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Workflow report: Creating bass in counterpoint style

Posted

Motivated from a discussion in another thread I did the following exercise:

I used a short melody from Bach and have setup myself the task to create a bass in the style of counterpoint. It should be done just by transforming the melody, i.e. nothing should be played by hand on the keyboard and no additional phrases except from the melody should be imported or used from a library.

I did the following steps:

  • Imported the melody and tried two different settings for the figure recognition.
  • Copied the Parameter "Take" from the melody (not the parameter "Figure"!) to a second instrument for the bass and made a new figure recognition for the bass.
  • Stretched the bass phrases x2.
  • Edited the chord progression a bit
  • Optimized the rhythm with the parameter "Step" and the pitches with the parameter "Transpose".

Here is a video:

Maybe it looks in the video as if it would have been pretty much work. But in fact it has only took five minutes (creating the video a bit more of course ;) )

3455_Counterpoint_Exercise.mp3
3455_Counterpoint_Exercise_Result.mp3

Sun, 2012-07-01 - 22:39 Permalink

Thanks Juergen !


It shows that the rootcontainer can have the melodylines to, there is no need for copy or snapshot.


But this counterpoint what you do is random. ?? 
In fact, you can maybe draw the bass notes in the phrase editor better to get more control about the  movement of the both melodylines (contrapuntal movements)


Note: SFp will correct the draw notes for the right harmony ?

Sun, 2012-07-01 - 23:03 Permalink

Of course that is not exactly, what the theory would call counterpoint (although it is not random; the bass is an augmentation of the melody here, a very common method). But it demonstrates, that you can use almost every phrase to create a counterline since Synfire will always ensure the harmonic integrity. This allows you to try out things much more freely than it would be possible for example in a DAW or in a notation editor.

Sun, 2012-07-01 - 23:53 Permalink

Yes, it is a strong point of SFP ..
Advanced counterpoint doing in SFP like i find in textbooks to replicate this quick in SFP is my goal