Michael Cunningham

Renaissance Counterpoint with Medieval Preliminaries Michael Cunningham

This book starts by focusing on Medieval creativity and the first, and later attempts at written music, from the earliest days on into the Ars Nova period, so as to show the eventual evolution to Renaissance triadic counterpoint. The second, more important focus is on an adapted set of Species exercises, with all the benefits of its strict rules. The third focus is on freer creativity within the learned rules. The final focus is on the English Madrigal, and how it bridges to Baroque tonality. A prose Appendix historically orients the student with overview summaries of the Renaissance period.