Hi, I'm Gareth Green, and in this video, we're going to be thinking about this topic, writing counterpoint from a given chord scheme. Now, why might you want to do that? Well, there are lots of people who are very happy about writing chords, and they can kind of write homophonic textures, in other words, textures that are kind of vertical in construction.
We're going from one chord to the next, we've maybe got a melody, we've got chords that fit with that melody. But what happens if you want to have something that's a bit more linear? So you've got a chord scheme, but you want to write a kind of melodic line that then maybe is a bit conversational between two parts. Could be more than two parts, though of course counterpoint becomes increasingly more complicated the more parts you add to it. So in this video, we're going to concentrate on thinking about how to do this.
in two parts. So, I've given us a chord scheme to work with, and I've purposely thrown in one or two interesting features, hopefully. And I'm going to work in the key of G major, doesn't really matter, but we'll settle for G major. We're going to start with a fairly straightforward bar that starts with a tonic chord, G major in this case, going to chord V. And then in the second bar, we'll have a slightly faster harmonic rhythm.
So the chord changes, we've got III instead of II, and we're going to go I to V to VI. And then in the next bar, we're going to be quite busy with our chord changes. So IIb or II in first inversion, V, I, VI, Ib or I in first inversion.
And then as we go into the last bar, we're heading for a cadence, V-I. So I'm going to go IIb, II in first inversion, that is, and then V-I. So there's a chord scheme. Now, there'll be many people who will say, yeah, okay, I understand those chords, and I'd be very happy to kind of put those chords together and to come up with a piece of music that follows that scheme.
Once I've got that chord scheme going, well, maybe I could compose a melody over that. But how would we use that chord scheme to write something that's counterpoint? Well, you can see I've got three versions of this.
And the idea is that this is a bit progressive. So if we have a look at version number one, and you'll see how it's laid out, we've got number one, and then you have to drop down to see number one on the next set of staves, and those number ones all got kind of red notes. And number two in blue notes is the second pair of staves at the top thing, and then down to another second stave. And the third version is green notes, bottom of the top set, bottom of the second set.
I've done it in this way so you can see how one progresses to the next. So there are kind of three stages, if you like, that I'm proposing here. And here is stage one. It's version number one in the red notes. And what we're trying to do initially is to say, okay, how can we have a point, as it's called?
So counterpoint. A point, if you like, is a musical idea that we're going to then bounce around in counterpoint. Okay, so let's have a look. We've got to go from chord I to chord V. So we're looking for that chord of G to this chord of D. So can you see what I've done with the red notes in version one is to start by coming up with a melodic idea that's not going to be kind of, here's a melody note with a chord, but it's a linear construction, something that's going a bit faster.
something that you can really feel is on the horizontal, but it's got to fit with the chord scheme. And this is where most people go wrong with counterpoint, is they start designing some fancy thing with lots of fast rhythm, but it doesn't belong to chords. And so it all sounds a bit dissonant and a bit disconnected.
So with these red notes, which you'll see, I've only got the first bar of these four bars in, I've come up with an idea that starts with chord I. So. the first half of the first bar is chord I.
Now let's just examine why I've come up with that. Everything needs to fit chord I, so G, B, D. Do you see what I've done here? I've got G, A is a passing note, B belongs to the chord, D belongs to the chord, C is a passing note, B belongs to the chord.
So the G, B, D outline is there. The first note, the third note, the fourth note. and the last note, and they're just using A and C as passing notes. And then that gives us this linear thing. Okay, now.
When the left hand comes in later in the bar, because that's often how a counterpoint works, one part starts on its own and then another part comes in, what I'm trying to do in the second half of the bar is to imitate the same idea. Well, if I'm going from I to V, well, if I'm based on a chord I, the G, B, D thing, and I've come up with this figure, can I now make that same figure work around a chord V. So the chord V is the D, F-sharp, A chord. So do you see what I've done in the left hand? So it's an exact transposition of what the right hand's done in relation to chord I, so that it now fits with chord V. So chord V is D, F-sharp, A. So exactly the same thing. There's D, passing note for an E, F-sharp belongs to the chord, A belongs to the chord, then D, and G as a passing note back to F-sharp.
So immediately, we have a point that sets up a little conversation. So here's the first bar. Now it doesn't sound complete yet, does it?
But we've got the idea that we've got to have some kind of design of a point, and that point can be imitated. It doesn't have to be imitated. precisely as I have done here.
You might want to modify some of the pitches to make it fit the chord. But the important thing is that whatever you write must fit the chord. So you're either writing a harmony note or you're writing an inessential note. And if you start writing notes you can't justify as harmony notes or as inessential notes, you're probably going to end up with something you're not entirely happy with. Okay, well, that's the red version.
That's where we start. Do you know that? the first things to get that first point going. Let's now slip into version two, where you've got the blue notes and see what we've got.
Well, the first bar is exactly the same, but do you see what I'm trying now to do is to roll out the rest of the piece, these four bars, using this counterpoint idea. So bar one we've talked about. Okay, now let's go into bar two.
Now, you see what we're doing in bar two. We said we're going to have a bit more movement, so we're going to go from one to five to six. I've purposely done this.
You don't have to have a harmonic rhythm that goes faster in some bars and slower in other bars. You could have a very consistent harmonic rhythm, two chords in every bar. The trouble with that is it gets a bit predictable, but to get going in counterpoint, if you're finding this a tricky one, well, just have.
one chord or two chords in each bar, but this is just to show you how you can deal with a harmonic rhythm, the rate of chord change, increasing or decreasing during the piece. So when I come to the second bar of the blue notes, I'm trying to base it on what we wrote in the first bar, but I'm having to adjust it because this chord I is moving to a chord V while these first six notes are playing out. So do you see what I've done in bar two on the blue notes?
The B, C, well, all that belongs to the chord I, and then the D, E, F-sharp, D, all belongs to the chord V. Is it exactly the same as what we had in the first bar? No, it isn't. Is it recognisably connected?
Yes, it is, because the first three notes, three rising notes by step, and then the B, C, well, all that belongs to the chord V. I've got it again in the second bar. But the end of the idea is slightly different. The first time we went, and we came down there.
Now we're doing this. We're going to keep going up, but it's still recognisable, isn't it? But it enables us to move from I to V. Okay, now the second half of the bar is going to be using chord VI.
So do you see what I've done in the left hand? I've managed to imitate what the right hand has done at the beginning of the bar, but make it fit chord VI. How does it do that? Well, E, G and B are your chord notes, the F-sharp and the A are passing notes. And it just works out very well that it fits as a copy of what we did in the first half of bar two.
So the first half of bar two has two chords, the second half of bar two only has one chord, but it shows you that you can make it work. If it didn't quite work and you had to modify that in some way so that the right hand didn't transpose exactly to the left hand in the second part, that's no big deal. It's absolutely fine. But you can see where we're going with this. So bars one and two.
Okay, now let's move on to bar three. I've purposely made this very busy with the chord changes because you might look at this and think, how do I make all this fit? Well, I've had to modify what we've done so far. But nevertheless, I'll make it fit. So when you look at what I've done in the third bar, I've got this in the right hand.
How does that fit? Well, A fits with the IIb, then the G is a passing note, F-sharp fits with V, and then I've got a passing note. This belongs, this D belongs to the chord V, then a passing note.
Then we're going on to I. So the left hand is imitating what I've just done, straight down the scale. The left hand is now going to start on G, so it fits chord I, passing note.
The E then belongs to VI, and then I've got passing notes going on to the Ib. Now, how does that work when I'm doing this? E belongs to VI, D is an unaccented passing note, C is an accented passing note going on to B.
to B that belongs to that I B chord. So you can have an unaccented passing note followed by an accented passing note, that's absolutely fine. But it means that in bar three, which is the most complicated to deal with because of the rapid chord change, I've now turned the original figure into a descending scale-like figure. And the left hand.
Okay, we're almost home. In the last bar, we're going to go. 2b, V, I, and then we need to bring the whole thing to a close. So in the right hand, I've gone for A, which belongs to II. The G is a passing note, quite a good passing note as well, because it happens to turn the II into II7.
And then these notes belong to V, F-sharp, G, A, F-sharp. So that's harmony, passing, harmony, harmony. And then I'm going to the tonic to take us back to chord I at the end. So hopefully the point I'm making is that you can work with a figure, but you can do it quite flexibly. In this case, I've managed to make it work strictly between the hands by transposing things to fit with a chord.
Doesn't have to be as strict as that. But you see what I've got is an evolution of the original figure. So what we have in bar one is slightly altered in bar two.
It's slightly more distinctively altered in bar three. And then we've got a bit of a mixture of things in bar four, but it's using the same material. And in this case, we've got a common rhythm, haven't we? All of these sort of imitation points in the counterpoint are going bum, da, da, ti, da, da, da. It's always the same rhythm.
So let's put the blue version together. This is version two. We can now see how it fits the chord scheme.
This is how it sounds so far, still incomplete, you'll see how this counterpoint construction works. And I'm just trying to show you a method of doing it, working from the chords. So we started with the red thing, which is the initial thing that we're going to use as the basis of our counterpoint.
The blue version is, okay, how do we roll that out? So this is what we've got so far. Okay, doesn't sound like a great piece of music yet, but nevertheless, we've got the essentials of some counterpoint here.
Now, what I do in the green version, which is version three of this, is then to say, now I've got all this sort of counterpoint in place. Can I fill in the gaps? And also thinking that another aspect of writing counterpoint is that, you know, whatever one hand is doing, maybe the other hand can do something that contrasts it. Could be the same rhythm, could run in thirds and sixths and all that kind of stuff that we know works, but maybe we can do something a bit independent. So you'll notice what I've tried to do here is when we're not playing the notes in blue from version two, We're playing notes of different rhythms.
So we get a contrasting rhythm. So you notice in the right hand of the first bar, in the second half, I've just filled out the harmony by using these notes. We're on chord V, so A, A, D, that all belongs to chord V. C is a passing note, and again happens to turn it into a V7.
It harmonises well with the left hand, it sort of fills in enough of the harmony, so we're clear about that.. and it's rhythmically independent. Having got quavers in the right hand of the first bar, I then got quavers in the left hand of the beginning of the next bar. Is it an exact copy of what I did in the right hand of the first bar?
No, but it's distinctively the same because in the right hand of the first bar, I had this rising octave. The left hand of the second bar, rising octave. Okay, the next two notes are different.
Does that matter? Not at all. When I get to the second half of the second bar, I've got another independent rhythm in the right hand, this time a dotted crotchet going to a quaver. So it's fairly straightforward stuff. The G will complete this chord VI, the F-sharp is a passing note at the end of the bar.
So that's fairly straightforward, isn't it? And then you can see how that plays out. All I'm trying to do is to complete the harmony in a satisfactory kind of way and to have a sort of rhythmic bouncing back and forth between the two parts. Semiquavers here, semiquavers here, semiquavers there, semiquavers here. But conversely, quavers, quavers, dotted crotchet, quavers, quavers, quavers.
You know, a little bit of a balance of rhythm. And it feels a bit conversational. Then the other thing I want to do is to think about voice leading a bit. So for example, when we have the opening, you can kind of hear that that that wants to go on to A.
It could go somewhere else. For example, if we wanted to go somewhere else, it wouldn't fit the chord, but it could do. We need to find a note that fits the chord. But sometimes you can just feel the voice leading.
When you get to the end of one of these six-note semiquavers things, you're sort of thinking, I think I know where that wants to go. So the left hand in the first bar. sort of logically leads you onto that G, and G is the root of chord I, so that's a happy outcome, isn't it? So, you see what we're trying to do? We started with the original idea in bar I, fitting with the chords, in the red version.
Then in the blue version, we tried to work out how that figure was going to be used throughout the four bars. And now in the green version, we're trying to fill in the gaps to keep this conversation between the hands going. Okay, so what do we end up with?
Okay, well, you can decide on other things like the speed and the articulation and all the rest of it. You could put some ornamentation in, but can you hear, we've now got some two-part counterpoint going, all right? So just to play that again so you see how it all fits together.
Okay, so I hope that's useful in explaining a process of how you might construct counterpoint from a chord scheme. If you found that useful and you want to do a bit more on counterpoint, you might want to go to the Music Matters website, www.mmcourses.co.uk. You'll find a course there on counterpoint. Or if you want to share with others on your musical journey, have a little think about joining our Maestros group. And there's an opportunity there to meet for a monthly live stream.
and share the music you're writing with other people and to learn together, that may be something of interest. And on the same website homepage, you'll see a link to Maestros if you want to know more about that.