Reddit reviews Baroque Counterpoint

In one of our FAQ topics, the study of counterpoint is mentioned in the top post. There, two series of books are recommended, each with a 16th century and an 18th century component.

• Robert Gauldin's A Practical Approach to xth-century Counterpoint (16th and 17th components)
  
  
• Peter Schubert's Modal Counterpoint: Renaissance Style and Baroque Counterpoint.
  
  These are really the two standards of counterpoint teaching today. Fux is often read as well, but I personally don't really recommend reading historical treatises as a first introduction to a basic concept. I've been taught from the Gauldin 18th century book and am about to teach from the Schubert Renaissance book. I think I would have to say that I prefer Schubert as a classroom textbook, but I'm honestly not entirely sure which one I would prefer as a self-study text.

Some newer counterpoint books that I think lends itself well to self-teaching are the 16th and 18th-century versions by Peter Schubert.

Ars nova has a really nice entry level text on their website if you’re just getting started. For a more complete introduction, check out the book “Music Theory ” by George Thaddeus Jones. That’s the one I started with, and while it’s very thorough in its discussion of musical concepts, its treatment of counterpoint is not my favorite. Something is definitely lost when the inner voices are treated as mere filler. Amazon and goodreads both gave it 4 stars. I feel like the ars nova text holds the readers hand a bit better and has the added bonus of being able to hear the examples. It also includes a chord progression game based on root movement principles). Though it’s missing some information here and there, so definitely check both texts out (yes, even though you probably understand some of their contents anyway) And of course, there’s the Gradus as Parnassum, the Bible of counterpoint that Bach praised and practically all subsequent composers learned from (though the rules presented there are über-strict!). It’s written as a dialogue between a student and a master which is absolutely brilliant.

If you’re looking to compose in the baroque style, there’s a good textbook called “Baroque Counterpoint ” by Peter Schubert and Christoph Niedhöfer, though the introduction says that you already need to know scales, figured base, 4-part voice leading, how to harmonize a melody, how to use non harmony tones, and some basic keyboard skills. It mostly (but not entirely) focuses on fugue and imitative counterpoint in general. So, it’s intended for the musically literate. Don’t go there until you’ve got a good framework to build on.

You also ought to have a collection of Bach’s chorales on hand as they are good examples for beginners to analyze and model on. Here’s 40 of them. Remember- analysis consists of more than just labeling chords; it involves INTERPRETING how all the different musical features contribute to the piece.

As a final note, remember- you don’t HAVE to fallow the rules all the time in your own music, but they’re still worth learning.

My advice:
live with the WTC for at least a month. Listen to, play, immerse yourself in the fugues, take them apart and put them back together again. They're really one of the best resources available. (If you don't care for the WTC, use some other similar collection of fugues, but you say you like Bach, so I'd recommend that one above the others).

As for other books, I quite like Schubert and Neidhöfer's Baroque Counterpoint, which is the best textbook I've seen that deals specifically with Baroque counterpoint - most counterpoint books deal primarily with Renaissance styles.