C. H. Kitson · section 2 of 10

Introductory Note

There can be no argument as to the source of the technique of Strict Counterpoint; but there can be two views as to the reason for studying that technique. One view is that the goal is composition in the style of the sixteenth century. It may be mentioned in passing that the average student will never reach that goal, and does not desire to do so. A second view is that a study of this technique serves as the best preliminary training for modern contrapuntal style. Some one will say, why not make the technique the same as that of harmony, that is to say, free. There is much to say for that argument. But experience shows that discipline is necessary in music as in everything else, and secondly that when the beginner is grappling with the problems of contrapuntal style, he must not at the same time be worried with harmonic problems. In other words, the simpler the resource, the better the contrapuntal results. Good counterpoint is the result of harmonic mastery. Therefore for the beginner, the simpler the harmonic resource, the better will be the counterpoint.

But again, some one will say, the technique of Strict Counterpoint was developed before any harmonic period existed. Surely then, the right thing is to begin with Strict Counterpoint. Experience shows that if that method be adopted, progress is amazingly slow. And the reason is not far to seek. By the time of Palestrina, minds were really awakening to the harmonic aspect of music, and composers wrote what was harmonically satisfactory from a really remarkable feeling for the harmonic side of technique. The harmonic aspect of music was about to be brought to the birth. The average student has not much instinct, and the reasons for nearly all his errors in counterpoint are far more easily explained from a harmonic point of view. I am therefore firmly of opinion that before counterpoint is studied, the pupil should have taken a course of harmony up to diatonic sevenths and suspensions, including the use of unessential notes and elementary modulation. This course is presumed in this treatise.

With this firm harmonic basis, the study of counterpoint may begin with some chance of success.

Putting aside all that, and arguing de novo, we get a formidable array of witnesses against the use of the semibreve Canto Fermo. A ‘fat row of semibreves’ seems to paralyse many minds. My answer to people thus afflicted is, look at the Bach Chorale Prelude in D major, ‘Valet will ich dir geben,’ in which the counterpoint is twelve notes to one. No one would say this was not composition. But the chief argument against the use of the semibreve C. F. is that men in the period did not compose with a C. F. in semibreves. It is news to me that any one ever thought they did, or that technical exercises with the semibreve C. F. represented composition.

I have never heard the figured bass, much maligned as it is, criticized because it is not composition. I have never heard the practice of five-finger exercises, scales, arpeggios, and so on, criticized because they did not in themselves constitute a piece of music. The study of technique must be in the first instance separated from its application, and one phase must be studied at a time.

The first four species of counterpoint are a preparation for the fifth species, for they lay the foundations of that technique. But they are more than that. They are valuable studies in pattern writing. Of course, it will be said that there was no such thing as pattern writing in this period. That is true. But if you are going to study all the possibilities of say four notes to one under one heading—which after all is a sensible thing to do—you must write either separate isolated bars, or else a succession of bars of the combination. That does not mean that you are ever going to write a succession of bars of it in composition in the strict style. But inasmuch as the sole function of the study is not to write motets in sixteenth-century style, these studies have a further use. They are the necessary preparation for free contrapuntal technique in which these things are a salient feature. Experience has, I think, proved this. Let the technique be free as soon as possible, but not at the outset. ‘Strict Counterpoint’ then for the average beginner is a series of technical exercises, based on the sixteenth-century principles in the main, because they are the best means of giving the beginner firm foundations for future development. I have advisedly called this short book ‘Counterpoint for Beginners’. It is not in every detail ‘Strict’ Counterpoint. The following are the deviations:

(1) The modern major and minor scales are used.
(2) The principles of the period in reference to consecutives are not generally used, as they are not of permanent value.
(3) The technique is stated in harmonic terms.

Experience has proved to me that for the average beginner these slight deviations are wise. If you go back to sixteenth-century technique and outlook in toto, the results will be harmonically crude, because the average beginner has not enough harmonic instinct and a sufficiently musical ear. If, on the other hand, you make the work free, you get contrapuntal chaos.

Though I am of opinion that a study of the combination of the various species is of the highest value, I have not included it in a book for beginners. But I have attempted to reach combined florid work by explaining the various phases, without giving extended technical exercises. This matter is dealt with exhaustively in both Strict and Free styles in my Art of Counterpoint.

This is an age of destructive criticism. But a destructive policy is futile unless accompanied by a superior constructive one. Those who attempt to dispense with technical study, purely as such, will sooner or later discover their error. And complaints as to Strict Counterpoint generally come from those who cannot do it. It is natural that there should have been a revolt against the misguided teachings of Macfarren and Prout, neither of whom seems to have realized that the principles of Strict Counterpoint had any foundation in practice. If the advanced student wishes to write in sixteenth-century style, then obviously he must study the technique as it was in every detail. This book is not for him. It is for the average student who has to do some counterpoint, whether he likes it or not, whether he has much aptitude or not. And the aim is, by a series of technical exercises, to give him the foundations of contrapuntal writing, and by commencing with this earlier technique, save him from contrapuntal chaos and ruin. I hope that the chapter on Applied Technique will convince the student that his dreary study is not by any means without its immediate practical value.