A Practical Guide to Musical Composition

March 12, 2010 5:42 AM

A Practical Guide to Musical Composition and Principles of Counterpoint - texts by composer Alan Belkin (quite a bit more to be found on his site).
posted by Wolfdog (13 comments total)

When everyone knows the Principles of Counterpoint all Metafilter threads will have greater richness, harmonic definition, and contrapuntal texture.

If you don't agree with me, fugue you.
posted by twoleftfeet at 5:55 AM on March 12, 2010 [7 favorites]

Too bad about the hard-to-read white text.
posted by Jaltcoh at 6:32 AM on March 12, 2010

Too bad about the hard-to-read white text.

That's what zap colors is for (it was the first thing I did when I clicked through).
posted by uncleozzy at 6:36 AM on March 12, 2010 [4 favorites]

Too bad about the hard-to-read white text.

That's what zap colors is for (it was the first thing I did when I clicked through).

Yeah, now we're fuguin'!
posted by No-sword at 6:42 AM on March 12, 2010

What I would really like to see is a public release of Johann Joseph Fux's [lol, fux] text Gradus ad Parnassum. It's a counterpoint manual used by Leopold Mozart, Amadeus Mozart, JS Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven. I've only found one copy in a university library in which I don't have check-out privileges.
posted by spamguy at 7:05 AM on March 12, 2010

Too bad about the hard-to-read white text.

That's what zap colors is for (it was the first thing I did when I clicked through).

Eh, too much trouble, I'll just look for similar content somewhere else. Life's too short to read poorly designed websites or books printed in tiny fonts.
posted by Jaltcoh at 7:14 AM on March 12, 2010

Hmmm... looking at his guide to music composition I get the impression that he might not like my music very much. Still, it's interesting to read how someone else teaches composition, especially someone who sees things in such a different light.
posted by ob at 8:02 AM on March 12, 2010

What I would really like to see is a public release of Johann Joseph Fux's [lol, fux] text Gradus ad Parnassum.

I still have the copy I bought at a used bookstore back when I was an undergrad, so it's been published at least fairly recently. Here it is at Amazon.

(The Fux will give you a strong basic understanding of tonal counterpoint, but a lot has happened since Beethoven, of course.)
posted by LooseFilter at 8:06 AM on March 12, 2010

hey spamguy, try Jeppesen's Counterpoint book, which is a direct re-presentation of Fux's Palestrina-style counterpoint treatise. I learned my 16th-c. counterpoint with this book in undergrad, and it was really useful for me. A bit dry, but very useful.

OK, who wants to find us an online version of Heinrich Schenker's Free Composition? Then we'll be set.

HAMBURGER. The analytic power of Schenkerian analysis is rather limited.
posted by LMGM at 8:07 AM on March 12, 2010

Hamburger? I step on your hamburger. Schenkerian analysis is illuminating for classical music up through the 19th century, and really only falls apart for 20th century stuff and atonality. Fux's rules aren't super relevant outside of the 16th century.

Anyway, here's a quick and dirty primer on Schenker graphs.
posted by speicus at 3:34 PM on March 12, 2010

Anything beats Hindemith ... Just sayin' ...
posted by aldus_manutius at 3:38 PM on March 12, 2010

Too bad about the hard-to-read white text.

F.pdf and C.pdf
posted by and for no one at 9:13 PM on March 12, 2010

Good starting and ending stuff! Now: about all that tumultous stuff in the middle ... ??
posted by Twang at 12:02 AM on March 13, 2010