Ewald Demeyere

An anticipation is a non-chord note on a weak beat or part of a beat that anticipates the first note of the next chord. This type of embellishment occurs frequently in cadences. Select Bibliography Kennan, Kent. Counterpoint Based on Eighteenth-Century Practice — Fourth Edition (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1999). Schubert, Peter & Christoph Neidhöfer. Baroque Counterpoint (New Jersey: Pearson Prentice […]

An escape note, or échappée, is a specific type of incomplete neighbour note and more specifically a non-chord note on a weak part of a beat that is What Is a Consonant Escape Note (Échappée)? A consonant escape note interrupts the usual descending motion of a dissonance (usually a seventh) to its resolution by first

A neighbour note is a non-chord note on a weak beat or part of a beat between two occurrences of the same note of the same chord or of two different chords. It can be located either a step above or a step below the chord factors: What Is an Incomplete Neighbour Note? An incomplete

A passing note is a non-chord note on a weak beat or part of a beat between two different chord factors of a chord or between two different notes of two different chords. In other words, “passing [notes] connect two chord factors via stepwise motion in the same direction” (Schubert/Neidhöfer (2006), p. 40). A passing

Compound line is a technique where one written part represents two or more implied parts. This technique is characterized by arpeggiation and/or large, often ‘unmelodic’ leaps. Johann Philipp Kirnberger (1721–1783), amongst others, discusses compound line, focussing on arpeggiating per chord, and warns that the implied voice leading should be correct. According to him, the following

When several parts allow to be exchanged without causing voice-leading issues, one says that they are written in invertible counterpoint. Below you see an example of two-part invertible counterpoint, with the model in bars 1–4 and the inversion in bars 5–8:

A non-essential dissonance Dissonances are called non-essential because they don’t determine the identity of the chord, as they don’t change the type of the chord. For more information see my essay on essential dissonances, in which I also elaborate on the difference between non-essential and essential dissonances.

The German theorist and composer Johann Philipp Kirnberger (1721–1783) was the first musician to make a distinction between two specific types of dissonances, between what he has called essential dissonances (wesentliche Dißonanzen) and non-essential —or incidental— dissonances (zufällige Dißonanzen). According to him, an essential dissonance comes in only one form: a chordal seventh that “does

In this essay, I will deal with the non-chord note labelled a suspension. A suspension is an on-beat dissonance —i.e. a metrically strong note that doesn’t belong to the regular chord. It is prepared by a consonance of a different chord —the usual procedure— or by a dissonance of a different chord—less common— and usually