The Principles and Practice of Modal Counterpoint

Douglass Green, Evan Jones

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415878210
• eBook ISBN: 9781136935091
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Covering modal music from Gregorian chant through the seventeenth-century, The Principles and Practice of Modal Counterpoint is a comprehensive textbook combining stylistic composition, theory and analysis, music history, and performance. By supplementing a modified species approach with a wealth of complete musical examples and historical information, this textbook thoroughly joins principle with practice, providing a truly immersive experience in the study of modal counterpoint and familiarizing students with modal repertoire.

Chapter 1
Modes and Monophony

1.1 Authentic and Plagal Melodies in Folksong

Beginning on a low C (C3 for men, C4 for women),¹ sing the melody of “Home on the Range” (it starts “Oh, give me a home”). You will be in the key of F and you will end on the note F. Starting again from the F, in the same key, sing the melody of “On Top of Old Smokey.” You probably noticed that the first one was easy to sing while the second one was uncomfortably high. It would seem more natural for the second tune to be transposed down a perfect fourth or a perfect fifth to begin on low C (C3 for men, C4 for women) or even low B♭ (B♭2 for men, B♭3 for women). Now try “Home on the Range” beginning on F4 (F3 for men). Unless you have an unusually high voice, you will wish you were in a lower key.

The easiest singing range for the untrained voice is about an octave, C3–C4 for men, an octave above that for women, C4–C5. Most people can go fairly easily a third below and a second above this octave. By putting “Home on the Range” in the key of F and “On Top of Old Smokey” in the key of C, all these songs can be comfortably sung by anyone.

Folksongs generally have a range of about an octave, rarely more than a tenth. In order to accommodate folksongs to a singable range, the accompanist has to be able to play in at least two keys, a fourth or fifth apart. Most folksongs can be placed into one of two categories: those whose prevailing ranges lie within the octave formed by the tonic notes and those whose prevailing ranges lie within the octave formed by the dominant notes. The former is referred to as an authentic range, or simply an “authentic melody,” and the latter as a plagal range, or a “plagal melody” (Example 1-1).

EXAMPLE 1-1

In relation to the keynote, a melody with a plagal range lies lower than does a melody with an authentic range, for the tonic note lies approximately in the middle of its compass.²

EXERCISE 1.1

Sing as many of the following songs as you know. Which are plagal and which authentic?

1. “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” (“The Eyes of Texas”)
2. “Camptown Races”
3. “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”
4. “Alouette”
5. “On Top of Old Smokey”
6. “The Streets of Laredo”
7. “Old Folks at Home”
8. “Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be?”
9. “Doe, a Deer”
10. “Greensleeves” (or “What Child Is This”)

1.2 Scales and Modes

A thorough discussion of scales and modes, their origins, their tunings and temperaments, their functions and uses throughout music history would be an enormous undertaking. For our purposes here it is enough to describe the chief modes and their scales without inquiring closely into the chain of events that led to their development in the first place.

The notes of plainsong can be abstracted to form diatonic scales. A diatonic scale has one and only one note for each letter name, seven different notes in all. The notes of each diatonic scale can be rearranged to form an uninterrupted seven-note segment of the cycle of perfect fifths. Starting arbitrarily on B♭, the cycle of fifths is shown in Example 1-2 along with the possibilities for various diatonic scales. (Some “fifths” are shown as fourths, in order to keep the pitches within a narrower range on the staff.)

EXAMPLE 1-2

Ionian (major) = notes 2–8, beginning on C
Dorian = notes 2–8, beginning on D
Phrygian = notes 2–8, beginning on E
Lydian = notes 2–8, beginning on F
Mixolydian = notes 2–8, beginning on G
Aeolian (minor) = notes 2–8, beginning on A
Transposed Ionian (major) = notes 1–7, beginning on F
Transposed Dorian = notes 1–7, beginning on G
Transposed Phrygian = notes 1–7, beginning on A
Transposed Lydian = notes 1–7, beginning on B♭
Transposed Mixolydian = notes 1–7, beginning on C
Transposed Aeolian (minor) = notes 1–7, beginning on D
Other major scales = notes 3–9, beginning on G; notes 4–10, beginning on D; notes 5–11, beginning on A; etc.
Other minor scales = notes 3–9, beginning on E; notes 4–10, beginning on B; notes 5–11, beginning on F♯; etc.

You may already have guessed that a scale in itself gives you neither key nor mode. One note of the scale must be selected as the tonic (or final) and the other notes arranged in ascending or descending order if you are to speak of the “scale of C major” or the “scale of B♭ Lydian.” We can take any one of the seven-note segments from the cycle of fifths and, selecting each of the seven notes in turn, construct the scales of seven different keys and modes (see Example 1-...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Modes and Monophony
• Chapter 2: The Single Line
• Chapter 3: Counterpoint During the Middle Ages
• Chapter 4: First Species In Two Voices
• Chapter 5: First Species In Three Voices
• Chapter 6: Counterpoint During the Fourteenth Century
• Chapter 7: Second Species In Two Voices
• Chapter 8: Second Species In Three Voices
• Chapter 9: Counterpoint During the Renaissance
• Chapter 10: Fourth Species In Two Voices
• Chapter 11: Fourth Species In Three Voices
• Chapter 12: Texture, Melody, and Meter
• Chapter 13: Further Aspects of Species Counterpoint
• Chapter 14: The Melodic Line
• Chapter 15: Modal Counterpoint In Two Voices
• Chapter 16: Modal Counterpoint In Three Voices
• Chapter 17: Modal Counterpoint In Four or More Voices
• Chapter 18: The Rise of Tonality In the Seventeenth Century
• Epilogue: The Nature of Counterpoint
• Answer Boxes for Self-Tests
• Appendix A: Some Latin Texts
• Appendix B: Pronunciation of Church Latin
• Appendix C: Tones and Text of the Magnificat: The Canticle of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Luke 1: 46–55)
• Appendix D: Facsimile of Parts for Palestrina’s Missa Sine Nomine, Agnus II
• Notes
• Select Bibliographies