Music Theory Comprehensive: Part 5 - Counterpoint Complete

1. Welcome Overview: - and the note that sounding next So we can't have parallels hidden or otherwise happening there . So things get a bit more complicated because of all of these things that are happening around it, right? So sometimes we have passing tones. Oh, it goes from a constant to a dissident to a continent, but it has to be the same note. Let's look at an example. So I have here is held over to the first beat of the next measure right there. So that's held over to the first beat of the next measure. So I want to end up 1/3 underneath, so I'm gonna end up underneath this note, so I'm gonna end up on a deep. So let's try to put that d there diminished fifth. That might be a little more than I want to chew up on right now, so let's not do it. Let's break the pattern because we can do that. That's another thing we can do in four species. Counterpoint. Why wouldn't we call that a to? I'll tell you exactly why we wouldn't call that A to know I said, in other places, I said, if it's bigger than an octave we reduce it down. So a nine seed a D, which is the same with the two right this'll is a parallel fifth. Why is it a parallel fifth? Well, it's because our two continents this is called a beat to beat parallel meaning down beats. Hey, everyone. Welcome Teoh Music Theory Part five counterpoint Ah, we in the last music theory Glass Part four we dove into first species counterpoint and learn the basic rules of music theory. When it comes to counterpoint in this class, we're gonna go through all of the counterpoints. Ah, what's called Second Species Counterpoint. Third species counterpoint, four species counterpoint and fifth species counterpoint also sometimes called free counterpoint wouldn't go through all of that. Now, at the end of this class, you are going to have completed my entire first semester of college music theory. So if you can get through this class and you feel comfortable with the material that you've learned in this class, then you will have no problem going into a music theory class at any college and ah, breezing through that class. Ah, you could even just go in and take the final exam and I bet you'll pass it. We are gonna have covered everything. If you've taken all five of my classes, that includes this one. You're gonna pass any music theory class at any college? I can promise you that. So this class is a lot of fun. We're going to talk about all the different counterpoints, the different rules in them and how they build off of each other and how the rules kind of they kind of pile up. But it's not that you need to learn hundreds and hundreds of rules. It's actually only like five big rules. And then a handful of exceptions. There's gonna be some new terms we're gonna learn in this class. So new musical terms that you probably never heard before we're gonna talk about, ah, how it all works and how to make music with this stuff and how composers throughout history have made music with it. So I hope you decide to join us. Please jump in. Um, we're gonna have a lot of fun. There's gonna be a whole bunch of worksheets I'm gonna give you Ah, for you practice this stuff on your own. Ah, and I respond to questions posted in the class every single day. So any time you have a question, you can post it there. And I can promise you I will get back to it within 24 hours, even on the weekends, because I'm a big nerd. I'm always at my computer. So, um, I just love answering questions about stuff, So please jump in, join us. Uh, we're gonna have a ton of fun in this class, and we don't get a lot of the counterpoint, so let's get started. 2. Tools We Need: Okay, everyone, um, if you've been following along in my other classes on music theory, you've seen me do this video on the tools we need for, like, four times. Now, this will be your fifth time if you take in all the theory classes. So I'm gonna change it up a little bit. Um, here's the tools we need. We need a notation program I'm using. You score. It's free. You can get this program. Muse score dot org's. You can also get some of the expensive ones finale and Sibelius. Cool. Um, I also like to have a good pencil and paper. Andy, get some staff paper. You can get it on Amazon. I like the archives brand. There's lots of them. Now. I want to show you one thing new this time. Um, I'm amused. Score here. And, um, let me just show you really quick how to add another staff because a lot of what we're going to be doing in this, um, class we're gonna need to staves for So this is the default. It gives you kind of one big state staff. Well, actually, the default is like this. That's in page view. Ah, and you can work in page you if you want. I prefer to use continuous view where just one long thing that zoom in either way is fine, Ira. I like to work this way instead. But I'm going to go to view and then in no edit. Sorry at it. And then instruments. And here here's how this works. Um, here's all your instruments and here's what you have on your staff now. So I have piano staff one. So if I want to add a piano, let's say just the normal two staves of a piano. What I'm gonna do is go here to keyboards and piano and then add than piano adds a two staffed instrument. So what I could do is just get rid of this one. I just click on it and hit. Remove. Now, I'm gonna have a good old piano staff here once I say OK, okay, so now I have a normal piano staff. Um, if I want to have to trouble Clough stabs, I could change it back there in the instrument thing. Or I could just go here and say cliffs and dragged this down here and now I have to trouble clef stay staffs. So, um, a lot of what we're gonna be doing in this class because we're talking about counterpoint a lot. We're gonna need to staves for most of it. Um, pay attention throughout the class, whether or not we're looking at a piano Grand staff Meaning, um, trouble class and a bass clef staff or to trouble cleft staffs. We might switch it up. We'll see how it goes. So ah, that's the tools that we need. Um, as always in the next video are the next chunk or the next section. I think I'm gonna give you ah, staff paper download. So you can just have some free staff paper, print some of that out. Keep it handy with a pencil so that you can scribble some notes down on it. You will thank yourself later. Um, and then after that, let's do a couple videos. Just two quick videos reviewing some key elements from the previous classes, that previous theory classes that we're going to need. I just want to reinforce a more more time before we dive in to this more advanced counterpoint stuff. Off we go 3. Review: Modes: Okay, let's do a quick review on modes and how modes work. Ah, Do you remember the order? The order of notes in the modes. So it goes. The order is major, and then Dorian is the 2nd 1 Fridge in is the third. Lydian is the fourth mix. O Lydian is the fifth. A Olean is the sixth. And remember, that's the same as the normal minor scale alien Lo Korean as the seventh. Remember? That's the goofy one. Ah, and then we're back to the major scale. So that's the order. And we can use the order if we if we just find a major scale. So here's our c major scale. Okay? And now we know we remember that from sea to sea, the key signature of a C major scale. Actually, let's do this in a different key. Um, let's do ah di. So I'm gonna make a D major scale. Okay, so I have a d major scale here now D two d and the key signature of d major get So now the modes are this is the major scale. So the modes, if we start on to so et is Dorian scale f is gonna be our fridge. Ian Scale. Let's go back here and at an F on the top. Oops! Okay. F two f is our fridge in scale cause it's the third. So it's gonna be an f for Jian scale g up to G is going to be a lydian scale because it's the 4th 1 to the fourth note of the scale. So we take the fourth, the fourth mode. Um, that's Lydian G two g in this case is gonna be Lydian A up to a is going to be mix o lydian scale be up to be is going to be the alien scale. Or, in other words, the minor. The relative minor see up to see in this case is going to be the low Korean scale. Remember, it's actually see sharp up to see Sharp because of our key signature, C sharp up to C sharp is going to be locally and scale, and then we cycle all the way back to D, which is gonna be the major scale again. So that's how we confined the modes very quickly. And I remember there's also another way, the way where you can say, well, the the Dorian Scale is a minor scale with a raise six or whatever scale you're you're looking at. Review those if you want, But remember that you can always find the modes this way. Most important thing to remember about the modes is the order of them and how this process works of shifting the notes and cycle circling around. If you can remember that, you'll remember all the modes just fine. Okay, with that, let's review the rules of first species counterpoint again because these are going to be the building blocks for everything we do in this class on advanced counterpoint. So let's go back and look at the first species counterpoint rules one more time, and then we'll press on to the new stuff. 4. Review: First Species: okay, I have here for us a county's firmness and let's write a counterpoint to it using first species counterpoint. The first pieces counterpoint means we're gonna add Ah, whole note. We're gonna add one note for every note in the country's for most. And the first thing that we remember is that our first note has to be an active or a unison . And in rare occasions we can do a perfect fifth. But really, we want on October unison. So let's dio and whoops, Let's do an active here and now The next thing I remember is that a last note has to be an octave every unison as well. So let's throw that there now, going through it. Remember the different kinds of motion we can have. Those are gonna be really important in this class. Contrary motion is our favorite. So that means that if this is going up in the country's firmness, we have to go down and we need to make an interval that works. So our interval here we would call an eight. Even though it's two octaves, we would still just call it an eight as we reduce it to eight. So That's an eight. What happens if I go down to a be here? That gives us a six and interval of a six here, which is good. It also gives us contrary motion. So let's label these as we go here. Okay? There's an eight and a six. Okay, What next? Let's try to do contrary motion again. So what note would go good with an F and be going down? So an A and A would work splendidly. An effort and a is a major third, uh, makes contrary motion. Doesn't repeat notes. I think that is awesome. Okay, so let's put 1/3 right there. Three right there, Because third, remember that. Will you just write the number here? We don't right. If it's major or minor, we just care about the interval. Okay. Can we do contrary motion again? This one's going down. So we would go up. Can we go up? Let's try it. If we go up, what we get, get e to be That's 1/5 fifth by itself isn't terrible, but it makes us like one foot in the grave. When it comes to do we have parallel fifths, so we kind of want to avoid that. So I'm going to see if we can get away with doing a similar motion kind of movement here where we go from. Ah, third down to another third. And that's OK. Remember, we can repeat intervals. That's fine. We can have parallel motion like this, and it's allowed a za long as we don't do it all the time. Um, two in a row are good. And is this similar or parallel? It's See it. See? It's a major third, too. A minor third. So it is similar motion, I believe, Um, because this one only went down 1/2 step and this went down a hole stuff. Okay, let's see what comes next. This one is going up. So if we could go down again, we would be good. So what will be going down? Oh, let's do an octave. That would be It's a nice landing point. Remember? Again, the rule with octaves is we don't want a ton of, um, but having an active in the counterpoint somewhere is Okay. All right, now we're going up. So if we can go down, we would be good. Let's try to get to well, What happens if I go down a step? I've been doing it all this hallway. We have a G and an E. That's a six. That's okay. Let's put a six there. Sixes are allowed. What next? We're going up to any. Can I go Are sorry up to an A. Can I go down to a D? Not really. That's going to get us into 1/5 again. Ah, perfect interval situation which we want to try to avoid. So let's see if we can do another similar emotion. If I go upto f I have another sixth and six is back to back. Our just fine so we can get away with that. That's perfectly allowed. Okay, so I have this nice kind of line here. I've gone down now I've gone. I've switched directions. When If I can keep going up, I go up here. I land on an octave and that's OK. Him actives are OK as long as we don't have millions of them. They kind of thin the sound out so we don't love him, but they're good in this case. I think the benefit that we get of having this line go down by the scale and then up by the scale will be better than the negative side of having these octaves. Here, let me say that again in a better way. These doctors are not awesome, but this line going all the way going down by scale and then back up is awesome. And I think this is more cool than, uh, it's cool enough to let me deal with those octaves. I'm gonna lock. Um, What next? I'm going down to an e. Can I go up to a A Not really. Gets me to 1/4 which I really don't like, remember, Fourths are like, really kind of a no no. So could I go down to an F then I haven't eaten and f that's a second. That's definitely a no no. So we got one other option that we can do is we could try to just stay put, could stay right on that G. That gives us an interval of ah, third. And that's OK. Remember, this is a bleak motion. So this one didn't move. This one did that made a new interval. It doesn't create any parallels. Remember, the rule with repeating notes is that it's allowed to repeat a note. Um, it's not allowed to repeat a note three or four times as long as, Ah, the note keeps moving. It's okay to do a repeated note once or twice. Okay, let's see if I can keep going up in my counterpoint here, I'm down to a D. Can I go up to an A? Uh, no. I can't step just up to an A That would make the good, contrary motion. But that lands me on 1/5. But I don't love, Um, especially since if I was 1/5 here, I would be going from 1/5 to an octave which would create a hidden active. So let's not do the fifth. Let's jump up to a B, though. That gives me a six, which is okay. And then I resolve on an eight. So this is a six, and this is an eight. Okay. So that made this nice line where we go down by step and then up stay the same small leap and then to the active again. Let's hear it. Okay, Pretty nice. I think that sounded great. Let's hear a little faster, just so we can maybe hear that line a little bit better. The top line. The counterpoint might become more clean or more easy to hear. If we Ah, it's Peter doctors a little bit. Let's try that, E. You have it. So that was a quick refresher on counterpoint first species counterpoint. Now let's jump into some rules of second species counterpoint. 5. Whats New in Second Species: Okay, let's dive into second species Counterpoint here Now what's new and second squeezes counterpoint. There's really kind of only one big thing that's different between first and second species , but that one thing brings with it a whole host of complications. So everything we know about first Species counterpoint ah, carries through the second species counterpoint. So everything all the rules that we know still hold true. The main difference is that for every note in the contours, firmness, let me just put a couple notes of a Candies from this town. Do that. So if that's our contest firmness, which is usually written in hall notes in second species, we're gonna right two notes. So it's always a 2 to 1 relationship. Okay, so that's still kind of one big thing. I guess I should maybe finish that out. So and first species counterpoint. Every note in the county's firmest had another note that went with it, right? So it was always a 1 to 1 and second species we're gonna have due to one. We're going to write to notes for every one note in the county's firmness, right? That sounds simple, right? Like all we're gonna do is double up on our notes, and everything will be fine. Well, not quite. Um, because of this, we now have a lot more things that can go wrong and a lot more options. We have increased places that we can make a parallel fifth or active. We also have the ability now to use passing tones, meaning tones knot in the cord. So check this out. Here's what basically happens because we're doing two notes. Let's look at this. No, for a second, this note has to make sense between here and here and here. So the relationship here has to work between the notes that come before it and after it. Also between the note that sounding underneath it and the note that sounding next so we can't have parallels hidden or otherwise happening there. So things get a bit more complicated because of all of these things that are happening around it. Right? So sometimes we have passing tones. We have a couple of new intervals that can happen. Um, before in first pieces counterpoint, we would never use the interval of a second. Right? Um, like b flat to see. We would never let that happen, Um, in first species counterpoint. But in second, we can call this a passing tone on its way here. And that interval of a second can be allowed, right? And then we land here on 1/6 and that's okay. I have another one here, the C to a D. And that's convey allowed. If we can call this a passing tones, we're gonna talk more about those passing tones shortly. We have a whole new kind of list of terms that come up because of these new complications that arise from the 2 to 1 relationship. So let's start off first by talking about metric accents and diminution is this is something that we haven't seen before because it never really came up, um, in first species counterpoint because all notes were 1 to 1. Now we have kind of a hierarchy of notes happening, Um, which is what metric accents talks about. So let's jump to a new video and then we'll talk about that 6. Metric Accents: Okay, um, metric accents. What that means is that now that we have two notes against this one, these two are not equally as important. One is more important than the other. So the weight of the malady gets put on the downbeat. The downbeat is the is the more important of the two notes in any given bar. The second note on the upbeat is sometimes called the diminution. So this is something we have to consider when we're writing because we need to make sure that constant intervals happen on down beats And if we're going to have a dissonant interval, which we can have a lot more of, and I'll talk about that in just seconds. They happen on the off beat, um, or the second half the measure or the diminution. Whatever term you want to use, let's call it an offbeat. Let's stick with that because that's kind of more of what it is. So because of that, the second note against the Contras, firmest the off beat can have a number of new intervals. Now it can actually have be a second seconds were not allowed in first pieces. Counterpoint at all. Um, we could do a second weaken. Do 1/4. We can do an augmented fourth. We can do a diminished fifth. We can do 1/7 and we can do in ninth. We can. All of those intervals are now allowed as long as they are in the UN. Stressed part of the counterpoint, which is another way of saying they are on the off beat. You cannot have any of those intervals on the downbeat. Imagine a kind of works like like let's do this. What if I got rid of these notes, the offbeat and we said This is pretend These are all whole notes and we are exactly following the rules of first species counterpoint The new rules that we're talking about and these new intervals only apply to the new note, which is the second half of the measure. So we can have the second here and remember the second interval. What we're talking about is between the Contras firmas we always have to count the Contras . Firmas as still a going this B flat is still happening through this whole measure. This d is happening through this whole measure. So in this measure, for example, we have to say this de to be relationship. We have to think of that as 1/6 because it is. And then we have to think of this f not as a lone wolf. It has a note that it's being set against, and it's this D still, because the D is still sounded. So we have to take into account that as 1/3 also, So we have a 6 to 1/3. That's okay. We like both those intervals, and those are both constant intervals. You don't have to have a dissonant interval on the second half of the beat. You can have two constant intervals. You're almost always going to have to do it with a leap, though, right? Because if you have to continent intervals, there's no way to do that without a leap. If you're doing a scale going down with now that we're doing two notes, toe one, Um ah, scale. Going down isn't gonna work. Um, you're going to run out of notes and you're gonna have to do dissonant passing tones, and that's OK. That's why it's allowed, Um, but doing a leap to get to constant tones is also allowed. If we go here, we have a C to an ear, so we have 1/3 also allowed. We came from another third here, so have 2/3 in a row. But that's OK. And now we're going down to a second C to D and that's allowed because it's on the second half of the measure and that is going to go down and resolve to actually 1/5 which is okay by itself. As long as we don't create a parallel and the next note takes us down to 1/3 I'm so another skip here to get us down to another constant interval. So that's how the metric accident works. Ah, we have new intervals that we can use what we can Onley use him. On the second half of the measure, the UN accented part of the measure, which is another way of saying, Ah, the off beat 7. Resolutions: okay, There's a little bit more to the behavior of these new intervals that we need to talk about and particular in particular resolutions they need to resolve correctly. And they need to be set up correctly. Um, which the kind of music theory term for that is the preparation they need to be prepared correctly and they need to resolve correctly. And, um, the good news is that you only have to kind of remember one thing for the preparation and the resolution, and that's don't use a skip or a leap. Um, they have to be prepared by a step and have to resolve by a step, which means in second species, counterpoint were fairly limited on where we can put skips and leaps. Actually, so let's look at this one. This is our first dissonant interval. This is our second, So it has to be prepared by a step, and that could be in any direction. So here were at a D. We're going to step down to a cease. We've stepped into the distance. You always have to step into the dissonance, and you have to step out of the dissidents so here to get out of the dissonance. We're going to step down. That's the resolution. So the preparation and the resolution so and both the preparation and the resolution have to be constant intervals. They have to be the, you know, officially approved first species intervals. Those are our continent intervals. So now we have a leap here, and that's totally okay, because between two confident intervals, Now we go here and we have a constant interval. But here is our next dissonant interval. Okay, so let's look at that one. We have constant here. We have 1/3. We're going to approach this second the dissonant interval by a step. So we're gonna step into it, and then we're going to step out of it into another continent interval of 1/5. So this is our dissidents. We'll step in in the preparation with a step out in the preparation error in the resolution . So those new intervals that we just learned that would be the second The fourth augmented forest diminished 5th 7th and ninth. Those air now allowed on the off beat. As long as we step in to the dissonance and from a continent and we step out of the dissonance into another continent. Okay, you could almost think of it as these two notes. This being a d r a skip apart, and we're just filling in the gap. That's kind of what's happening here. Um, we're using a lot of skips and the same thing happening here. Those air skip apart and we're putting a note in between. We're filling in the gap. Um, that's kind of literally what's happening here, but we just have, like, a whole bunch of rules to govern the change of it. Okay, so those are all our rules for second species counterpoint. Now there are There are a lot more things to look at in terms of passing tones, Um, the the types of skips and leaps you can do between constant tones. And then we have this thing called neighbor tones. That's all coming up in the next section. Let's do one more video. I'm going to do a quick recap of everything that is the official sanction rules of second species counterpoint. And then we move on to how, um, all of those passing tones work together 8. Second Species Rules Summary: Okay, let's do a quick recap of the rules of second species. Counterpoint real quick. The first rule of seconds Species counterpoint is that all the rules of first species counterpoint still apply. So everything we know about first species counterpoint that's all in there. Um, and then we have basically three more rules that we're gonna tack on to that number one. A metrical context through accented and anak scented positions in the measure is a new concept. So we have metric accent is something we have to worry about now to where a note falls within the measure. Second thing, that's new dissonance created by the intervals to four augmented for diminished 5th 7th and ninth in Theis. Acceptable positions. So in the correct place, we can use those new intervals, right? And that correct place is the off beat of the mayor. The third thing is continent skips and leaps and steps so leaps two continents are allowed between things like five and 65 and six would be a constantly We didn't really talk about that one, but that one will become, um, we'll be talking about that a lot in the next couple videos when we're talking you out melodic embellishment. So hang on for more information about that one. Go. OK, so that's kind of our nutshell version of the official rules of second species. Um, let's dive into some of the more finer points and writing some of these and see how it goes . And if you're saying to yourself, Hey, for last four videos, Jay's voice is like an octave lower what's going on at a cold and sucks. I hate having a cold, Um, but the only thing worse than having a cold is just like laying around all day. So I'm making myself get out of bed and makes him these videos because I like making them. And they may be Jimmy up a little bit. So that's it for now. I'm gonna go for a walk and try to get some fresh air. Um, hopefully next batter videos. My voice will be at a regular, um, active 9. Passing Tones: Okay, let's talk about passing tones. Um, as you can hear, I'm still sick. My voice is very low. Um, but that's okay. Um, I think I feel better than I sound. I think my voice is just screwed up. Um, so ah, let's let's press on and talk about, uh, kind of point, Okay? So passing tones, So passing tone is what we call a non cord tone, but that we step through. So we just talked about how whenever we have these non chord tones, we have to approach them by a step and leave them by a step just like this, be to a to G. So there's a step there in a step there. These are called passing tones because we just passed right through it. So I have a new ah, counterpoint up here counters, firmness on the bottom and a counterpoint on the top. So I want to go through and, uh, label everything again. So let's start with our intervals. So here we have an eight and another eight. Now, does this work? Um, this actually does not work. This is wrong, because what do I have to waits in a row? That's technically speaking parallel octaves. Um, because it's an active two in a row. It's the same note, but that actually doesn't work. Here's a way around it. Boom. Check that out. We can actually, um this is kind of a footnote of a rule in second species counterpoint, but we can actually start with 1/2 rest. Um, you get away with that at the beginning. Um, there's another one that I'm going to do over here where we can end with, Ah, whole note on the second to last measure, we almost always end with the hole. Not in the last measure. I think we have to end on ah, whole note in the last measure. But in the second to last measure, if it's a leading tone leading up to tonic, which it is here, we can end on weaken, Stay on a whole note for that whole bar. Those air to rhythm exceptions. So let's avoid the parallel active by getting rid of that note. So now we have an active between here and here. Now, let's move on. Okay. Uh, G two B, that is Ah, third right. And G to a That is a second But that's OK, because we're passing right through it. And now we have E to G. It is another third. That's okay. And e to be which is 1/5 which is okay by itself, no harm there. Now, one thing I want to do, and this is something that you'll do if you're doing a full analysis of, um, a counterpoint against that country's firmness is we can label are passing tones. So what we're gonna do here, I'm gonna label this PT that is passing tone. And it's allowed for two reasons because it stepped in and stepped out. And the other reason is because it's on the UN accented part of the measure. That's why it's allowed. We could also go a step further and label these notes like this. That's what you put in parentheses here. Okay, PDR preparation dissonance resolution. All right, so you don't always label those, but you can. Sometimes you'll have to you depending on. Like if you're doing some assignment. But, um so passing tone preparation dissonance resolution. Okay, let's keep going. Get up to an A and a c here. So that's gonna be 1/3 an a in a D That's gonna be 1/4 a no no. In first species counterpoint, but totally okay in this case because it's passing tone. Let's labor on next bar, and then we'll go back and do this stuff s so we have a g e. So we have a six, and then we have a G and A G s. We have an octave. Okay, let's go back and deal with this D So this is gonna be a passing tones. Let's label that as such, Get rid of that little arrow thing. I know where that comes from its amuse score thing, but it's ignoring for now. And then let's do this again. Copying and pasting preparation dissonance resolution works, right. That d has to be on the second, um, half of the measure or else it doesn't work. If you had something that looked like this where you had preparation, dissidents, resolution and the dissidents was on the downbeat, no good Can't do it, so PDR. All right. Uh, let's keep going. Let's just finish this out real quick. So we have effin and a hoops. If you have one of these copy. So that's 1/3. And then we have an F an F and that's an active. Then we have an E and G. So that's 1/3. And then we have an e end in a. That's 1/4 which is allowed. Let's just finish this out. You have a D and A B, so that's a six. And then we have are active, that we want to end on right. We always we still want to end. Not an octave or unison. Um, so the only other dissidents here, that's not that's not That's not That's not that is so Here's another dissonance. So we need to deal with that. Ah, that is a passing tone and let's put all of this stuff on. It is, well, preparation dissonance resolution. There we go. Okay, so that's how are passing tones work? Um, I think we've nailed that home now, um, their arm or types of things we can label, though. In here, um, let's look at continents, skips and leaps next 10. Consonant Skips: Okay, let's talk about continent skips or leaps. What these are is just, um Let's jump in right here. Right. So we're going to go to two notes without crossing through a dissonance, and we do that with constant skips. Now, these air sometimes called, uh, Kordell skips, as in Ah, skip within the cord. So what that means is, Let's look at this court. So we have and e and a G on these 1st 2 notes. Okay, So if let's just go away out here, let's see, what court could that possibly be if I put an E energy down? There are two possible things that that chord could be. I could add a B and that makes it in E chord. Or I can add a C and that makes it a C chord. So depending on what note I use, um, I'm gonna kind of define what that cord is, So let's go here. We used a be here, so we finished it out as an e chord. And that makes kind of sense because the note in the base is probably the root of the court . In this case, what we're doing here is going from G to be weird, using another note in the cord to fill in the UN accented part of the measure. It doesn't create a dissonance because it's in the court, so that's why we call them. Sometimes Kordell Skip, as in is in the court. But the actual name for them is a continent skip or a continent leap. We could also have a constant leap. Remember the rule for step, skip and leap. A step is to notes right next to each other. A skip is a major or a minor third, and a leap is 1/4 or anything bigger, like right here. Here we have a G two and E. That's 1/6 so that is a leap. But it's a continent leap because we're going from. We have a G here and an E here. So my cord is actually in this case. It doesn't matter what my court is because I jumped down to a G and that's a units era active there. So it worked out just fine, right? So I'm still in the cord because I used an octave of that. So that is another Kordell skip or sorry, this is in this case, it would be a court. A leap, actually. So let's label these for these. Let's do it at the bottom. We do it with the C s thing. Kordell Skip. Actually, it's do it at the top just so that all of our chord tones have a name up here. Here's another one. Copy that one. Put this one right here. Okay, so there's another quartile skip that would go here. And here's another Kordell Skip, because F is in the bottom. Actually, we can identify these pretty quickly. If we just look at our intervals that we've laid out down here. We've got to constant intervals in a row. It's gonna be a continent skip. So let's go right here and say yes, continents keep. All right, now we have a label on just about every note of our counterpoint. This 1st 1 doesn't have a label. Um, because nothing comes before it. This one doesn't have a label because it's continent before, and it's constant after, so there's kind of just no label to give it. That's okay. Not everything needs a label. Um, we really wanted to give us label. We could just call it a continent, Um, the same thing with this one and with the downbeat. Okay, now there's one other kind of non core tone that I want to talk about right now, and that's a neighbor tone. So let's jump to a new video and talk about neighbor tones. 11. Neighbor Tones: Okay, let's talk about neighbor tones. Neighbor tones are used less in second species counterpoint. We don't see them as often, but we do see them and they are allowed. Now. What they are is a case where a note starts on a continent, goes up to a dissonant and then comes back down to the same note in the new court. So it goes from a constant to a dissident to a continent. But it has to be the same note. Let's look at an example. So I have here Ah, a new um, counterpoint for us this time. We've got the country's firmest on the top and the counterpoint on the bottom. That's totally okay. Sometimes we just switch it up. So let's go right here. Actually, these two bars is what we're looking at here. So I want to try to explain this G a little bit, so we can't really call it a passing tone because we have here, we would have a continent. Here's a dissonant and here's another continent so that in and of itself is okay for a passing tone. But what's not is we approach by step, and then we would need to go up to an A right cause we need to step in and step out in the same direction. In this case, we stepped in and we stepped out in the opposite direction, starting out enough, going up to a G and then going back down to an F this G. In this case, we would call a neighbor tone it just kind of inches up from F and then inches bright back down to F. That's a neighbor tone. Now there are two different types of neighbor tones. There's upper neighbor tone and lower neighbor tone. This case is going to be an upper neighbor tone, right, because it goes up. That's the only thing. So we go from a constant to a dissonant to a continent. The dissonance still has to be on the second half of the beat, the UN accented part of the beat. So we would call this Let's put some labels on some stuff here. We would call this a preparation, and then here we would call this an upper neighbor, U N. And here we would call it a resolution. Okay, so preparation upper neighbor resolution. Now check this out. We're going to make this a little more complicated because we have another one like right away. In this particular case, this are This resolution is also a preparation, So this one works a little bit different. We have an F to A C that's a continent that we haven't e to a. C that's 1/6 that's also a continent. So in this case, it's a continent, and it resolves to a continent. So all three are continents, but that is also allowed in a neighbor tone. Um, you can do neighbor tones from continents two continents and still call them neighbor tones . Um, there will harder to spot, and they're even more rare than the other kind where we go to a dissidence. But we can't could label that as a lower neighbor because it's going from a note away and then back to the same note. Um, I have one more in here right here. Have another lower neighbor. So here we have. Let's label it first. It's gonna be a lower neighbor, right? Because when it goes down, So here we have an e er sorry, Aggie to an e. So that's 1/6. That's okay. Here we have an F two and E. That's 1/7. So that's gonna be a dissonance. It's in the right spot of the measure. That's totally okay. And then we go back to an E. We're sorry we go back to a G a G against the D, which is 1/5. That's a continent, and that's okay. And then we move on to the end of the peace. So here, right here, we have a continent skip going up to another note in this chord that makes G B D makes a G major triad. And then we land on the unison so we could label all of the rest of these notes with either continent skips constant leap in this case right here. Here's another continent skip, um, passing tone, not a passing tone, because that's a leap. So that's a cord tone. There's a passing tone because we have step, step, step, step in, step out. So there's a passing tone. Continents skip. What else? Continent leap. Constant leap continents skip constant skip, lower neighbor, continent skip and then the end. So that is how neighbor tones work. You've got to be on a pitch. You go up you go back down to the same pitch, The starting and ending pitches, uh, have to be confidence. The one in between could be a dissonance, or it could be a continents. Um, if you play your cards just right who have upper neighbor tones and lower neighbor tones By doing that, we still have preparation and resolution on neighbor tones. That's what we label those outer notes of the neighbor tone. Okay, that's it for ah, melodic embellishment. Um, how were kind of picking notes? We generally kind of call of these three things. Uh, melodic embellishments. And those three things are passing tones, constant skips and leaps and neighbor tones collectively known as melodic embellishments. Okay, let's do a little work sheet. Next. Um, this is our first worksheet of this class, so, um, it's gonna work the same as all the other worksheets I've given you. If you've taken any of my other music theory classes, that means, um, you can download this worksheet. Do it. Um, it will have some activities for you to do on there just to kind of reinforce this stuff, and I'll have the answers at the end of the worksheet. So you can check your answers against mine. Um, and it'll be really good practice. So please do those there really helpful. I've heard from a lot of students that really enjoy those in these classes, so please check that out. Ah, and then Ah, well, move on, Teoh, writing some of our own counterpoints from scratch in second species after you. 12. First And Last Measures: Okay, let's now work on writing some of our own Ah, second species counterpoint pieces. Um, now, just like we did with first species counterpoint. Let's focus on the opening and closing things first, cause they have kind of their own rules that we pay attention to. So the opening the first bar now. But we still have the rule of we need to open on a unison or inactive, um, or we can open on a perfect fifth as long as the Contras for Mrs in the base. So we could open on 1/5 in this case. But let's keep it simple. Let's open on. Ah, unison were inactive. Now we have the rhythm to worry about. Here, um, we could open right on the downbeat, so that would be an active right, and that would be OK. So far. I need to do a different note here. But remember, we can also open on the second half of the beat like that. Um, and here's what's interesting. Depending on what text book you read. Uh, this is actually often called the preferred way toe open, um, a second species counterpoint. And the reason is is that it helps clarify the independence of the two lines. You hear this one start and then you hear this one start, Um, and it's easier for the listener to hear that their separate lines this way. So this is often kind of the preferred way for it to start. Interestingly enough, it seems like, you know, kind of a cheat to do it that way, but it's not. It's actually kind of, uh, good. So now let's come to the end. Okay, so in the end, we want our last bar again to be, ah, unison or inactive. And the rhythm of the very last bar is always gonna be a whole note. So let's do, Let's go back here. So we've got an active, actually, two walked is. But remember, we just call it an active in this case, Um and we don't need another half note here. In fact, we do not want another half note there. This is the resolution. That is the end is the downbeat of the last bar. There is no more Now the bar before this, the bar leading into the end has some special rules as well. This bar can be just ah whole note if we want. No, no. Other bars can be that all bars need to be to half notes, right? Those second to the last bar. The penultimate measure, as we call it, can be a whole note in some cases. Um, for example, in this case, because we have a b down here, I could see it working to do Ah, be up here. So we have a d down here a b appear this d to be is 1/6. We like six. We also like that this interval opens out in contrary motion to the octave. Right. So this is a leading tone up into our active. This is the two and goes down to the active. Um, that's a really nice sound. So if we can make this make sense toe land on this, be right here. We don't need another note right there. And the second half of the measure, that's just one kind of goofy exception. Now, if where we're coming from, it doesn't make sense to get to this be. And it makes sense to be somewhere else, like here. Then we might want to do that right, And that gets us to our leading tone. It opens out, and it still gives us our nice country motion. Um, so it kind of depends on what comes before and how we land here. Right? So let's assume that we're gonna have this a here. Um, and let's work with that for now. If when we get there, we realize that we could land right on a B here, we might change it so that we just do one whole note now, other things to remember about the second Bradley wanna leading tone in here. So 1/2 step below tonic is our leading tone. Um, if you're in a minor key, you want to raise that sucker? Um, if we were in C minor, for example, were in C major now, but if we were in C minor, this would be a b flat, and this would be in a flat. So what we would do is we would raise those both to a natural and be natural. Um, so we were kind of invoke the harmonic minor for these last two notes to just push us into tonic a little stronger. So in the second to last measure, we would raise those in a minor key in a major key. We just leave them just as they are. So keep that in mind. We always want to raise are leading tone and our sixth when were at the end of a counterpoint to help just push us back into the tonic when we're in a minor key. Okay, so those are remained things. Remember about the beginning. In the end, Um, let's do a quick review remembered the beginning. We want an octave or unison most of the time. In some exceptions there. In some cases we can do a perfect fifth. We can start this on the downbeat or on the off beat, and doing it on the offbeat is sometimes preferred. The end note is always a whole note, Um, and it's got to be an October unison. The penultimate bar, the second to last bar, could be, ah, whole note or 2/2 notes, depending on what works best and needs to be a leading tone pushing into our tonic. And if it's minor, it should be raised to use the harmonic minor. Okay, so that gets us are three goofy but bars that one last thing to point out is that these three bars are the Onley, three bars and second species counterpoint that can be anything other than to half notes. All of these bars have to have to have notes in them, right, And this one could have to half notes, and this one could have to half notes. But it doesn't have to you and this one doesn't have to. Um, but all the rest of these bars do so those three bars air the only exceptions. Everything else has to be to half notes. 13. Melody Notes: now one of the tricky parts about second species. Counterpoint is that in the midst of dealing with all these rules watching out for all the parallels keeping in my neighbor tones, passing tones and all the rules and everything else, we still have to make a nice sounding melody. And that could be rather tricky. So let's finish this one out. I'm gonna do it two ways. The first way I'm going to do well, let me just do it and you'll see what I'm talking about. Okay, so let's go through here. So I have a see and A C and G. What would go well with that G Oops. Okay, a G that goes up. Let's do contrary motion. I can go down to a beat that makes 1/3 rather nice. Let's do We could do a constant skip here and get us up to a deep That works. Well, now we have and e and we could go up to an E since we're kind of on our way there anyway, so that makes it a nice melody line this data it out at it kind of thing works Well, uh, let's try doing a passing tone here so I could go down to a D That's gonna make 1/7 between E and D. So if that's a true passing tone, I've got to go to a C here. So hopefully that works. I have an A in a sea that makes 1/3. That's okay. Um, let's go now up, up to a d again here. And let's make that another passing tone. So that's 1/4 A to D. Right and force are considered dissident. So if I'm gonna treat that as a passing tone, I go up to E. If I went down to see, it could be considered an upper neighbor tone. Let's have a look at that that makes a G and A C, which is another fourth. So that's a dissonance. So that's not gonna work there. So let's go up to an E and call it a passing tone that makes a G in an E, which is a six that works Okay, because that is a continent next, So I've done to passing tones in a row. Let's just do like a continent skip. Let's go down to ah be G E and B that works because that makes 1/3 between G and B. Now I have an f I easiest way would be Go back up to a C here, so FNC is going to be 1/5. Then I can go right up to a D, which is 1/6. So I have got to constant intervals in a row. That's not a constant skip that's just two continent intervals. And now here I have an E in an E econ land right on an octave, which would be great. Let's do another continent skip. It's to a big, constant leap down to G so I can set up this a toe work, right? So I'm gonna jump down to G here. That's a continent leap E T. G is 1/3. That works just fine. And then I can finish it out. Cool, right? Um, I don't think I broke any rules. Let's hear it. So how do we do? We obeyed all the rules, but our melody is pretty boring. Ah, and what makes it boring is I've kind of overused C, d and e. Nearly everything is C, D and E. Here's a B. Here's G and here's an A other than 12345 notes. It's all C, D and E, so it's really kind of contained in a very narrow, um, range of notes, just three notes that I'm using over and over and over, which tends to make not a great melody. So let's try that again. I'm gonna keep my first and last two bars and let's take a different angle with it. Let's now think about obeying all the rules. But let's also now think about the melody and making sure our melody comes across as a nice and lyrical. What we want is not to be repeating a bunch of notes, and we also tend to want Lake kind of a direction to it, like a high point around the 3/4 mark or some kind of point, some kind of moment in it. So it climaxes somewhere it reaches a high note. You could do it with a low note also something that shows a little more direction. Okay, let's try it again. Here we go. So for this first note, let's go. Let's go down again because we do like that Contrary motion, we have 1/3 now, right away Let's just get out of the CD stuff. Let's go down. So now I've got a second. So I'm on a passing tone and I'm going to resolve it down to a G E. T G is 1/3. That works great. Let's go back up to that be and let's see if we can kind of do a sequence kind of thing here. So we have a constant skip. That's okay because I have 1/3 here and 1/5 here, so they're both confidence. Now let's go. So Ivan A in a c. I haven't overused anything yet. I've got a nice little line. We go down, we go up. So so far, so good. Let's do so A to see a to A. How about another constant skip kind of falling down again? So I have a G. What can I do to get down lower? I kind of want to get away from these notes. Let's go to E. That makes 1/6 and then I can skip up another constant skip up to the G to make it octave to another continent. Skip. Then let's step into an A F to A is 1/3 That's okay. Now let's do something a little weirder. Let's go be so that's a dissonance. So that's gonna be a passing tone, and I'm gonna hopefully step into C against a e that works. That is 1/6. But check this out. This be This is a new interval that we haven't used in one yet because F to be is a tri tone. Right? So that's actually an augmented fourth. Um, but it's OK. Remember, Augmented fourths Definite diminished. Fifth are in the allowable dissonant intervals flowing there on the second half of the measure. There are allowed in second species counterpoint so that tri tone is actually OK here because we stepped into it, we stepped out of it. It's on the second half of the measure, and it's one of the intervals that are okay, so I land on a C two with an E underneath it, so I'm not 1/6. Let's jump up to an e. So another continent skip, and then I've got this big interval here, and that kind of works. But I like this as being like my high point of the melody this e. So maybe if we let that breathe a little bit. Let's let's change this and let's see if we could just do a whole note on B. Oops, Here we go. I think that's gonna work a little bit better because we have this melody that's going up and up and up and up and up, and it hits its high point, which is not crazy high. But it's the high point. It's the highest note of the melody, so it's got a nice direction there, and then it's gonna fall down to this Be, which is 1/6 against the D, and that's gonna open out to the active. I think it's gonna work. I think it's gonna sound nice. Let's hear it. All right. It's better, right? It's much better than the 1st 1 Ah, I'm pretty happy with it. The melody has a much more interesting shape. So when you're writing these, this is just another thing we have to think about while we're working on counterpoint is, does it sound interesting? Right. Um, we can obey all the rules and write something really dumb. Um, that's totally possible. So be keeping in mind the flow of the melody. You want it to have, you know, a range of about an active. You know, that's not like, Don't that's not a rule. Don't like, Hold yourself to that really fiercely. But, um, mine, in this case does have a range of exactly inactive, actually meaning the lowest note. If I look for that, it's an E. The highest note is an E. So it's got a range of about active that kind of meanders around inside of an active. And that's nice. That makes for a nice melody. Um, if you have too big of a range, it feels like you're just jumping around like crazy. And if you have too small of a range, it feels like you're just repeating notes over and over, like you saw in the 1st 1 that we did. 14. Harmony: Okay, let's talk next about the harmonic things that we need to consider while we're working on a second species counterpoint. And what we really mean by the harmonic stuff is the vertical stuff. You know, the intersections of notes on a vertical level, which, when we're working in counterpoint, means parallel actives, parallel fifths and those things that we avoid, like the plague. Which is a funny thing to say about aspects of counterpoint. Because when counterpoint was first being developed, this style of counterpoint was first being developed. The plague was probably actually a very real consideration. Um, well, maybe not. I don't know. I'm not a history. Okay. Anyway, let's talk about avoiding parallels. Now, when you're doing something like this, so we have a lot more notes now and a lot more opportunities to create parallel octaves and fifths. One thing you can do to save yourself trouble is try to avoid using similar motion. When you use similar motion, you're in danger of creating a parallel right. If you're on 1/5 and then you do similar motion to another fifth, you've created a parallel fifths. If you use contrary motion, you're safer. But you're not invincible. Case in point I've taken are counterpoint that we just made in the previous, um, video. And I've changed a couple notes, so I've changed a little bit. Eso that it's got some problems and I just want to go through and identify them. Okay, so let's label the intervals. Okay, so I started on an active here, right? See? To see Octa. Great. Now have I got here G two g, another active, right. That's parallel octaves right there. Two octaves in a row. No good. Even though they are technically using contrary motion, right? This one's going up. This one's going down. That's contrary motion. But it's also parallel octaves, so this is no good. Um, this is a big error. So parallel octaves No get Let's keep going here. We have to g t a. We can call that a passing tone because I go to be here. It's totally okay. So e to be is the fifth, Okay? Nothing wrong with that. Now I go E t g. That would be 1/3. Nothing wrong with that. But now I go a t e. Now I got a problem because this is a parallel fifth. Why is it a parallel fifth? Well, it's because our two continents this is called a beat to beat parallel meaning the down beats are parallel fifths. Um, even though this is a continent skip, we still think of this as, um up. It's passing in some ways. So two down beats of a perfect fifth in a row, um, are considered parallels. So this would be considered a parallel fifth here. No good, another air. And I've got another error in this. See if you can spot it by the time I get to it, I'm gonna keep labeling my stuff here. So I've got a two and a that's an active Oops. There we go. So, fifth to an octave that's too perfect intervals in a row. That's not against the rules, but it's dangerous. I have red flags going off here. Um, the easiest way to fix this would be to change this note. Then you would avoid the parallel fifth and the dangerous thing that is happening here. But let's just keep going. Have a G two B, that is Ah, third and I have a G two G that is an active, an awful lot of octaves, but these two are not parallel octaves. These air, Okay, it's a lot of active, so it's not great, but it's These two are OK because they're on the off beat the un accented portion of the matter. Um, and that could be allowed. So that is not a parallel active in that case. Okay, now, we haven't f to an A that would be 1/3 and F to a B same thing as before. I didn't change that. So that's our tri tone. Will call it a augment and four augmented fourth. That's how we label that. Um, and that's okay by itself because it's passing step in and step out. That's all right. Now we have an E to a C. We're gonna call that 1/6 e two and e call that an active because it is. And now I have a D and D. Uh, what did I just make right there from here is an active and here is an active. So those are adjacent, but that is an adjacent criminal active. So it's the two intervals right next to each other. That makes one also the note. Two Note Makesem and you skip that in between note. But that in between note does count. The second half of the beat does count when we are right next to tune, too. Of the same interval. Parallel octaves. No Good. Right there. However, it gets worse. Uh, I think if I did right, let's do one more. Here. Be to de is 1/6 look and then back Teoh, our active. Do you see the last one? There's one more in here. It is here to here. So another parallel active on a note to note or a beat to beat. I'm sorry. So that is inactive. That is parallel. So I've got, like, a double parallel active here. Got this one to this one. And then I also have this one to this one. Um, so there's a bunch of stuff wrong with this, but, um, that's what we have to watch out for. And those are the rules behind how parallel octaves and fifths work. Now, let me point out something here. Why don't we like parallel octaves and fifths? This is interesting to note. Um, perfect intervals have a really Finn sound like they fit together just perfectly by their called perfect intervals, and they sound thin. So when you're writing a counterpoint, you always are hearing two notes, right? But when you hit those perfect intervals, it feels like everything thins out. And that could be okay. Um, but if you do two in a row, then it really feels like things thinned out, and it just doesn't sound good. Um, now to our ear, these kinds of intervals, these kinds of perfect fifths and octaves that, like have a note in between are a little harder to here. But, you know, back when this was, um, much more common, uh, people were more sensitive to hearing these kinds of things. Let's hear what we got here and see if you can, um, here the parallel octaves and fits. Um, pay special attention, I guess, to this 1st 1 and these last two. Um, And to see what you think, see if you can hear the badness in it. I could hear it. I don't like the sound of it. I mean, it sounds like, um kind of like the rug gets pulled out from under you when you hit, like, this interval and this interval. Ah, and this last one, but that's OK, but it just feels empty in many ways, and that's how counterpoint works. There's all these rules and you have to follow them. And parallel fifths and octaves are not good. Okay, let's do one more video on this topic. I want to do a rundown of the rules that we've learned in second species counterpoint so far. 15. Summary Of Rules: Okay, let's do a wrap up of the rules of second species. Counterpoint is all. Okay, So what I'm gonna do here is we cheat a little bit, and I'm going to read through the list of all the rules. And after I read each one Ah, well, talk. And, um, make sure that I explained it throughly, I think. Okay. Rule number one. Start with either i half rest or 1/2 Note on the downbeat of the first measure, followed by 1/2 note on the offbeat. The first harmonic interval should be an active or unison or 1/5 if the counterpoint is in the upper part. OK, I think we've talked about that in the last few videos. How we need to start it and our options for starting it. Good number two end with a whole note in the last measure and the harmonic intervals 568 or 538 or unison. Or is that the last two notes with whole notes 68 or 38 unison or unison as in first species. So what those numbers mean is 568 means the interval. So 68 is gonna be our leading tone to an active from something else. So 68 So what? Remember, this is bad. This is parallel. So what they really want is 568 would be that so 568 is a good way to end other options. 538 So that would be so. That's five. And I want to make this a three D f. And then we went down to see that doesn't work very well. In this context, I'll be 538 But those are our options for ending. Okay, Number three. Other than other than the beginning and close, use whole notes throughout for the con twos and half notes for the counterpoint. An immediate repetition of the same pitch is not allowed within the bar or over the bar line. Um, I'm not sure if we address that last one. Um, you can't repeat pitches. So, for example, this would not be allowed the same pitch twice, And what they're saying is whether or not it's the two notes with in a bar or two notes over a bar, so that would not be allowed, either. You cannot repeat pitches back to back number four right constant harmonic intervals on the beat. They also may appear on the off beats approached as continent skips steps or leaps. Okay, I think we're talking about that one. Um all the beats have to have constant intervals on it. The off beats can have continent intervals Aziz, long as they're set up through a constant step, skip or leap number five include dissonant harmonic intervals 2479 and diminished fifth and augmented fourth if resolved correctly on the off beats as passing or more rarely neighbor tones. OK, I think we've covered that. We know what passing tones are. You know what neighbor tones are? We know how to get in and out of those intervals. Number six Check from one downbeat to next and from an offbeat to the next note for parallel fists or octaves. Perfect continents is from one offbeat to the next. Offbeat are allowed, but no more than two in a row. Okay, so that's what we just did in the previous video. So they're saying, Check one down meat to the next. So here's a downbeat. Here's another downbeat. Make sure you don't have parallel octaves or fifths between the two down beats like here. That's parallel. Fifth, right. Parallels from off beat to off. Be like what we had here. Actually, 8 to 8, that is allowed, but no more than two in a row. So if this was an active, that would be bad. Okay, number seven intervals on the downbeat on normally approached melodically by step, preferred or skip. Avoid similar motion into an active or fifth over a bar line unless the upper voice moves by step. So this is what I was talking about when I said Avoid similar motion kind of in general if you can, because that's when you get in the danger zone for creating, uh, parallels. Uh oh. Great. Use no accident ALS, except to raise flat seven and flat six, if necessary at the close in minor settings. So everything should stay in key. Uh, unless we're in a minor key and at the end of it, you need to raise the six and seven to get us that leading tone. Number nine Last one continue to follow the guidelines for first species counterpoint with respect to the overall motion between the parts contrary parallels similar and oblique and principles of good melodic writing. So all the rules of first species counterpoint still apply. Great. So that's it for second species. Counterpoint kinda. Um, we're gonna move on next to third species counterpoint. But just like first species counterpoint going into second, all the rules of first applied to second and all the rules of second are gonna apply in third. Right now, if you're thinking the difference between first and second was that, um, first species was 1 to 1 note for every note. Second species was to voice for votes or notes for every note. Third species ought to be three notes for every note. You're wrong. It's a little different than that. Um, so let's move on and let's get to third species counterpoint. 16. Four To 1 Counterpoint: Okay, let's move on to third species Counterpoint. Now, Like I said, this isn't, um three notes for every hole. Note, um, is gonna be a shocker, but it's four notes to every corner. It's actually sometimes called 4 to 1 counterpoint. So that means we still have our county's firmness in whole notes like I have here, and we use quarter notes for the counterpoint like So now this does just like when we did this before, Um, and we're going to start on 1/4 rest. So just like before, all the rules of first species counterpoint still apply. All the rules of second species counterpoint still apply. And there are a couple more, Um, not that many in third species. Actually, it does bring in a couple different wrinkles. Now, remember our big wrinkle that we had to deal with in second species? Counterpoint was the idea of accented beats, right, and there are certain kinds of intervals that could happen on accented beats and certain kinds that could happen on non accented beats. So let me do one more measure here just so that we can see ah, full measure without arrest in it. There that looks good. Okay, so let's just look at this measure here. How about that? Okay, So where is my accent now? Remember before in second Species Counterpoint, my accented beat was the downbeat. My un accented beat was the middle beat. Right Would beat three in 44 time, which is what we always do this in. But now I have these other ones too. So what's the game plan here? Um, what's happening here is we have two different levels of accented beats, is what's happening here. So we have our strongest accent here on the downbeat. Still always right. Strongest accents gonna be on the downbeat. We have a weaker but still accented beat on Beat three Now and then, we have our un accented beats, Our beat two and four. Okay, so this is an accented beat. Always has to be confident. These are anak scented beats. They can be constant or dissonant and this one is and accented beat that behaves kind of like un accented beats. So this one can be constant or dissonant as well. So accented, beat, less accented beat and un accented beats is what we can call the three types of rhythms that we have to deal with here. Other than that, the intervals we can use are still the same. We're not expanding the interval. Ah, the intervals allowed at all. We have two new types of motion we can create. Other than you know, we've got contrary motion. Parallel motion. We've got a couple new ones, two of them that arise because of the way things are working here. And we're gonna talk about those two things in the next two videos. Our rules of parallel intervals still apply, and these are the rule is the same, but it's a little more confusing. So check us out. Let me. Actually, still one more bar here. I'm just to make this more transparent. What's going on? Okay, so we cannot have a parallel perfect interval meaning parallel octaves or parallel. Fifth between two adjacent notes. Right. So that's kind of impossible. Well, no, it could be possible here because we could go from 1/5 to 1/4 or something like that between two adjacent notes that would create two perfect intervals. Um, which would be a no no. We also can't have parallel fits our actives between down beats So basically between these notes, right? So if we had an octave here and an active here, that would be parallel octaves between the down beats? No. No. So you've got to watch out for your down beats all the way across. Um, that makes writing this line to be musical. A little trickier. Now, one of the ways that we can kind of simplify. That is, with some common practice things. Some things that we tend to do when we're working in third species. Counterpoint not necessarily rules, but good guidelines. One is think of as often as possible using steps, um, in third species counterpoint. There's a lot of just scale patterns going up and down and things like that. So there's a lot of steps, right? We have a skip here and then a step all the way. So one skip and then a leap. Here, leaps are fairly rare. You should never have more than one leap in a row. And, um, you can usually get through 1/3 species counterpoint with Onley using one leap. Ah, the main reason you would want to use it is you have to watch out for voice crossing. I don't think voice crossing is something we've talked about yet. But as we get more and more notes against our Cantu's firm, IHS voice crossing could be a concern. Let me show you what voice crossing is. That would mean, let's say this keeps going up. So let's say this one up to ah di, it's one up to an E and this went up to enough. Okay, so this makes a nice line in our counterpoint. It's going up, up, up, up and hopefully we can land on a continent on the next note. Um, if I keep going, it's not gonna work because I'm gonna have a G in the base in an A over there. That's a second. That's going to be a dissonant interval on the downbeat. That's gonna be a big no no, But let's not worry about that. Let's worry about this thing I just did right here. This is a case of voice crossing, which is not allowed. All that means is, if we were playing us on a piano, we would have to cross our hands over right, because this note and this note are the exact same note. Okay, so if I was to write this note in trouble class, it would be right there. It would be over here, but it would be the same note. Those are both E. That is a unison, so you can sometimes get away with the unison. That's not what's breaking the rule here. What's breaking the rule is this note. This note is in the lower staff, but it is actually above that note. So we've crossed over this note, and now this note is higher than what's on there. That's a no no, we don't do that. That's called voice crossing. So when you're working in third species, sometimes you need to make a leap here. We made a leap down just to avoid getting too much higher. We've got 1/3 in between these two notes. That's just fine. But if I went one more, we'd have a second. And then if I went one more would be any use in, and then we'd be in trouble so a leap can get you out of ah pickle with voice crossings. Um, continent skips quite rare. Um, as I was just pointing out another thing that's fairly rare and should be you should try to avoid is doing any kind of skip or leap across the bar line. Try to keep the bar line going. Step wise, either up or down doesn't matter. But we want a step crossing the bar line. That's not a really strict rule. You can have one if it works, but we tend to like our notes to kind of walk into the downbeat and third species just by step right up in there. Um, that means we have a little they're planning to do, right? Um, this note. If we go e f g. If I go up one more and step right in there, I can walk right into an a here. Let's do it. And that's gonna be an octave with that note. And that works as long as I didn't create a parallel active here, which I didn't that's third. That's an active. That's okay. I could have also stepped down here to an F That's an effort, and a that's 1/3 that makes a parallel third between these two but parallel thirds air. Okay, a song as we don't do like hundreds of them in a row. So I could either I could go either up or down here. Let's stick with going down and then last thing to point out, Just remember that the rules of good music still apply. We talked about this in the last one. We've got to obey all these rules. But we also need to make an interesting sounding melody here, Right? With these constant quarter notes moving, um, it has to end on a using or an octave. It has to start on a perfect interval between these two notes between the sea and sea. So here they're starting on a unison. That's okay. And remember, that is a unison, not an active. So if from here we went up, we would have a voice crossing there because this note is actually higher on that note that would not be allowed. Watch out for that. Okay, lets keep going. And let's learn our two new, um, non core tone embellishments in the next video 17. Cambiata: Okay. Our first new type of embellishment is called a cumbia. Tha. It's a fancy name. It sometimes means changing tone. Also. Now this one is. It's kind of complicated, actually. Um, because it's four notes long. It's not just, you know, uh, two continents skips in a row or something like that. It's a four note to maneuver. You can do that basically will move you down a minor third. You can also invert it, but it's less likely if you inverted it, you would end up up a minor third, much more common is toe Have it descending. So what we're gonna do to make it happen? Let's try to put one here. No amount of third here with my after a So I want to end up 1/3 underneath, so I'm gonna end up underneath this note, so I'm gonna end up on a D. So let's try to put that d there. Okay, so this is where I want to end up now. I got to notes to put in here so my middle two notes can be constant or dissident. There's gonna be a skip between the middle two notes, so I'm going to do is go down a step and then down a skip and then up to my third. So these two notes can turn out to be constant or dissonant, depending on what you're doing. In my case, this is 1/4 from E to A. So that's a dissonance. See, to A is 1/6 so that's a continent. And then I'm to my third away from where I started, which is 1/5 in this case de to a. So the pattern is we're gonna go down a step down a skip up a step, and that gets me emotion of 1/3 from the first note to the second note through this little ornamentation. Now, why does this get a special term? Um, it's kind of an exception to a rule that we're not supposed to approach or leave a dissonance by a leap. So if this turned out to be a dissonance, which it could, it's not in our case, but it can. Then, um, I would be skipping into a leap, which is not normally something we want to do, right. So, uh, this lets us get away with it. This whole four note maneuver called a Kambia. It's kind of weird. Um, it's kind of Ah, I don't know. It's okay. Ah, I was gonna say it's like, you know, putting a big word on something. But it is a rule of counterpoint. You should know what a cumbia is. So that's how it works. Let's go over one more time. We're gonna step down, and then we're going to skip down, so it's gonna be 1/3 and then we're going to step up. So that's gonna be a second of some type. And that's going to get us a minor threat away from where we started. The Middle two notes can be continent or dissonance, and they are going to have a leap in them. Are sorry, a skip in them. 18. Double Neighbor Tones: our next one. Our next embellishment possibility that we find popping up in third species. Counterpoint. It's called a double neighbor tones a little bit easier. Um, but it's another four note maneuver. You could almost say it's a five note maneuver, Actually, let's put one right here. Um, what we're gonna do this time is we're gonna start an end on the same note in the measure. Okay, so the end of the measure, we're gonna be on the same note. Okay, So we're gonna traverse basically nothing in this. Now, you remember what a neighbor tone waas neighbor tone meant that we would go up a note and then back down to the same note. Or we would go down a note and back up to the same note that would be an upper neighbor if we went up and then back down. Ah, lower neighbor would be if we went down to a be here and back up to a C that in between note can be dissonant. Now, we're gonna do a double neighbor tone, and what that means is that we're gonna do both an upper and a lower neighbor tone. So we're going to go to a lower neighbor tone, and then we're going to go to an upper neighbor tone. So we're gonna have a leap. There are a skip there in between the two and then we're gonna land back where we were. So we're gonna go. Are starting pitch lower neighbor, dissonant upper neighbor, dissonant starting pitch by step. So it's always a step down a skip up and a step down again. This is a double neighbor tone with these two notes. In between are the double neighbors, and they are typically dissonant. In this case, I'm starting on 1/3 that I'm going to 1/4 which is dissonant a second, which is dissonant them back to 1/3 which is constant. Um, now I said it could also be considered a five note maneuver because what you're supposed to do is continue it on and resolve it in the same direction as the ending of it here. So I should resolve it to a B if it's really gonna be complete, and hopefully that is a good continent, that is 1/3 so that works out just perfectly. If this wasn't 1/3 if this was a dissonant interval. I'd have to go backwards and redo this maneuver because it wouldn't work. Um, you can do it opposite where you go up first and then down. And in that case, I would still be on everything works here that's allowed to be going up. So this no would need to be up here to continue this pattern. That would put me on a unison here, which might be okay. I might be able to get away with that. Remember you. Nissen's are allowed. Um, we just want to use them very sparingly, so that would be another way to do it. Let's go back. So, like the other way? Better, much more common to have the lower neighbor tone be first. So to go down, skip up and then down and then continue your pattern. From there, it's called a double neighbor tone. We would label both of these as a double neighbor. Okay, that's all that's new in third species counterpoint. Um, it's really a big extension of second species. Counterpoint gets us more of this kind of rhythmic stuff we have to deal with. And these two new allowable ah passing embellishments lesson over to a another worksheet so you can experiment around with this a little bit. And then we will, um, move on to four species counterpoint. Uh, where we do have some more things to deal with in that we're going to approach suspensions in that which we haven't looked at very much yet, But we really need to in four species. But actually before that, I've been goofing around with this counterpoint. This whole time, I should probably finish it and play it for you. Eso Let's just finish out this last measure that works and let's see what we made way meet. 19. Rhythmic Displacement: and next we dive into fourth species. Counterpoint. Um, this one's a little different. Um, you know, in first PC's counterpoint, we had the 1 to 1. No, for every note in the country's firmest, we had a note in the counterpoint That was the main thing. And then that introduced all of our subsequent issues that we had to deal with. And the 2nd 1 we had a note in between. And then we had to deal with accented donuts in Third species Counterpoint. We had three notes in between each note. So four notes for every one note in the country's firmness, and that led to ah couple of issues that we had to deal with. Now we're done with the note two note kind of issue and kind of multiplying that out the way we have been. What we're gonna look at now in four species counterpoint are major thing that we're gonna have to deal with. Here is suspensions. Um, we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about suspensions in the next couple videos. But suspensions come about because we can now do rhythmic displacement, meaning we can we can do note two note like first or second or even third species counterpoint. But what we can also do is let the notes be a little wishy washy. In terms of their rhythm. We can kind of lay back on the exact rhythms of the counterpoint. Let me give you an example here. So let's hoops. Let's put here. Let's start this off with a rest. Oops. And then an octave something. Go back and make that arrest. Okay, so we have d two d, Ok. Ah, active. Now what I can do. So it would look like here. I'm setting us up for a second species counterpoint. Right? Because we have an active here. It looks like we're going to do whole notes or ah, half notes in the counterpoint and we could, but let's do a combination of whole notes and half notes, but a little different. Check it out. So what note should I do here? Let's do another D as 1/2 note, and then let's tie those together. So what I what I have here I have essentially a whole note cause I have four beats right here, So I have d d holding all the way past this. A right, that makes 1/4 here, which is technically a dissonance. Right? So my d was a continents because it was inactive. And then here it became a dissonance. So now we have notes that can change from continent to dissonant throughout their while they're sustaining. Um, because we can just kind of shift the rhythm here, and this is called rhythmic displacement. Now, when we do this, we have to resolve it. And this shift here is called a suspension. So now it resolves to a continent because now a to see is 1/3 and that's a constant. But let's keep going. What if I did the same thing again? So here we have a continents. Now we have a G to see. That's another fourth. So this continents now became a dissonance through rhythmic displacement. So now I have to make sure that that resolves and doing it to hoops a B. I would give us another third, and that would be a mighty fine thing to do. Let's keep going here. We have an F. So if I go, if I suspend this over in the same way, my B was the continents. Now it's gonna become a distance. But now it's gonna become a tri tone, a diminished fifth. That might be a little more than I want to chew on right now, so let's not do it. Let's break the pattern because we can do that. That's another thing we can do in four species. Counterpoint. I've got half notes. I've got whole notes displaced because they're going over the bar line and tied together, right? But now let's just do 1/2 note. So I've got a continent here of 1/3. Let's jump up to an octave. Um, so I'm still on 1/3 and now I can actually do the same thing again. I can start moving down with these suspensions. So here I have an effort and a that's 1/3 now haven't e and F. That's 1/4 again. So that's a dissonance. Let's resolve that to 1/3. Let's just finish this out just for the heck of it. So let's do another suspension there. So this continent now became a dissonance D to G is now 1/4. Let's resolve that one down to 1/3. Now I have D two f. Let's suspend that over and then and now I have F two F, so that makes an active. So here we suspended a continent here d two f our third into another continent, right? That's to an octopus. So let's keep moving and let's go down to a D here. Let's just spend that over. So this is gonna be F two d. That's gonna be 1/6 and let's suspend that one over. And then we're going to make 1/7 with the next note because now we hav e to D. That's a seven. That's a dissonance. It's an OK dissonance, but we got to resolve it correctly. It's got to go down to a six. We're gonna talk about more about how these dissonances work. Now I'm at the end. So let's wrap this up hoops by just going to dupes and active again. Okay, so I went to an active for the end now got one little error in the end, and the error is not a new thing. This is a thing we saw in previous counterpoints. Um, if you could spot it, then you win the gold star. Um, if you want to take some guesses, pause the video and Ah, give it a shot. Let me try to get the whole thing in here. Here, we owe All right. There's the whole thing. See if you can find the air, um, posit video, take some guesses figured out, and then I'm gonna tell you. Okay, so now I'm gonna tell you. Um, Lucky Arian. Yeah. Were in D minor, right? Key signature tells us, were either an f major d minor and we've got all these D's. There's an A. So there's the fifth, and then we're ending on a d were in d minor. So as we approach the end, what do we need to do in minor? To make it really nail the kind of home feeling we need to raise our leading tone? I think we need to do that. Um, that's a rule, remember? Ah. In the second to last measure, as you approach tonic, you need to raise the leading tone. Ah, and sometimes the sixth, if you are in a ah, minor key, go. Okay, let's hear it. And there we have it. So that is four species counterpoint. So next let's talk more about the actual definition of a suspension and what that means when we have a suspension happening in our counterpoint 20. Suspensions: Okay, I'm going to read you the technical definition of a suspension. Right now, a suspension is a rhythmic embellishment created when a continent interval is held over the first beat of the next measure, forming a harmonic dissonance until the suspended voice moves down by step to the next pitch. Okay, so let's pick that apart. Suspension is a rhythmic embellishment created when a continent interval. So let's look at ah, this one from here to here from a to C. Okay, that's a constant interval. Ah is held over to the first beat of the next measure right there. So that's held over to the first beat of the next measure, forming a harmonic dissonance. So the result of holding this over the bar line on to the beat of the next measure is a dissonance G to see at the fourth, which is a dissident until the suspended voice moves down by step to the next pitch. So it has to move down by a step to the next note. And that has to be the resolution. So this is called the resolution here. Okay. Suspensions consists of three parts, so Ah, the first part of a suspension needs to be a constant harmonic interval when we call that the preparation. So let's let's get our text out here. So we're gonna call this. Let's do a P for preparation. That's gonna be right here. So it's gonna be on the second half of the measure, because and that is our continent. Interval. The preparation is confident. Our second thing is the suspension. That's right here. Theatrical suspension is when our note that was our preparation has now become dissonant. That makes the suspension. And then the third part is the resolution, and that is going to be this note. PS are preparation suspension resolution. Okay, now, in this case, well, let's look at a different example. Let's look it over here. Preparation, suspension resolution. We can and often do chain these together like what I did here, right? There's kind of a chain of to. In this case, this one is the resolution and also the preparation. In fact, let's do that a little bit different here. Let's make that a little clear. This one is the resolution. It's also the preparation for the next one preparation suspension resolution. Okay, so this one conserve double duty when you're doing these chains of suspensions. Now there are several types of suspension, and we label them with numbers. There's 43 suspension, 76 suspension and 98 suspension or the most common. We're gonna talk about those in a minute, but first I want to talk about ah, one of the kind of main characteristics that doing this results in when we're doing four species counterpoint. We tend to have this kind of falling downhill thing because suspensions always resolved down. You can't do them opposite. So ah, we have this kind of going downhill mentality. So let's jump to a new video and talk about this going downhill issue. 21. Going Downhill: Okay. So as you probably noticed, if we're gonna be doing this going down were eventually going to run into problems. So these suspensions always go down right there, going down and down and down and down and down. So eventually that could lead us to a voice crossing. It could lead us just down really low. And also, if we do nothing but suspensions like this, if we wouldn't have broke it right here and we would have just kept going down, it would have been boring. Um, you need to break Ah, chain. If you're doing a chain of suspensive than you don't always have to do, is in a chain, you can just do it one at a time. But if you're gonna be doing chains of suspensions, you're going to be just going down and down and down and down in your counterpoint. And ah, if it doesn't lead you to a voice crossing, it's going to be kind of boring. So we don't do that somewhere in the counterpoint we do. This thing called breaking this is breaking the suspension chain. So that's what happened right here. So this was going down a nice and I probably could have kept it going longer, but what we did here is we didn't suspend over this one. We did a continent to continent intervals in a row and a big leap. And that leap makes it so that I can keep going down again, right? And keep doing these suspensions. So without that big leap right there, I would have just kept going down and down and down. And I would have, uh, ended up in trouble so often when you're doing four species counterpoint, you're going Teoh. I want to break it somewhere, usually somewhere around the middle, just to keep it interesting. Um, and you don't have to do it more than once. You should do it at least once in the counterpoint. But you don't have to do it more than once. And sometimes it's really obvious where to do it. Because sometimes you can't make a suspension work, right? You're gonna have ah suspension into a dissonant interval. That's not possible. Like you can't do that. Like if this suspension here resulted in a dissonant interval after I did a step down. If that was a dissident interval, this one would be no good. And then that would be a good place to break the suspension because I would have a spot where the resolution wasn't gonna work out. Similarly, if this one if this be suspended over, suspended into a continent interval, then that would also not be, Ah, correct suspension. So it's a good spot to break it. So watch out for those spots where you have to break it, Um, so that you're not just always like rolling down downhill in this sequence of suspensions, Just watch out for that. 22. 4-3 Suspensions: Okay, let's look at the different kinds of suspensions and how we label them. Let's is about to here somewhere, and let's add some notes. Let's do We'll see you. Let's say our counterpoint was an F and then a C is gonna do to bars. Imagine this is like right in the middle of a counterpoint. And then we had something like a d. So we've got 1/6 and then let's do a suspension there and then resolve it like that. Now, hear this is different than the previous thing. I was just talking about about the going downhill thing because this isn't part of a sequence of suspensions. I can step or skip into a suspension. That's okay. I have to step out of it, though. I can't skip or leap out of it, but I can step or and I think you can leap into a suspension if you want to. Maybe not. I'm gonna have to look that one up. Um, leaping into a suspension seems odd, but you can definitely skip into a suspension like this. So this is all a OK. Now let's look at what our intervals are here. So first, let's label our preparations, actually, So this is going to be this actually is going to be our preparation. This is going to be our suspension, and this is going to be our resolution, okay? And we don't have a label for this note. Um, it's just kind of what it is. Next. Let's look at our intervals. So this interval is 1/6. This interval is and active. This interval now is 1/4 and this interval is ah, third. Okay, That gives us the answer we want on how to label this suspension because, ah, suspensions, air labeled usually with two numbers side by side, Like so like, let's do we just write it up here So we would call this a 43 suspension. That's what this kind of suspension is. And the reason is the suspension is on 1/4 and it resolves to 1/3. So for three, suspension is the fourth resolving to 1/3. And it has a particular sound. Let's hear it like that. See, I wants to resolve even more, but that is a 43 suspension, 1/4 resolving to 1/3. So for all these, remember that the suspension is going to have to be called by a number that is a dissonant interval first and then a constant interval. Second, because that's how it works. The suspension has to be a dissonance. The resolution has to be a continents, and they have to be a step away, right? So all of our labels for suspensions are going to be a number and then one number lower because it has to be a step away and the 1st 1 is gonna be a distant interval on the 2nd 1 is gonna be a continent interval. They all have to work that way. By definition, that's how suspensions have to work. So let's look at the other two now 76 and 98 23. 7-6 Suspension: All right, let's move on and talk about a 76 suspension. Now let's do that one here. Now what I'm gonna have to do here is I need a different baseline. The same countries Firmas isn't gonna work because this interval is going to play a significant role and telling me world well, in making this note turn from continent from dissonant to continent, Right, So this interval of 1/4 works for a 43 and there's probably a couple other intervals. It's not a hard rule that, like the interval of 1/4 in the Contras firm IHS is going to make for a 43 suspension. That is not true. Um, there are other ways you can make a 43 suspension, but I cannot make a 76 suspension out of that. So let's go to a G. Oops, let's go to interval of If it a G and a C. Okay, now let's dio and let's start it off with constant interval. In this case, an active let's go to another continent interval authored. So we're gonna do a diatonic skip here and how you approach this is open. Um, we don't have to approach it by a diatonic Skip. Remember that. I'm gonna tie this one over the bar line, and then I got to resolve it by a step. Okay, so let's put our tie in there. There we go. Okay. So now let's look at what our intervals are here. We have and active. Okay, Here we have 1/3. Right. G two B here. Now that we've changed our country's firmness note, we have a C to a p. Right. So that is a big old dissonance of 1/7. Hey, but it's going to resolve down by a step to a sixth right there. And that creates the 76 suspension. There it is. So our base note is different in order for the 76 suspension toe work. But in this case, it does. We jumped up to 1/3. We held it over. It became 1/7 when our condoms from has changed. And then we resolved it to 1/6 a continent. Go. Let's hear that real quick. That has a little bit different sound in the 43 Right. Let's hear the 43 again. I like this one wants to resolve in a certain way. And this one kind of this one has a less of, ah, strong resolution that wants to happen. Um, so the last tendency. But it still has a resolution, and it's different than this one. Pretty interesting how that works. 24. 9-8 Suspensions: Okay. The last of our most common types of suspensions is a 98 suspension. So let's make one of those for this one any my baseline to be doing something quite a bit different. So I'm gonna go from a B to a C and then, in my counterpoint, going to start on a continent start on a six. In this case, let's go up to 1/3 so G or sorry B to D is 1/3. Let's carry that over and then let's resolve it by a step and let's see what we have. Let's create that tie first. So here we have 1/6 and let's just put these in here. So we have a continent. Then we have another continent took continent leap. We could call that, and now we have a dissonance. We have C to D. Now. We can call this 1/9 Now. Why wouldn't we call that a to? I'll tell you exactly why we wouldn't call that a to you know, I said, in other places, I said, if it's bigger than an octave, we reduce it down. So a nine is C two D, which is the same as a to write octaves we call eight to show that it's not a unison, um, when it's bigger than inactive. Typically, we would just say it's a two, Um, in this case or ah, three. If it was 1/10 or something like that, which is what this one is, right? This is 1/10 but we call it a three, right. We reduce it to its smallest interval. But this one, I'm gonna call in ninth in this case, and I'll show you why. Let's put our next one down. Now We're resolving to an active. Okay, So if I call this 1/9 then I can easily call this and 98 suspension. Right? Let's add, um oops. So this we would write, like so 98 suspension. That's why I'm calling in denying cause. Check it out. If I call it a two, it's a 28 suspension. That doesn't make much sense because we know that it has to go down by a step here in order for the suspension to resolve correctly. So just to make that really clear, I'm in this case going to call it in nine so that I don't have a to eight suspension, and I have to think about it. A whole bunch to figure out that. Oh, it is resolving by a step, right? So in 98 suspension 98 we're gonna resolve down to an octave. Right? So we're gonna have, in this case, we have 1/3 to 1/9. Or think of that as a second and then to inactive. That's here. Right? So this one doesn't feel the need to resolve very much at all. So the three of these, let's look at all three of them. Once it's put a label on our 56 here groups. 76 I mean, so we have a 4376 and a 98 They all have different qualities. They all have a different sense of resolution at the end of, um, slightly different. That's your all three in order with, like, a one bar rest in between. Why not? So all slightly different kinds of suspensions there's other suspensions you can do. But those are the three most popular kinds, the kind the ones that you come across like 99% of the time in four species counterpoint um , the 43276 and the 98 suspensions 25. Consonant Suspensions: Now there's another kind of suspension. Weaken Dio Um, we looked at these where the rule is, Ah, dissonance to continent, right? Always dissident, constant dissidents. Constant. There's another type of suspension that exists. Call a continent suspension where it's continent to continent. Um, there's really only two of these that are possible. Ah, let's set one up here. So let's do something like, uh, a c he Okay, now, what would happen if I went half a It's tied that. Let's go, G. Let's tie that. Let's look at what we just made here. So our interval is let's label are intervals here. So here we have 1/6 hato F Here we have a to A so that's an active here. We have C to a So that's another six. And here we have C to G. So that's 1/5. And here we have e to G. So that's 1/3. Okay, so it'll be done here. Um, here's my suspension and resolution right in the middle. Okay, so we have a continent and the continent becomes another continent, huh? That resolves down by a step to a continent 865 Right. Um, this is called a 65 suspension, so we don't have to give it any special title because it's a continent suspension. We would just call it a 65 Remember both six and five R continents and four species counterpoint and all of the species of counterpoints six and five r. Okay, um, so this is a constant suspension. The other one that's allowed is a 56 suspension. So 65 and 56 Now you might be thinking, How could I possibly do a 56? Because if six and five makes my downward motion, five and then six would make an upward motion, right, right, check it out. Let's do it. Let's Dio, let's go over here and Dio, this is the one funky thing about constant suspensions is that you can go ascending. Okay, ascending is allowed incontinent. Suspension's not in dissonant suspensions. Dissonant suspensions always have to resolve down by a step Continent suspensions. In other words, a 65 suspension ah can resolve upward making a 56 suspension. So let's look at our intervals. Here. We have groups have B to D, so that's 1/3 and then we have BTG, which is 1/6 And then we have C to G, which is 1/5. And then we have hoops C to G C toe A, which is 1/6. And then just for the fun of it, we have 80 a, which is inactive. So here is our suspension. We have continent, continent, continent. Right. And in this case, it's going 56 of this. We would call a 56 suspension. It's the only one allowed that goes up. Okay, let's hear both of these. Let's hear the 65 Then we got a little rest and then a 56 Okay, Interesting. Right. Um, this is the least gratifying one to me. The 56 suspension. But that is purely an opinion. Um, those are our continent. Suspensions. There are only two ah, 65 and 56 to the end. 56 is the only one that exists of our suspensions that are allowed to go up or resolve upwards, I should say 26. Chains Of Suspensions: okay. I want to go back and talk about chains of suspensions one more time. Now that we understand the properties of suspensions and just kind of talk about how to make one of these chains of suspensions. So I'm gonna get rid of all this and let's first just make a good old first species counterpoint. So it's go really high to get this started and let's just go stepwise down and then we'll resolve it up. Okay, so we're gonna be in the key of C here. Now, let's just put a 1 to 1 counterpoint on this, okay? What have I got? I have e n g third B, s I d e and F third A and E c. I'm not having a good reading bass clef. Day C and E third be and D, third c and C unison. Hey, so I got a string of thirds and then in unison. That's kind of OK, um but we can easily turn this into a chain of suspense suspensions because our contras firmness is going down by step. That's one of the key is that we need in order for this chain toe work. Ah, is it down by step motion. Now, what we can do is just shift all of this by 1/2 Note if we shift our top line by 1/2 note and see if it'll let me just do it. Hold on. Um did instituted you to do I think if I turn this into 1/2 note and then I paste right here, I did it. OK, so all I did was copy and paste. What? I already had Ah, half note off. Okay, so I just literally shifted, shifted our counterpoint by two beats. And this is what results. Let's look at what results. Let's look at our numbers. So here we have 1/3 still e t g. And then here we have 1/3 still Okay, preparation. Now here. Would we have d G? We have fourth. Okay? And then we get down to our intended third. And now here we have 1/4. And now here we have 1/3 here. We have 1/4 here. We have the third here we have a two. So what we'd want to do here is this is the one spot where it doesn't quite work. We take that and we break it. That's where we would put the break where we talked about before. And we break it like that. So remember, we've got to break it somewhere else. It's gonna see if I go any. If I go down anymore from here, I'm on a unison here. So what's label that correctly? Actually, you listen So if this goes down anymore, I'm gonna have a voice crossing right, Because this is going to go to a D. Which is gonna be lower than that. Notes the money. Unison. So I gotta break it right there. But what did that make us? It made us a whole bunch of 43 suspensions, a chain of 43 suspensions. So all I did was take a string of thirds stepping down shifted on and that gave me this. 434343 Unison. Let's hear it. Right. So that's how you can create a chain of you. Nissen's er sorry. A chain of suspensions rule is that you've gotta have a stepwise motion in the base or in the country's FIRMAS. I should say it doesn't always have to be in the base. Then just make a 1 to 1 counterpoint against it. So just whole notes that work on continents all the way. Thirds are great. That will get you a 43 suspension all the way across and then just break it when you get to the unison. If we would have set this up as sixes and we just did a 1 to 1 with a string of six is Then , as we pushed forward and shifted it, we would have had 76 suspensions all the way across. So that would work as well. So just one more tip on. Ah, chains of suspensions. Cool, cool. 27. Summary of 4th Species Counterpoint: Okay, let's do a quick review on the rules of force. Fourth species counterpoint before we move on and talk about the elusive fifth species counterpoint, which is kind of a thing and kind of not a thing. Um, it's complicated. We'll get there. So I went over the rules here, and then I'm gonna give you a worksheet where you can practice writing some four species counterpoint. Okay, um, let's go through the rules. Um, the didgeridoo. I'm going to read you this quick little thing and then dissect it. In four species, we use dissonant suspensions as much as possible. The acceptable distant suspensions are 7643 and 98 when the counterpoint is in the upper part. And 23 when the counterpoint is in the lower part include continent suspensions or break species as necessary for the following reasons. Okay, then we've got some bullet points. We haven't talked about that too. 31 yet. So what they're saying there is that a to three suspension is possible. But on Lee, when the counterpoint is the lower part and the Contras for Mrs the upper part. So watch out for a 23 suspension possible when the rules were flipped. When we have Contras, firmness in the top, Okay? Ah include constant suspensions or break species as necessary for the following reasons, uh, number one to set passages in the contest with skip sleeps or ascending steps where dissonant suspensions are not possible. So, um, to break a chain of suspensions, for example, do skips and leaps is what it's saying. There number two to make a more interesting line. Remember, we talked about that. We can do all of these suspensions and tricks, but it's still gotta, maybe interesting. It's still got to be a nice sounding line that doesn't just go down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down forever. You need to make it interesting. Number three to reestablish a proper distance between the parts if they are about to cross . We've talked about that. If you're in danger of making a voice crossing to a big old leap and get out of there like this one we're seeing on the screen right now, got that a to a leap right in the middle just to get us away from the baseline a little bit . Or from the county's firmas a little bit in order to avoid a voice crossing number four to conclude a suspension chain after three statements. So remember, in chains, we want to do no more than three in a row world. It starts to get boring, and then we kind of tie it up with, ah, unison or octave or another continent interval on the nearest downbeat number five to prevent counterpoint errors. So we would avoid a suspension if it's gonna accidentally create a parallel fifth or inactive, some kind of major counterpoint error like that on the last one to solve difficult places in the context where a dissonant suspension or even any type of tie over the bar is not available. So in other words, sometimes you can't just do a suspension. If the county's firmest is uh, set up in such a way that it's going to create two dissonant intervals or ah, perfect active or something like that, you just can't get away with him. So what this is saying is try to do these suspensions in four species counterpoint as much as possible, and then, except in those cases, are when you would want to break the suspension cool so there are rules of fourth species. Counterpoint were just flying right through here. Let's go to Ah, fish species counterpoint, also sometimes called free counterpoint. But first, let's do a worksheet. 28. Free Counterpoint: Okay, we have reached fifth species. Counterpoint. This is the last one, and this one is kind of a cheat. Actually, it's not. Ah, new. There's really nothing new here. Well, I take that back. There was one new thing in fifth species counterpoint. Um, and that is that we can do whatever we want when it comes to the rhythms. Um, remember, in first species counterpoint, we had what we called a 1 to 1. Ah, rhythmic division. So for every note in the country's firmest, we would put one note in the counterpoint In second species counterpoint, we could put two notes to tow one. So for every hole note, we would put 2/2 notes right in third species. For every hole note, we would put 4/4 notes, so 4 to 1 in fourth species. We would put two notes, but they would be tied over the bar and we would be making suspensions all the way across. Now, in fish species, we can do any of those things and we can mix them up, weaken, do some quarter notes, some whole notes, some half notes, some half notes tied across the bar. We can do any of those things in combination. Now that causes a couple new wrinkles. Actually, nothing new. But it gives us like a lot to think about all the sudden right, because we have to think about our continents, is and dissonances and are accented beats, right? So let's go over that rule one more time. Our heaviest, strongest accented beat is always the downbeat, right. No matter what species were in, the downbeat is going to get some biggest accent. So that has to be a continent. Um, unless you're in the middle of a suspension, then it doesn't have to be, but it has to resolve correctly to a constant. Our second strongest beat is in a bar of 44 is beat three right? The second half of the measure, Um, so if we split the measure in half, the second half of it is our second strongest beat. So if we're doing to half notes, then in a bar, let me do it. Oops. So if I was going to do F G something like that, then the Down B is still the strongest, the offbeat in this case because it's too half notes beat three here can be a dissonance, but if I've got quarter notes something like that, let's actually not repeated note. Let's do that. Let's just see if that works. I don't know. Um, now I have my strongest downbeat here. My second strongest downbeat or my second strongest beat. Here's that needs to be a Continents in this case and then beats two and four can be dissonances. Let's see. So here we have an active here. We have a second, but that's not a strong beat. So that's OK. It's on accented beat. That's okay. Here we have 1/3. That's a constants. That's okay. And here we have 1/4 actually an augmented fourth. And that's a dissonance. What? It's on beat four. That's gonna be okay. Um, so this works. What if I did this? What about now? This is something new. Weaken do. We couldn't do this before, So now we've got strongest beat on beat one right? Most or biggest accent on beat one. That has to be a constants. Still, no matter what we're doing, um, unless a suspension. So the rules of third species counterpoint is what's going to govern us here. So what? We have here is we don't have a b a note on beat too. And that's OK. So be three is gonna be our second strongest beats. That's gonna need to be a constants in this case. And this one can be a dissonance beat for So we're gonna pretend that were looking at the rules of third species Counterpoint here. And we have 4/4 notes even though we don't have one unbeaten to now, here's something else we could do. This is something new. I can go all the way up to eighth notes now. We couldn't do that in any counterpoint before, but now we can Ah, and I'm gonna do it with a neighbor tone. Any ace note is going to be and allowed dissonance because it's in between our beats. So whenever you have an eighth note, the downbeat is going to be an accented beat. In the eighth note, the off beat is going to be un accented, so it can be a dissonance. So using an eighth note for a neighbor tone like this where we're going continent dissident continent back and forth to the same note that can work. Um, because this can be a dissonance in between. Okay? So basically, we can use any rhythmic subdivision we want. We can even go Ah, deeper into rhythm except divisions and use eight notice. Now let's take Ah, this contras firmest that I wrote out here. This is actually a fairly famous one. So let's jump over a new video and, um Ah, let's read a counterpoint to this using 50 species counterpoint. 01 other thing. Fifth species Counterpoint is also sometimes called free counterpoint because the rhythmic rules are pretty blurry. We can freely do whatever we want rhythmically, as long as all the other rules hold true something we don't make any parallels as long as we keep track of our continents, is and dissonances. Ah, and all of that, if we abide by all those rules were relatively free. We still have a lot of rules that we have to go by, but we sometimes coffee species counterpoint, free counterpoint 29. Writing Free Counterpoint: Okay. Uh, here we have a fairly famous counterpoint. I've written out the first half of the counterpoint. Ah, and I'm gonna write the second half in as we go. And the Contras from a separate knowledge. Um, this is from the book gratis. Odd Parnassus. Um, sorry. My Latin pronunciation is terrible. Um, by folks who were going to talk more about it Just second, I'm going to give you a little history of him, but this is like like he literally wrote the book. And the book is gratified. Pronounce him. So this is the book on counterpoint. This is where all these rules and the species stuff comes from. So this is one of his examples of ah, fifth species counterpoint or a free counterpoint. So let's analyze it. Let's look at it. Um, so ah, note here that were in trouble class. So we have to trouble cuff lines, and we're gonna hit a couple interesting things here, So d a let's just label our stuff here. F A That is 1/3 and F two d. So that would be a six after e would be 1/7. And after f would be a unison that is kind of goofy, but I will say it's allowed because he wrote it. Ah E to G is 1/3 e to f Is it to e t E is a unison and eat a G is 1/3. I think those less goofy D two f is 1/3 D two d is a unison and d two d is another unison. Let's call that teat G to D is 1/5 G to see as 1/4. Now G two b flat is 1/3 a minor third. Um, but 1/3 nonetheless s. So we're just gonna kind of ignore that flat for the moment. And G two g is Ah, unison. And then let's do the downbeat here after a is 1/3. Okay, let's look at what we've got here. We have so have a 53 here. So not technically a suspension, because ah, 53 suspension is not a thing. And it does not resolve like a suspension. It would have to resolve down as a continent suspension. It could resolve up if it was the right kind. But it's not so. It's not a suspension. It's just a tide note and that's okay in fifth species. Counterpoint in free counterpoint because we would treat it just as a note with the duration of three beats. Right? Ah, so now we have 1/3 67 and eight. Now, this bar is really interesting because we have constant, constant, dissonant continent. So I've got a dissonant right on the half way point, which, according to Fuchs, in fifth Species counterpoint can be allowed in a scale pattern. So all kinds of weird little exceptions here, I would consider that to be dangerous, so I wouldn't do that if you were writing an assignment for a teacher. Um, but, you know, you wrote the book. He's allowed to do it. So now we have 32 units in three. So Ah, dissonance on beat two that's allowed over here. Three unison, Active all continents, actually. Big constant skip here. And then another suspension looking thing, but not technically a suspension. Even though it resolves down, we wouldn't call it a 54 suspension. That's not really a thing, um, or 85 suspension. That's not a thing either. So the Contras, firmest, hasn't set us up to do a suspension. At least not with those notes. For so a dissonance here on the second beat. And that's it. Okay, now let's keep going. So what he does next, we're gonna go up to a B and then a c, and then he's gonna tie that See, over. And now he's gonna do an f anti that over. I'm gonna go backwards and get those ties a second. And we have some eighth notes popping up. - Okay . Oops. Let's go back and add all those ties that I skipped over. See, uh, e uh, d and deep. Okay, Now it's like what we've got here. We have 1/3 after a I'm beat two. We have 1/4 and B three, we have 1/5. Okay, Now tied over from a to see. We have 1/3 and then we have a to f is 1/6. And now we have be sorry, g a mixing up my cliffs again g to F, which is a seven. And then down to a six and a five on that eighth note and then back to a six and then down toe f in e 1/7. How man, This one is weird. F a is 1/3 F and D is six g to d is 1/5. And then here we have our leading tone heading out because we're in a minor key were actually in a mode when Dorian here. Um but G to see is 1/4. We're gonna call that and then to an octave. Okay, let's look what we've got here. So I think this is where we left off. 345 So dissonance here. That's ok. 36 both continents is to a seven resolving down. Not a suspension, though. Ah, because it goes from a continents to a dissonance. Suspension would have to be the opposite. 76 could work. Ah, 656 We could call this a neighbor tone, even though it's a continent, these air, all continents. Ah, we could call it a neighbor tone here 27 on a downbeat through a sustain. Wow, that's really surprising that he's going to allow that. Um but he does interesting. I wouldn't do that if I was you. Ah, in your counterpoint examples to a three to a six continents constants dissonance here. But this one is clearly allowed because we're raising our leading tone to get us back to tonic. They're so that one is okay for sure. So he breaks a lot of rules here. You know, it's another big rule that he breaks his voice crossing. Check it out right here. F That's right there that those two notes are the same note. So right here, this note and this know this D and e are underneath that. That is a voice crossing. Ah, here's a unison. So that's not That's not what I saw another one in here. No, that's it. But yeah, big voice crossing right there that would not be allowed by. Ah, lot of teachers rules. Different teachers have different, ah, amounts that they prescribed to exactly how he wrote. Um, you know, some of these accents accented notes with dissonances? I would marking correct on a paper. But he's, uh, going pretty far with it. But ah, that's the interesting thing about the guy that wrote the book. Let's hear it and see what we think. You interesting? You know, it sounds very Bach. Um, so you know clearly, you know, Bach knew this stuff, obviously. Like nothing else. Okay, let's jump to Ah, another video. I want tell you a little bit more about this guy 30. Fux: Study Of Counterpoint: So where do all these rules come from? We talked about tons and tons of rules. We had, like, 40 videos of things you can do and you can't do, uh, in counterpoint. This all comes from Johan Josef Fuchs. Gratis odd partner. Awesome. Uh, which is a treaties he wrote, um, back in 17. 25. And it was kind of ah, standard reading of every composer at the time. And it's still kind of is in many ways, when you're in a college theory class, it is not unlikely that you would have to read this book and have a copy of it to at least use as reference. Um, the book that you would find being used in a theory class Now is this book called Study of Counterpoint. This is roughly a translation of Grad Assad part awesome. Ah, I think the Latin gratis odd partner awesome means, like steps to partner awesome, which I don't know what part awesome is, but ah, we now call it Ah, the study of counterpoint Fuchs is study of counterpoint, so ah, it's a great book toe have on your shelf to use as a reference to go through all of these many composers throughout history had a copy on their bookshelf. Um, Bach moods are everybody, um, so highly recommend getting a copy of it. Ah, and and using it. 31. What Next?: All right, we've reached the end of music theory. Part five. Ah, counterpoint. So here's the deal. Here's where you are. Um, if you were in a college music theory class, it would typically before semesters long. And if you've taken all five of these music theory classes, you have completed the entire first semester of a college music theory program. There's a lot more to go. Um, but if you are feeling comfortable with what we've learned so far, then you should be able tow ace, a college music theory class. No problem. You will go through it. I've literally been teaching my music theory curriculum. So congrats to you. Um, you finished it up next. Ah, as we go forward, the next kind of big thing that the second semester of college music theory covers is what's called diet is what's called tanase ization, which is a fancy way of saying modulating two different keys. But sometimes we do it. Ah, very briefly. And sometimes we do it for a longer period of time. Um, so modulating keys can be ah, very complex business. And, ah, once we get into looking at music of the 19th century and things like that. Composers started to really kind of bend the rules of theory quite a bit. So there's all kinds of other music theory Ah, that are trying to catch up to those composers. So we're kind of explaining some of the things that they did that bend the rules. So in other words, new rules have been made to accommodate these bending of the rules. As composers got more and more liberal with the rules of music theory, first semester music theory always talks about the rules like the hard and fast rules. This is what you do. As we go forward into the 2nd 3rd semester. We talk about ways that we can bend those rules, Ah, to make more interesting music in ways that composers have bent those rules. Then, as you get into the fourth semester, you get into the 20th century when the rules just kind of flat out break and all kinds of new rules pop up more or less. That's a very kind of simplified way to explain it, But, um, it tends to work. So congratulations you have finished first semester college music theory. Let's keep going. Let's go into the second semester. Shall we? I'm having fun making these, so why not? Um okay, I got a couple more little things I want to give you before we wrap up, So let's jump to that right now. 32. Thanks Bye!: Okay, Thanks. Everyone for hanging out. Um, I hope you had fun in this class. Um, I felt like we really covered a lot of stuff in this class. We went through all the rules of music theory, Um, of counterpoint in this class. I want to point out one more thing. What happens a lot of the time in counterpoint is that in the first semester of music theory, a lot of what you do is you spend ah, month or so on counterpoint. Exactly like what we did in this class. You go through all the rules of all the different species, um, and you learn how to use and right and identify a whole bunch of different things in counterpoint. But, um, what comes next in music theory is we move on from counterpoint a little bit, but very often there is a whole separate class. Ah, whole semester, just on counterpoint. Sometimes even two whole semester's just on counterpoint. So imagine that would be something like 10 more classes of this size just on counterpoint. You know, it's a big thing. It's like math. There's just tons that you can do with it. So in a college curriculum. It's not uncommon for you to find separate classes just on counterpoint. What we've done is done all the counterpoint that's in the normal music theory sequence. But you can go deeper into this stuff, so I just wanted to point that out. Thanks for hanging out. I hope you enjoy the class. Um, please leave me. Ah, comments, questions. I love reading those, and I enter them every day. Ah, leave me a review, if you like. That would be really great. I enjoy reading those every day as well. And, um, check out some of my other classes in the next little chunk. The last little thing I'm gonna give you here. I'm gonna give you some bonus stuff to get into some of my other classes. Ah, cheaply. So please check that out. And, um, we'll see you in the next class. Thanks so much. Bye bye. 33. SkillshareFinalLectureV2: Hey, everyone want to learn more about what I'm up to? You can sign up for my email list here, and if you do that, I'll let you know about when new courses are released and when I make additions or changes to courses you're already enrolled in. Also check out on this site. I post a lot of stuff there and I check into it every day. So please come hang out with me and one of those two places or both, and we'll see you there.