Reddit reviews Counterpoint (4th Edition)

Basso Continuo (Figured Bass)-You do not need to learn how to read it fluently or anything, but it is the building block of the composers of that time. This is especially prevalent in the Baroque period. Study it, play it, listen for it. This helps to truly understand and write good cadences and tropes of that time.

Bach - Bach is king when it comes to tonal harmony and modulation.
Study his Harmonized Chorales and learn how he constructs his harmonic phrasing and cadences.

Counterpoint - I used this book by Kent Kennan. Learn the basics of good voice leading. This is a huge subject and requires study and practice, but it is crucial to replicating the music. This will help you develop the tools needed to construct the forms and sounds of that time.

This is a good starting place. Keep in mind people spend entire lifetimes learning this stuff. God speed.

Who the hell told you counterpoint was easy to learn?

No, my friend, counterpoint is the pinnacle of composition. It's dreaded by every music major and even the theory/composition majors have a healthy fear of it.

I don't really know of any online source that can teach you what you need to know, either. Maybe some theory, but not counterpoint. You need to get a book and diligently work through the exercises. I recommend Study of Counterpoint: From Johann Joseph Fux's Gradus Ad Parnassum, Kennan's Counterpoint and Mann's The Study of Fugue for this. Check out both the Fux and the Kennan first and decide on one, then if you find that you want to go deeper go ahead and get the book on fugue study.

Learn how to write invertible counterpoint. It's an extremely difficult form. I used this book in school

Well, you can use broken chords/arpeggios. Use whatever variations you can think of. Maybe you can start by copying composers you like. Brahms wrote some really fantastic piano parts in his chamber music. Having a good sense of counterpoint might help too. An accompaniment part can be melodic while supporting other instruments. Try checking out Kent Kennan's book on counterpoint. It's a great resource and the main ideas can be used and developed so that you don't end up writing in a strict Baroque style (unless that's what you're going for).

Ahh, that makes sense, sorry \^\^;

There are books on a huge variety of subjects in music, so it does depend a little bit on what you are interested in specifically. For a broad overview, I liked A History of Western Music - the current edition is the 8th, but much of the materials from the 7th edition are available online. Another book I recommend is Harold C. Schonberg's The Lives of the Great Composers. It is less in-depth, but is written in a more narrative style while still hitting on a lot of the "who's who" in classical music from the Baroque to the 20th century (although it's maybe a tad outdated in the later 20th and 21st century).

Besides those two, I actually don't have any others on the top of my head that are good overviews. /u/m3g0wnz does have a guide to music theory textbooks on the sidebar that details out some of the main texts in that area. And, of course, there are books that specialize on a variety of subjects within music theory and history - Ebenezer Prout's book on fugues is one such example that I've looked at, as well as both the Kennan and Adler on the subject of orchestration. (Actually, Kennan also wrote a book on Counterpoint.)

On the subject of sight-singing, I've used both Rhythm and Pitch and A New Approach to Sight Singing in my aural skills classes - I like the Berkowitz a little better in the way it's organized, but both offer plenty of examples for practice. Alternatively, picking up a hymnal is possibly an easier alternative to sightsinging that gives you lots of tonal material for practice.

With most of my other suggestions, though, you don't really need a book. Print out some scores on IMSLP or pick up a cheap study edition (like this one of Mozart piano sonatas) and work through a harmonic/formal analysis.

With transposition, I think probably just working through some scores on IMSLP would be a good start, as well - I can't think of any other better way to get exercises for that. It's one of those topics that's pretty easy to quiz yourself with as long as you keep yourself honest. :)

Edit to add: As far as specifics of literature, that is obviously pretty instrument-dependent. I am a vocalist, and I usually choose language first and then begin exploring pieces that might work with my current technical goals. I know a lot of instrumentalists treat genre/time period the same way. So depending on your instrument, you may have a different approach, but it helps to narrow things down to a few composers you might like to explore for your instrument, and then seeing if anything works for you. Although be wary - for me I end up getting so involved in lit studies that I have a list a mile long of pieces I want to study in the future. It's a double-edged sword for sure.

I think an important question you need to ask yourself (or at least clarify for us) is what kind of counterpoint would you like to write? Renaissance-style counterpoint or tonal counterpoint a la Bach? If the former, I would suggest something like Peter Schubert's Modal Counterpoint; if the latter, perhaps something like Kent Kennan's Counterpoint or Robert Gauldin's A Practical Guide to 18th Century Counterpoint

In either case, these books will present the basics of counterpoint, such as the consonances and proper voice leading, and then walk you through gradually more advanced techniques, elaborations, etc. to be able to write things in the style and give you a better understanding of what's going on in order to be able to analyze music.

The book: https://www.amazon.com/Counterpoint-4th-Kent-Kennan/dp/013080746X

Thnx for the composers you mentioned. I'll check out your channel!

>And honestly, I think it's great that you've developed such a career with something you are good at, and very passionate about.

Actually I work as a software engineer. But music is my passion. And occasionally my 2nd profession.

>Same genre, same methods of writing, but once you hear those solemn strings and brass, we know it's Zimmer.

Yeah, I don't disagree with that. For example Allan Holdsworth played fusion. But you can tell it's him and not just another "fusion guy". "Film music" is just an umbrella term covering many genres. My point was that Baroque is somewhat limited (compared to other approaches) to what you can do stylistically and it has been done. But maybe the composers you mention will change my mind.

>I too am working on developing mine.

Good luck!

I disagree with /u/vornska about Kostka and Schoenberg. They both have great perspectives and I think they are both good tools.

But I TOTALLY agree when it comes to counterpoint. Counterpoint is like the capstone of music theory (from my perspective). It really brings theory all together, at least for me. Still, I'd say that in order to study counterpoint it helps to have a background in basic theory first, which is why I characterize it as a capstone.

But it sounds like you have that basic theory knowledge (I think), so counterpoint might be awesome for you. If learning counterpoint is your endgame, I would go with neither Kostka nor Schoenberg. My counterpoint textbook was by Kent Kennan. Now, I only have experience with that one counterpoint book, so while I do recommend it, there could definitely be some better books on counterpoint out there. I just wanted to say that counterpoint is amazing to learn for any musician, no matter what books you read on it. (Well, unless the book is objectively bad.)

This book.

Also, all of Bach.

>I received a degree in music composition a few years ago, but we actually didn't delve very deep into Schenkarian Analysis in the program (in fact we barely glossed over it). There was one class on Form and Analysis, but I wish they had offered like 4 to be honest because I think it's immensely important.

This was my experience in undergrad too. It was not until I started my Master's that we got into Schenkerian analysis and substantial discussions on form. I teach my undergrads sonata theory and Schenker lite because I feel that would have helped me when I was doing my Bachelor's.

> You mentioned focusing on theme types, and I think that's a very good call. There are two major things I'm focusing on right now that I feel is a major shortcoming of mine: making distinctly different parts sound cohesive, and having long term harmonic goals. There are tons of other things I also need to improve, but this is my focus for now.

Yeah. The first chapter of Caplin: Classical Form is on Google Books. Being aware of melodic shape is also a good idea. I recommend the first chapter of Kennan: Counterpoint to get you started. Of course, composition is a laboratory and you'll do the majority of your learning by doing.

I'm a composer by trade (now working toward a PhD in Composition) and I don't know one book that introduces composing well, or at all. I got started in high school, just writing little pieces for myself and friends to play. I just kept at it all these years, through college, grad school and now.

What I found helpful along the way was to learn and be the pro at music theory. After all, music theory is a bunch of rules formulated based on what other people people from long long before have written. One thing to work hard on is counterpoint. It's a step by step on how to write good lines, good secondary lines and basically gives you a very rough idea of what works and what doesn't work. Of course, this is based in the tonal tradition. This is my recommended book. It's written in the socratic style, so just beware. Otherwise, this is what people use in school today.

Again, orchestration is important if you want to write for acoustic instruments. See my comment below~

My advice would be to JUST START WRITING! If its bad, you will know it is and why it's bad. Sometimes, you need a little help. PM me if you want me to look at some things you've done.

There is no one size fits all bible of music theory. To be extremely well rounded you need to look at a few different books:

For just starting out in the sense that you don't know how to build chords or intervals, Carl Fischer's grimoire books are excellent.

For classical harmony this is the book I used in my classes:
http://www.amazon.com/Tonal-Harmony-Introduction-Twentieth-Century/dp/0073401358/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1465247193&sr=8-2&keywords=tonal+harmony

For jazz harmony:
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465247235&sr=8-1&keywords=jazz+theory

For deeper classical/counterpoint:
http://www.amazon.com/Counterpoint-4th-Kent-Kennan/dp/013080746X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1465247274&sr=8-3&keywords=counterpoint


Also, try to get lessons with a university teacher because none of these books are comprehensive or perfect.
I remember in one of my beginning classes we went over the omnibus, and the deepest the book went was "this is an omnibus".
It wouldn't be until college where a professor ACTUALLY explained to me what the omnibus is and how to make one.

Also, the mark levine book can probably be condensed into 20 pages of meaningful material. He uses a lot of filler/examples...