Re : Shmounterpoint

I agree with everything said.

Western formalized counterpoint is older than
'tonal major minor' Western music and harkens
to the times when Western melodies had no chords.
My interest in Margos posts and interest in
16-th century (or earlier) counterpoint book is
to see what people were thinking as greater
simultanieties developed, but prior to the
codification of harmonic practice into
'tonal major minor' etc.

Regarding actually sitting down and learning
each and every rule and producing ersatz music
of any era, I highly doubt that any of the
composers on this list fit that criteria. I use
technique books (in painting and music) and
even stock my CD collection with 'educational
recordings' as jumping off points. I'm probably
the only one who knows how those items relate
to an actual piece of work. The neat thing is
that each of us CAN take the same road and
arrive at different destinations.

Regarding shmounterpoint and Lennie Tristano,
I think he had a pretty good thing happenning
(not like the Swingles at all and pretty far
from the other West Coast Cool sounds). But I
find the incidental counterpoint between
simultaneous jazz soloists, or jazz bass
and soloist, or in some African field
recordings to more interesting.

The problem with the 'rules' is that they are
statistical in nature, and the things that
happen most of the time are less interesting
than the sudden 'gotcha'. In music, and
especially counterpoint, I refer to these
gotchas as collisions. One reason why Bachs
music stands out in my opinion is that he left
so many of the gotchas in and seemed to savor
them. When two melodies follow their own
independent logic and create a logic in their
simultanieties, it's magic. When the logic of
the melodies and simultanieities doesn't match
in a usual manner and or a collision occurs,
the profundity can be increased. Same road,
different destinations. The soundness of
melodic logic is arguably more important than
the soundness of the logic of their
simultanieies. This is why polytonality works.
Of course, a lot of choral music shows the
exact opposite to be true.

Sorry, minor brain eruption there.

Bob Valentine

Robert!
The neat thing also is how we can take different roads and arrive at he same destination. This
list hints at this happening.

Robert C Valentine wrote:

> The neat thing is
> that each of us CAN take the same road and
> arrive at different destinations.

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
http://www.anaphoria.com

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