The Use of Counterpoint in the Music of Ben Monder

[pamosmusic]

Yeah the rhythmic aspect of the species is way more Handel than Palestrina.

I wish I knew how you get from Fux to Palestrina but I have no idea.

Id imagine Fux style species counterpoint and then losing a lot of downbeats would get you somewhere close but [shrugs]

[Tal_175]

On a slightly tangential note, Ben Monder said in the interview that Mick Goodrick's 6 voicings cover all possible (playable?) 7th chord voicings on the guitar. In other words, if you randomly construct a 4 note voicing, it'll fall into one of the six categories. Interesting.

[James W]

Yeah the rhythmic aspect of the species is way more Handel than Palestrina.

I wish I knew how you get from Fux to Palestrina but I have no idea.

Id imagine Fux style species counterpoint and then losing a lot of downbeats would get you somewhere close but [shrugs]

I have an earlier edition of this book. It's been a long time since I looked at it though and didn't look at it that much even when I did.

A Practical Approach to 16th Century Counterpoint, Revised Edition: Robert Gauldin: 9781478604716: Amazon.com: Books

There's also Jeppesen's counterpoint text which I either have somewhere or perused a long time ago. I've just dug out my copy of the Gauldin and it seems to have everything you'd want.

[Christian Miller]

I might have a look at that. I’m a sucker for anything with ‘practical’ in the title…

[Christian Miller]

On a slightly tangential note, Ben Monder said in the interview that, Mick Goodrick's 6 voicings cover all possible (playable?) 7th chord possibilities on guitar. In other words, if you randomly construct a 4 note voicing, it'll fall into one of the six categories. Interesting.

He will have done the math.

[pamosmusic]

He will have done the math.

Yeah I guess if anyone would know …

… and if anyone would know the limits of what constitutes “playable” on a guitar.

I used to work at a club where Maria Schneider’s group played and their manager said she has never seen anyone who practices like Monder. Like … has his guitar on his lap while he eats.

[Liarspoker]

This week's page in the Mick Goodrick Discord group is harmonic minor cycle 4 so I borrowed Ben's Dreamsville intro motive from the Day After Day album (sorry ragman) and tried to incorporate some counterpoint.

As an aside I heard this music in my head when I woke up at 4:30 am (!!) so wrote it then and recorded it just now. Looking forward to working on it much more

There are also more articles on Ben's playing on the MGH Resources page.

Have a great day all.

[ragman1]

(sorry ragman)

Oh, help yourself, dear boy, help yourself :-)

[James W]

In addition to the above recommendation, a friend has just made me aware of this book, which he gave a very good review of -

Renaissance Polyphony (cambridge.org)

[Christian Miller]

Tbh the main effect studying c18 music theory/practice has had is make me impatient with the whole idea of chords. I would rather not know the names of any chords.

this goes back to the Renaissance conception of a cadence. It’s an assemblage of melodies that can be embellished and developed. So you go from a simple whole step in the tenor with a cantus moving by half step in contrary motion with a leaping bass through to things like what Michael K calls ‘the Corelli cadence’ which is depending on what the bass is doing

G7 C/G Gsus4 G C
or
G7 Am F6 G C

But really that’s an incredibly clunky way of writing down the fact that we have a melody

B-C-C-B-C
against
F-E-D-D-C

You can even invert things so you get for example

F6 G/F C/E Dm7 G7 C
with a tenor line in the bass

With whichever bass you prefer. Doubled and syncopated cantizans against an extended tenor. And you can invert it and put that stuff in the bass too, albeit with leas of a cadential feeling…

But to my surprise it turns out so many of the classic GASB songs also have this quality albeit differently in someways. The addition of more chromatic voice leading does not alter the fact that progressions such as

C6/G F#m7b5 Fm6 C/E Ebo7 Dm7 G7 C

Are developments of the basic renaissance cadence template and make much more sense in terms of ‘tenths/thirds moving down chromatically in staggered motion against a descending diatonic scale’ than it does in terms of functional analysis. Also the contrapuntal understanding makes soloing a lot easier imo.

I think the tune blackbird demonstrates this best on guitar tbh. You don’t need to be some classical nerd to get it. And I doubt Macca knows counterpoint from a hole in the road. But he hears the voice leading.

[wolflen]

Don't forget Ben and counterpoint

[Christian Miller]

Don't forget Ben and counterpoint

Im intrigued as to how much this stuff comes out of Mick Goodrick’s approach. To me it sounds much more intervallic than chordal, but maybe there’s a link up somewhere I can’t perceive. Chordal stuff can be made strikingly intervallic using simple techniques too.

It sounds like free dissonant counterpoint to me, but there’s probably more to it.

It’s also easy to say the word ‘free’ in relation to music as if it tells us anything at all. There’s usually a starting point.

I suppose I should get around to properly listening to Marc’s interview

[Tal_175]

Im intrigued as to how much this stuff comes out of Mick Goodrick’s approach. To me it sounds much more intervallic than chordal, but maybe there’s a link up somewhere I can’t perceive. Chordal stuff can be made strikingly intervallic using simple techniques too.

There is a lot of overlap between Mick Goodrick almanac material and chord walking with minimal movement. With that I mean using passing chords, substitutions, secondary dominants, different extensions etc on each beat to move the chords. After all each step of such a chord movement belongs to a cycle. The reason I'm saying this is, once you work out a walking chord movement for a tune, what you end up with can be seen as continuous 4 voice counterpoint with various types of inner motions. I wonder if one can use these voices as a basis to a less dense, more intervallic texture (with subtraction) with more rhythmic variation.

I work on quarter note chord walking but I haven't explored it as a gateway to a purer contrapuntal playing aside from breaking up voices to create different textures. I mostly do it to explore chord movements as well as to come up with Wes style block chord phrases.

[wolflen]

Im intrigued as to how much this stuff comes out of Mick Goodrick’s approach. To me it sounds much more intervallic than chordal, but maybe there’s a link up somewhere I can’t perceive. Chordal stuff can be made strikingly intervallic using simple techniques too.

It sounds like free dissonant counterpoint to me, but there’s probably more to it.

It’s also easy to say the word ‘free’ in relation to music as if it tells us anything at all. There’s usually a starting point.

I suppose I should get around to properly listening to Marc’s interview

I think Monder has a great resource of knowledge that we don't see/hear in his playing..classical studies and alot of experimental exploration.

I'm sure he has gone beyond basic harmonic and melodic approach to a tune.

Ted Greene has a vid of a seminar at GIT/MI where he plays in several styles .. sadly its not a very good vid..but he explains some of his thinking on harmonic/melodic application.
Monder said in an interview how he used Chord Chemistry alot in his study of chords.

[Christian Miller]

If I’ve learned anything over the past couple of years
- you can look at counterpoint chordally
- you can look at chord progressions as counterpoint

both these have been really helpful to me