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Chapter 1: Line

Human perception seems incapable of paying equal attention to more than one strand at a time (perhaps an evolutionary adaptation to avoid confusion and to allow organisms to prioritize action?). Although in some contrapuntal textures that the listener’s attention migrates between various parts there is always a focus. In its broadest meaning, we will use the word "line" to refer to the main path followed by the listener’s attention through a musical work over time. If the composer does his work well, this path will be intriguing, coherent, and convincing from start to finish. This notion of line is central not only to the study of counterpoint, but to music in general.

In its more traditional sense, the "line" refers to the continuity in time of an individual melodic strand (usually referred to as a "voice", or a "part", in contrapuntal study). Let us examine some of the elements of line.

Voice leading

Contrapuntal melodic line can be seen as an outgrowth of basic harmonic voice leading. In the simplest block harmony, conjunct movement and tied common tones are the norm. This is because they are easy to sing — notes which remain in place or move by step are not hard to hear and find — and also because the ear ends to create continuity based on registral relationships.

Leaps, by contrast, are special events, used to renew interest, to open new registers and to attract the listener’s attention. In short, in a normal (conjunct) context, a leap acts as an accent.

Contour

Contour refers to the shape formed by the successive pitches in any stretch of line. Changes of direction, and especially, extremes at the top and bottom, are important events in a line, memorable for the listener. In the case of lines for voice, and of lines that are vocal in inspiration even if written for instruments, rising contour is associated with increased intensity, and falling contour is associated with relaxation. Developing a feeling for the balanced rise and fall of tension in a melodic line is a good preliminary step towards a sense of form..

Compound line

In "compound line", a melody is enriched by frequent leaping between two or three sub-strands, giving the illusion of two or three simultaneous levels, although there is actually never more than one note sounding at a time.

Here the melody implies voice leading of 3-4 parts, as portrayed on the lower staff. Note that active notes are resolved normally in the next harmony. Unresolved active tones would create distraction.Compound line is based on the strong association between continuity and register, and can allow a single instrument to supply all or some of its own harmony. It creates implicit continuity between notes that are not adjacent in time. The most spectacular examples of this technique are of course the solo violin and cellos suites of Bach.

Accent

Accent is an important property of line. All the notes in a given line are not of equal importance. Highlights and contrasts provide interest and richness. An accent is a moment which stands out.

Accent is not limited to normal metric stress. Accent can also result from:

rhythmic length: agogic accent. This is the normal accent in Renaissance music, when barlines were not used to define meters. Properly sung, Renaissance polyphony, for all its impressive euphony, is rich in accentual conflict since long notes arrive independently in each part.
extreme pitch: peaks

Here the high F, despite its weak metrical position, would be sung with a certain intensity, mitigating metrical squareness.

striking harmony.

In this example, after a melodic peak on the high A after the third beat, the Neapolitan harmony on the last beat creates a harmonic accent.

One of the most important aspects of linear independence is independence of accent. Even when all lines use the same note values, they will not normally have entirely coordinated accents. Coordinated accents are a strong sign to the listener that something special is happening, usually a climax. When previously independent strands begin to follow the same contour at the same time, the effect is one of simplification, clarifying momentum for the listener and increases the music's drive. Used well, this is a powerful cue that culmination is approaching; used badly, it destroys tension: If the expected climax does not materialize, the effect can be disappointing.

Accent is related to harmony: Notes which belong to the prevailing harmony are perceived differently from those which clash with it. Notes between chord tones create tension until the next harmonic arrival point.

Melodic Structure and Ornamentation

In most western music, contrapuntal lines meet fairly regularly to form recognizable chords, usually at metrical accents. These meetings act as harmonic pillars. The gaps between them, when the lines move more freely, create both a sense of freedom and tension, since they normally include at least some notes outside of the prevailing harmony. (If they regularly include nothing but chord tones - as repeated notes or arpeggios - they are better understood as harmonic elaboration and not as linear development.)

While it would be impossible to list all possibilities exhaustively here, we can categorize idioms of melodic elaboration into a few main types:

conjunct passing motions,
neighbor notes,
indirect approaches, including change of direction and 8ve displacements,

Underlying the melody in this example is a simple rise from C to G. However the line gains interest from the varying ways in which this skeleton is fleshed out, and especially from the climactic "overshoot" between the F and the final G, which has the effect of making a second approach to the G, from above, in addition to the primary one, from below.

This example features the very common technique of octave displacement. This maneuver allows the line to stay within one singable register, and avoids the overly dramatic effect of a long scale rushing down.

combinations of steps, which create melodic flow, and leaps, to open up new registers and renew interest.

Here the leap at the end of measure 2 adds interest after the simple scale and neighbor motions which precede it. The neighbor note on the high C softens the melodic fall after the peak on D.

moving a line out of phase with the prevailing harmony (suspensions).

Some of these categories correspond to the species of traditional contrapuntal pedagogy: This is another argument for the species approach, if applied with intelligence and flexibility.

Motives and coherence

Motives can add an extra dimension to linear coherence. A motive is a short, memorable pattern, which is repeated and varied. Usually motives are melodic/rhythmic patterns (although in Mahler's 6^th Symphony, the change from a major to a minor triad accompanied by cross-fade orchestration is clearly an important "motive"). Such patterns create associative richness. Motives stimulate the memory, and thus can be used to create connections going beyond simple short term continuity. Conversely, introducing a characteristic motive and then ignoring it usually creates distraction and weakens the overall effect.

Dissonance formulas, apart from the most basic ones (passing and neighbor notes in neutral rhythm), in effect create motives requiring continuation.

The standard ways of using motives are listed in many texts and are not worth detailing again here. However one distinction we have found useful is between "close" and "distant" variants of a motive. The frequent repetition undergone by most motives requires more or less continual variation to maintain interest. The key point is whether an attentive listener is more struck by the novelty of a given motivic transformation or the association with the original. Certain motivic variants, for example retrograde, and augmentation/diminution, especially in cases where these upset the rhythmic flow, may be easy to seize visually, but when heard are often quite dissimilar to the original form.

Here the retrograde sounds nothing like the original motive due to the syncopated rhythm it creates. It sounds more like an intentional contrast then a simple continuation.

The composer needs to carefully control whether the degree of association or novelty created is appropriate to the context. For example a short section of only a phrase or two is very unlikely to require the kind of far-flung contrast that retrograde usually engenders. On the other hand, if the composer wants to create a contrasting theme out of previous material, retrograde might be very useful.

Neutral lines

A common misconception in writing motivic counterpoint is that "everything must be derived from the motives in the theme". Not only is this demonstrably untrue in much fine music, often it doesn't even make musical sense. While motivic "tightness" certainly can contribute to creating a coherent musical flow, it can be present in varying degrees (ranging from the tightest canonic imitation to the kind of much looser texture found in many fugal episodes, where one leading part is accompanied by much more neutral counterpoint). Indeed, there is sometimes a distinct advantage to using more neutral material of the sort found in elementary species work. Simple conjunct movement and suspensions are useable without drawing attention to themselves in virtually any contrapuntal context, whether or not they are present in the work’s thematic material. These simple resources often better highlight important ideas than would the more competing presence of other highly distinctive motives.

One useful technique for reducing the density of contrapuntal textures without losing the independent interest of the each line is to stagger rhythmic doubling: several parts can share rhythmic values, as long as they don’t consistently start and end these passages of rhythmic doubling together.

Here the alto goes into eighth notes after the soprano has already started them and continues after the soprano has stopped. The bass and tenor start off together in quarter notes but change in measure 2 to different values. This the texture remains transparent, but no two lines ever go for long in rhythmic unison.

Alan Belkin, composer

Principles of Counterpoint