J. Anthony Allen teaches the five species of counterpoint, building on first-species foundations. The lesson covers passing tones, parallel motion, and interval reduction, with five major rules that will get you through any first-semester college music theory course.
Sam. Sa. And the note that's 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. So it goes from a consonant to a dissonant to a consonant, 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 a third underneath. So I'm going to end up underneath this note. So I'm going to end up on a D. So let's try to put that D there. 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. Now, why wouldn't we call that A2? I'll tell you exactly why we wouldn't call that A2. 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 to D, which is the same as a two. Right? This is a parallel fifth. Why is it a parallel fifth? Well, it's because our two consonants, this is called a beat to beat parallel, meaning the downbeats are parallel. Hey, everyone. Welcome to Music Theory Part five, counterpoint. We, in the last music theory class, part four, we dove into first species counterpoint and learned the basic rules of music theory when it comes to counterpoint. In this class, we're going to go through all of the counterpoints, what's called second species counterpoint, third species counterpoint, four species counterpoint, and fifth species counterpoint, also sometimes called free counterpoint. We're gonna 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, then you will have no problem going into a music theory class at any college and breezing through that class. You could even just go in and take the final exam, and I bet you'll pass it. We are going to have covered everything. If you've taken all five of my classes, that includes this one, you're going to 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 going to be some new terms we're going to learn in this class, some new musical terms that you've probably never heard before. And we're gonna talk about 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 decided to join us. Please jump in. We're gonna have a lot of fun. There's gonna be a whole bunch of worksheets I'm gonna give you for you to practice this stuff on your own. And I respond to questions posted in the class every single day. So anytime 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 I just love answering questions about stuff. So please jump in. Join us. We're gonna have a ton of fun in this class, and we're gonna learn a lot about counterpoint. So let's. Sam.
