I have now closed the quiz on Learning Catalytics. Below are some general comments on specific questions that I would like you all to read and ponder before Wednesday’s class, when we will compose some first-species exercises. Also, I have left some of you specific comments on your quiz answers. Please log in to Learning Catalytics and review the results of the quiz to see those comments. Keep in mind that this quiz is not graded as a percentage that factors into a final average. It is a pedagogical tool meant to get you to think about certain key concepts. If your quiz demonstrated good conceptual knowledge you can cite it in your self-evaluation at the end of the unit. If not, seek to demonstrate that knowledge through subsequent activities (further quizzes, compositional exercises, Piazza discussions, etc.).
3) Rank the types of motion found in first-speices counterpoint according to how common they are.
No one counted the intervals in the example solutions to obtain the answer! As those examples show, oblique is less common than similar, similar less common than parallel, parallel less common than contrary. If you put similar = parallel, I marked it correct, since that is very close.
I think the confusing issue here is that the constraints on parallel motion you have learned have been in terms of hard rules (and lots of red ink when they occur!). However, since those constraints involve the least common intervals in first species (perfect consonances), and since those constraints also involve similar motion in first-species (perfect consonances must not be approached by parallel or similar motion), those constraints don’t make similar motion more common in first species. Further, the preference for stepwise motion means that parallel is more likely than similar motion (which always involves at least one leap).
Think for a second about how one moves in similar motion in first species. The arrival must be on an imperfect consonance (3rd/6th). Let’s use do–mi as an example. If the upper voice steps re–mi, what must the lower voice do to obtain similar motion? Ti–do would be parallel; la–do would mean starting on a forbidden dissonance (la–re, a P4); sol–do in the lower voice would create a P5 moving to a M3—allowable similar motion. But what does that involve? A relatively uncommon leap of a fourth in the lower voice. The only other options for similar motion here involve even larger leaps. In most cases in first species, similar motion will involve at least one leap larger than a third. Since those leaps are relatively uncommon, so will similar motion be relatively uncommon.
5) Why do you think perfect consonances are called “perfect”?
Two notes: First, many of you made scientific explanations based on interval ratios, etc., but none made a historical/linguistic argument. That’s where the real answer lies. In Latin (like Greek and many other older Western languages), the concepts of “perfection” (lacking flaws) and “completion” (lacking nothing) are united in a single word, and therefore concept. Thus, the word perfectus can mean “complete” just as easily as it can mean “pure” or “mistake-free.” Because of the acoustical stability of perfect consonances, they are the intervals preferred for endings of musical pieces (in pre-Classical music), and therefore two-voice exercises. Since they are the intervals of ending, they are the intervals signalling completeness, and therefore perfection. Inperfect consonances do not signal completeness, but motion and the need for something more stable to follow. Therefore, they are imperfect—not because they are flawed in some way, but because they do not signal finality.
6) Why do you think parallel perfect consonances should be avoided?
Because of the above, perfect consonances should be generally avoided in the middle of a species exercise as it is. Using two in a row also reduces independence of line through parallel motion, at the same time as an arrest of motion mid-exercise (because of the stability/finality of the perfect consonances), and uses intervals that stand out of the musical texture. All these things together also reduce the smoothness and evenness of the exercise. For these reasons (lack of melodic independence, arresting of motion, drawing attention to a moment mid-phrase), parallel perfect consonances are to be avoided.
Note that in many musical situations, these priorities hold, as do the effects of using parallel perfect consonances in that context. However, in some musical styles, there are different priorities, and in some musical textures, parallel perfect intervals do not have these effects. That is for the difference in “rules” between musical styles. One needs to be sensitive to the priorities of a given style and the effects that different compositional devices have in relation to those priorities.