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What Is Counterpoint in Music? Free Lessons
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- Hi, this is livingpianos.com and virtualsheetmusic.com. I'm Robert Estrin and the question today what is counterpoint? You may have heard this
- term before and wondered exactly what that means. You probably have a vague idea that it has something to do with the Baroque era of music primarily.
- We're going to cover this today and I'll give you some examples so you can get your head around it and maybe get more insights if you already are familiar
- with what counterpoint is. Counterpoint is simply music that is built linearly. That is there are several different musical lines that can
- interweave one another at least two because if you only have one line you have monophonic music. Once you have polyphony you have more than one note
- you can have the possibility of counterpoint. However, not all music really works with counterpoint. For example, if you play Mozart you have a
- clear melody and harmony. For example, in the C major famous C major sonata K. 545 the left hand is just broken chords where the right hand is the melody.
- The left hand by itself really doesn't have much of a melody to remember. That's all that's going on there. So, it's all about the melody.
- You have a melody and accompaniment. Same thing is true with later music in Chopin like his E minor prelude.
- You have a gorgeous melody on top, which is supported with these changes of harmony underneath. Clear delineation of function of these different parts. In
- counterpoint, you have equal melodies. You have melodies interweaving. So, for example, in the Bach in minor toccata in the second
- movement, notice how all the parts are equal. They're equal in importance and they should be played equally, too. You should bring out the important lines and
- they can be anywhere. They can be at the top, the bottom, or the middle. Listen to the difference of music that relies on counterpoint instead of melody and
- harmony. You can't really pick anyone part as being the melody or the harmony. They're
- all melodies. Somehow Bach can interweave them together. He has two-part inventions where two lines just play around one another and
- dance beautifully, three-part sinfonias, and then fugues, which can be three, four, or sometimes even five voices. That is five separate lines
- interweaving. We'll have another show for you about what is a fugue. A fugue is It's an amazing composition in the hands of a master like Bach or Handel,
- Telemann, and others. Thanks so much for joining me. Robert Ester here at livingpianos.com and virtualsheetmusic.com.
- Look forward to more shows.