(thing) by Alpheus Sun Jan 21 2001 at 23:54:56
This flava is made up of a Cantus Firmus in whole notes and a melodic part in quarter notes.

  1. Your first quarter note of each measure has to be a chord tone. The other three notes can be passing, neighboring or chord tones.

  2. In the first measure, you must begin with a quarter rest and then follow up with three quarter notes. The first quarter note must be a 5th, octave or unison with cantus. Compounds of these intervals are permitted and will be henceforth.

  3. When the counterpoint is in the Cantus, the harmony of the first measure has to be of the tonic variety. Your first note must be the tonic.

  4. Parallel 5ths and octaves must be separated by at least four quarter notes when between chord tones.

  5. So long as the second parallel 5th or octave isn't on a strong beat of the measure, they may be seperated by as little as one quarter note when they are achieved through contrary movement.

  6. This one is tough to understand but useful: If each 5th contains a foreign tone (meaning foreign to the harmony) or if the second 5th has a foreign tone, parallel 5ths are okay so long as they are at least one quarter note apart.

  7. A unison may never be brought about by direct movement.

  8. When the counterpoint is in the Cantus, you have to be careful of the 6/4 interval. These aren't allowed as, even though the interval of a fourth isn't sounded, a 6/4 chord is implied and that makes it inadmissible.

  9. The last measure may only have a whole note in each part and an interval of an octave or unison.

  10. Each measure may only contain one harmony. also, don't modulate unless the Cantus allows modulation for an extended period (four measures or more) to a closely related key.

  11. Don't pivot or embellish on the leading tone.

  12. Try to avoid a skip that crosses the bar line.

  13. Don't repeat your melodic formulas. Invent.

  14. For the sake of the melody, an occasional sequence of more than one passing tone is okay, so long as you don't use multiple PT's in the lower voice, they aren't used for the sake of avoiding a difficult part of the exercise, and constrain the practice to one measure per exercise.
I like it! This writeup has been cooled by:  
Gritchka, DejaMorganaX 2 C!s

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