Category: musicTheory1

Since species counterpoint always starts with a given melody, a cantus firmus, you will only be composing one line. Your first steps in composing a counterpoint line involve analyzing the cantus firmus (CF). Identify the mode of the CF. Note the cadence of the CF (does it end ^2 – ^1, or ^7 – ^1).…

First species counterpoint adds a contrapuntal line (a second voice) to an existing melody, or cantus firmus. For every note in the cantus firmus there will be a note in the second voice. Before diving into the rules, it is useful to go over some general principles of first species counterpoint. Know the four types…

Before one can compose multiple musical lines in combination, one must study what makes for good melodic writing. Melodic writing is technically considered “pre-species.” This post outlines rules for proper melodic writing, and then provides some positive (“how-to”) guidelines for constructing good melodies. Make sure to read the whole post. Rules The rules that govern…

I’m going to break up my counterpoint p0sts to make it easier to find the information you need to understand and complete the exercises. Counterpoint literally refers to note against note, and is used to describe musical textures with two or more independent lines sounding together. Although we generally refer to two historical periods as…

Don’t forget about teoria.com as a practice source for the upcoming quiz. You can practice identifying and constructing scales, identifying and constructing intervals, and identifying and constructing key signatures at this site.

Just some quick notes to remember, with a few bits of extra information. Tonality is a hierarchy, which means that pitches have varying levels of importance. Functional tonality (Western tonality) relies on the major and minor scales. You can use a major scale as an aid in identifying intervals. Ascending intervals from tonic are either…

Just to keep things simple, here are a few things to remember about rhythmic notation: Beginning of beats should be shown with a new note value, tied to the previous note if necessary, but not beamed to a previous note.* Beams stay within one beat.** *This rule means that note values do not generally start…