Hi David,

Thanks for posting this! Great contribution!

I would add one thing, and it is not a quibble.

I would say that in counterpoint, the lines are both independent and interdependent at the same time.

Interdependent in the sense that at each point in the measure what you sense chemically in your brain is related to the EXPECTATIONS that were built up in the intersecting lines to this point.

It is the jarring of these expectations that creates the element of surprise I am talking about.

Such as in the Jesu piece: you may have heard a B over a D at one point a few beats back (let's say) and you are used to that, but now when you hear a B over a C# you have an element of surprise that cannot be achieved without counterpoint, or in a standard song progression.

Like, if you just play a G, C and D over and over, with whatever inversions, there is nothing to be surprised by, for me, especially if you have a two note melody.

Some would say you could set off a cannon in the middle of your song and that would be surprising and I guess it would, but that is not the kind of surprises that delight me in a piece of music. I am almost always delighted by surprises in counterpoint, not cheap carnival tricks and loops or whatever.

Does that make sense??

smile

David Snyder
Songwriter/Renaissance Man
Studio + Fingers

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