Counterpoint: A Species Approach Based on Schenker's Counterpoint

by Henry Martin

Counterpoint is a textbook for use as a stand-alone text in a course on species counterpoint or as a supplementary text for standard college-level courses in music theory. It is based on Heinrich Schenker's (1868-1935) two-volume study of counterpoint. It is intended to help all students of theory or composition to improve their musicianship by examining the voice-leading that underlies Western tonal music.

The book proceeds by developing species counterpoint in the tradition of Johann Joseph Fux and his famous Gradus ad Parnassum (1725), but with attention to Schenker's more in-depth study. For the sake of brevity, musical examples are available on the Scarecrow Press website (www.scarecrowpress.com), rather than within the text itself.

Everyone from beginning music theory students to composers to graduate composition students will greatly benefit from the methods presented here. Rather than actually teaching a student to compose, working through these exercises will improve musicianship as it applies to both composition and understanding music theory.

148 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Henry Martin is an award-winning Irish writer and art scholar. His plays have featured at Project Arts Centre, Roundhouse, Underbelly, Arcola, Theatre503, and Belltable; his fiction and poetry is published in Ireland, Mexico, USA and UK; and he has written about art and books for Soho House and Phaidon Press. He is narrator of the documentary 'Agnes Martin Before The Grid' (2016), his book 'Yappo' is published by Company Cod (2017), and his play 'The Cost of Your Forgetting' is published in 'Tiny Plays For Ireland', New Island Books, 2013.