Contemporary Counterpoint (book/Audio Online)

Publisher: Berklee Press
Theory & Application
Author: Beth Denisch

Use counterpoint to make your music more engaging and creative. Counterpoint—the relationship between musical voices—is among the core principles for writing music, and it has been central to the study of composition for many centuries.
This book will help to hone your craft, gain control, and lead you to new creative possibilities. You will learn “tricks of the trade” from the masters and apply these skills to contemporary styles.

Online audio examples illustrate the principles being discussed, and many recommended listening lists point you to additional examples of how these principles have been used in music over the past thousand years.

You will learn how to:
• Create strong and independent melodies
• Develop motifs into larger melodic structures
• Understand “species counterpoint,” and how to adapt it to contemporary writing
• Develop your music’s internal textures and relationships between voices, to create interest and engagement
• Use specific types of canons as the baseline architecture for works, such as in crab, inversion, and mensuration canons
• Integrate contrapuntal techniques into your writing, such as ostinatos, melodic imitation, and rhythmic counterpoint
• Explore counterpoint in contemporary practice, from jazz to aleatoric styles

Audio Sample

• Delamont  Tecnica moderna di contrappunto
• M. Thakar  Il contrappunto - fondamenti del far musica
• Dubois  Trattato di contrappunto e fuga
• F. Salzer  Contrappunto e composizione
• A. Schonberg  Esercizi preliminari di contrappunto
• Diether de La Motte  Il contrappunto
• B. Denisch  Contemporary Counterpoint
• B. Pilkington  Counterpoint in Jazz Arranging