Glossary

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

The bariolage technique is a contrapuntally rudimentary yet much used technique of reducing two upper voices of a setting into one voice by successively alternating a note of one voice with a note of the other voice. Bariolage, a typical violin technique that works very well on the keyboard as well, is thus a specific

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

Usually, a chromatic alteration of a note follows the other version of that note in the same part. Such a chromatic step is also called a passus duriusculus. However, when a chromatic alteration of a note follows the other version of that note in another part, this is usually considered to be erroneous, an error

A passus duriusculus is a chromatic step or a chromatic passage. It seems that Christoph Bernhard (1628–1692) —a German pupil of Heinrich Schütz, singer, composer, kapellmeister and author of three handwritten treatises on composition— was the first and only author to use the term passus duriusculus. (So, it doesn’t stem from rhetoric but is meant