

A given melody sounds at the same time as an appropriate counter melody. In the first place this was "note against note" =  "punctus contra punctus".

[keyboardclass]

The word is contrapuntal.

[keypeg]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterpoint
You spelled it wrong.  Hence the joke about time (punctual rather than puntal)

[dcstudio]

counterpoint was my nemesis for many years.  One day an eight year old autistic boy came in my studio.  we were learning the D harmonic minor scale--when he suddenly began improvising on this scale.  He simply put his hands on the piano and began improvising parallel, contrary, and oblique passages within this scale.  It was absolutely beautiful and completely spontaneous.  I can't imagine that Bach put much more thought in it than this child did.  Not when he was required to perform for such long periods of time.  After 8 semesters of counterpoint--an 8yr old child truly made me understand that Bach improvised the counterpoint, then he went home and notated it. Not the reverse as many would have you believe.

That is my take on counterpoint....
only my humble opinion of course.

[keypeg]

This is a pretty good exploration of what counterpoint is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BixPLIWcb0s

And this one if a bit off to the side of the topic is just cool.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgDcC2LOJhQ&feature=related
... way cool .... somebody has turned that take-off into notation with playing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNIbXLUDzd8&feature=related
and then somebody else turned it into a string quartet!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aeZSlZBjGI&feature=related

 


DCStudio - wouldn't it have been nice for it to have been done this playfully in formal education?

[japjisingh]

Keypeg, the first video was cool... I don't know how but somehow I managed to understand some techniques in writing.. I didn't quite understand the difference between a canon and an imitation.. Please explain me the difference if you can!

[keypeg]

I am still learning.  I have some of it in my body because I always heard this kind of music, but it is an understanding where you don't understand what you understand like when a child uses words but hasn't learned grammar and also still makes mistakes.

Somebody made a thread about Indian music and raga.  I was hoping it was you because I think I see some connections with some things in Western music (or its history), but it was somebody else.  I want to look up your question for my own sake later when I have time.

[keypeg]

I didn't quite understand the difference between a canon and an imitation.. Please explain me the difference if you can!

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101029201713AAM9ZnQ
You can google "canon vs. imitation" for example, and you'll get lots of hits.

[dcstudio]

it would be wonderful if they let us know that counterpoint was played.  For those who played it, it was easy.  Reading it was difficult for me.  It looked different from the Mozart and Beethoven I learned first.  My eyes told me it was hard, never my hands.  Funny, I always imagined Bach sitting at the organ at church with just stacks of sheet music all around him.  Professional experience tells me that thought is ridiculous.  He would have carried around as little as possible, just like we all do.   The musicians who bring tons of extra music to their gigs, just like carrying around baggage.

my humble opinion on Bach

[keypeg]

DCStudio, your post set up a host of thoughts and associations.  "It would be wonderful if they let us know that counterpoint was played" which reminded me that the theory books I have mostly just shove around notes according to rules.  But when I started with theory rudiments, I had already played around with intervals and such, so I associated these things with what I heard.  Fortunately the first harmony intro. that I got was old and started with the instruction that we were to learn to hear what we wrote.  This It looked different from the Mozart and Beethoven I learned first. brought an association too.  I was in choirs, and when I learned to sight read using chorales, I tended to follow the 4 voices horizontally.  Later I learned to see it vertically as chords which makes it easier to play in another sense.

As you know, I learned Solfege first.  The instruction was not sophisticated back then and it was in a primary grade.  I found out later that we actually had a sense of implied harmony in it, even though it involves the melody.  Sol also has the feeling of the Dominant.  Ti was sung closer than a semitone to the upper Tonic, and had that feeling of sliding into Do.  Melodies do suggest an underlying harmony, and chords do suggest melodies that can ride on them.

I found in interesting when I dabbled briefly in First Species counterpoint (Fux) and read about that period.   Apparently originally the notion of chords was not there.  The folks were interested in being attuned with the divine, and the harmonious intervals were octaves and fifths.  I think thirds were accepted a bit later.  So when they wanted to add a second voice, they kept the other voice at a distant that gave that pure sound.  It is something you feel because a major second doesn't feel like a fifth.  When I used to sing with other, I would harmonize by slipping down a third or fifth just in that way.  It wasn't a hard transition to do one-on-one counterpoint in that sense.  As I understand, the singing came first, and then when they invented notation, they could start getting fancier.

[dcstudio]

keypeg someday I am going to print out your posts and write a book.  that was pretty brilliant. I think those folks who associated music with being attuned to the divine were on the right track. Nowadays we don't have to limited our thinking to fifths and octaves we have come to accept just about anything involving a pitch and rhythm as music.  This is a good thing. now nothing about music can be considered evil.