Music theory · 6 min read

Counterpoint for beginners

Counterpoint is two or more melodies sounding together, each one worth hearing on its own. The species, contrary motion, imitation and how to practise it.

2026-05-22

Lines, not chords

Harmony asks what chord is sounding at this moment. Counterpoint asks what each voice is doing over time, and lets the chords fall out as a by-product. The two views describe the same music, and by the eighteenth century composers held both simultaneously, but they lead you to different decisions.

A contrapuntal texture is one where you could sing any single line on its own and it would be a tune. Compare that with a song with piano accompaniment, where the right hand is a tune and the left hand is chordal filler nobody would sing. Both are legitimate; only the first is counterpoint.

The test is independence. If two lines move in the same direction, at the same time, by the same intervals, they are not two lines but one line thickened. So the first working rule is to keep the voices doing different things: when one rises, let the other fall or hold.

Consonance, dissonance and the rules that follow

Traditional counterpoint sorts intervals into perfect consonances, the unison, fifth and octave; imperfect consonances, the thirds and sixths; and dissonances, the seconds, sevenths and the tritone, with the fourth occupying an awkward middle ground depending on context.

Most of the classic rules are consequences of one aim: keep the lines audibly separate. Parallel fifths and parallel octaves are forbidden in strict writing because they are the fastest way to make two voices fuse into one. Two voices a third apart still sound like two voices; two voices an octave apart moving together sound like one voice with a thicker tone.

Dissonance is not forbidden, it is regulated. A dissonance is prepared, sounded and resolved: the note is already present as a consonance, becomes dissonant when the other voice moves, then steps down to a consonance. That three-stage shape, the suspension, is the engine of most Baroque expressive writing. Remove the suspensions from a Bach chorale and what is left is dull.

Motion between voices is classified as contrary, when they move in opposite directions; oblique, when one holds and one moves; similar, when both move the same way by different intervals; and parallel, when both move the same way by the same interval. Contrary motion is the workhorse, because it guarantees independence.

The species, and why they are still the way in

Species counterpoint is a teaching scheme, codified by Johann Joseph Fux in 1725 and used by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, that introduces rhythmic freedom one step at a time against a fixed melody called the cantus firmus.

In first species you write one note against each note of the cantus firmus. Every interval must be a consonance, and you must manage the motion between them. It sounds trivially simple and is not: with only consonances available and parallels forbidden, producing a line that is also a good tune is genuinely hard.

Second species gives you two notes against one, which allows passing dissonance on the weak beat. Third species gives four against one, opening up more decorative dissonance. Fourth species introduces syncopation, and with it the suspension. Fifth species, called florid counterpoint, combines them all freely.

The reason the scheme survives is that it isolates variables. You are never solving rhythm, harmony and line at once. Students who work through even the first two species carefully find that their part-writing and their ability to hear inner voices improve together.

Imitation, canon and fugue

Imitation means one voice states an idea and another repeats it shortly afterwards, at the same or a different pitch. When the imitation is exact and continues indefinitely you have a canon; a round such as Frere Jacques is a canon at the unison.

A fugue is a piece built on systematic imitation. A subject is announced alone, answered in a second voice at the fifth while the first continues with a countersubject, then taken up by the remaining voices. Between these entries come episodes, usually sequential, built from fragments of the subject. A fugue is not a form with a fixed floor plan so much as a procedure carried out with judgement.

Devices you will meet include inversion, where the subject's intervals are turned upside down; augmentation and diminution, where it is played in longer or shorter note values; and stretto, where entries overlap before the previous one has finished. These are not puzzles for their own sake. Stretto in particular raises tension audibly, because the ear registers the crowding.

Counterpoint at the instrument

Polyphonic music exposes an instrument's weaknesses quickly, and the accordion handles it better than most. Because the reeds sustain indefinitely under bellows pressure, a held note stays held, which a piano cannot do. What the accordion cannot do is play one voice louder than another, since a single air supply feeds every reed. You separate the voices by register, by articulation and by careful timing of entries rather than by weight.

The Stradella left hand is useless for real counterpoint. Its preset chords give you fixed voicings and no independent bass line, which is precisely what a fugue requires. This is why serious accordion and bayan repertoire uses free bass, where each left-hand button is a single chromatic note. Bach on a free-bass bayan is one of the instrument's strongest arguments for itself, and Russian-school playing has built a large repertoire on exactly that.

On the double bass, true counterpoint is rare within one instrument but constant within an ensemble. Reading a Bach cello suite transposed for bass, or holding the bass line of a fugal passage in an orchestra, is contrapuntal listening in practice: you are one voice among several and your job is to be independent and audible without covering anyone. In lessons at A&G Academy we usually start this with two-part inventions, split between teacher and student, before anyone tries to play both lines alone.

Frequently asked

What is counterpoint in simple terms?

It is writing two or more melodies that sound at the same time and work together, while each remains a real melody in its own right. A round such as Frere Jacques is the simplest example. The skill lies in keeping the lines independent while the intervals between them still make harmonic sense.

What is species counterpoint?

A step-by-step teaching method from Fux's 1725 treatise. Against a fixed melody you first write one note per note, then two, then four, then syncopated notes, then a free mixture. Each stage adds one rhythmic freedom, so you never solve every problem at once. It is still the standard beginner's route.

Can you play counterpoint on an accordion?

Yes, and the instrument suits it, because reeds sustain for as long as the bellows move. The limitation is the left hand: the Stradella system gives preset chords with fixed voicings, so genuine independent lines need a free-bass or converter instrument, where every left-hand button plays a single chromatic note.


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