Some thoughts on Counterpoint, and a website

There is a fine website devoted to organ improvisation: www.organimprovisation.com

It is curated by Glenn Osborne, a fellow graduate of Westminster Choir College, and (from his audio/video clips) highly skilled in this discipline.

His current blog essay (May 27, 2016) describes his visit to WCC for an alumni reunion and their impressive graduation ceremonies, with a suggestion – practicing improvisations with a metronome to ensure a steady beat and tempo, just as the organist at WCC used the metronome [in live performance!] to control tempo during the long entrance procession.

I need such work as this.

Osborne’s focus this spring has been Counterpoint. Like me, he places high value on the classic treatise Gradus ad Parnassum (J. J. Fux).

Often, he puts a twist on it, such as this (from April 11, 2016: “Introducing Dissonance,” with my comments)

I don’t necessarily remember where I got the idea, but one of the foundational ideas of the instruction I received in improvisation was that there are no wrong notes when improvising. [Cassi’s comment: I first heard this from Gerre Hancock, and in general it is true. But not always.] Why then do some notes sound wrong? … I believe the simple answer is that these wrong notes make a change in the level of dissonance. [Cassi again: this is an essential concept for making an improvisation sound like a unified piece – establish a level of dissonance, anything from pure Common Practice to late Romantic chromaticism, or any number of twentieth century models. Then maintain that style throughout the piece, using slight changes in the level of dissonance to help delineate the form. A chord or progression of chords that is outside of the given style will sound (and be) "wrong."]
……………
The study of counterpoint introduces dissonance in a very systematic and controlled way. First species allows no dissonance. In the language of Palestrina, this limits us to thirds, fifths and sixths using notes within the mode. If we wish to develop a more modern sound, what if we did first species using only seconds, fourths, and sevenths?

What a terrific idea! Treat any intervals, such as the seconds, fourths and sevenths that he mentions, as the “consonant” intervals, with thirds, sixths, octaves as “dissonance.” For practice purposes, of course: there are good reasons why in Real Music it is the other way around, with unisons, fifths, thirds and sixths as consonances. But such work would increase one’s control of dissonance in a non-traditional tonal context.

One could spend a lot of time working in this manner, and it opens lots of related possibilities. As Mr. Osborne writes elsewhere, Fux works within the traditional church modes (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian). But there is no reason the tools of Species Counterpoint could not be applied within any other harmonic context – Messiaen’s Modes of Limited Transposition, for example.

Later in this essay, Osborne writes:

In my first days as a student, I spent an entire year (or two) on two voice counterpoint working slowly through the levels of dissonance and species.

So did I. I was not formally a student by then, but I was seeking a path and found the going equally slow. As I have written elsewhere, I never made it past two-voice counterpoint. I hope I can make further progress someday.

From the Gradus (as quoted by Osborne in his essay for April 4, 2016):

Aloysius [the fictional Teacher in the dialogues] – But are you not aware that this study is like an immense ocean, not to be exhausted even in the lifetime of a Nestor? You are indeed taking on a heavy task, a burden greater than Aetna.

This is both a challenge and a joy. With music, as probably with any worthwhile human pursuit, there is no end to it. There is no point where one can look back and say “I have mastered this.”

The best we can hope for is to say: “I am making progress.”

"I don't have time" is, however, not a valid excuse, though I say it often enough to myself and others. The limits to our time are one of God's more subtle gifts; they force us to make choices. That, in turn, demonstrates what is important to us. If you will, God "puts us to the test" in this manner, to see how we will use the time He gives us. (from this essay)