hi, my question is is there any program to create counterpoint melodies from another melody? I mean you you enter a tune and the program make a new counterpoint melody from this

thanks!

 

Band in a Box

 

On the advanced but expensive side: Synfire from Cognitone should also do this. But it's a very complex program.

 

The real advance thing is your brain.
Counterpoint is not a chit chat, its a develop of a melody... the problem is:
Hardly a pop star know how to do a melody!
Also the options mentioned are chordal based, a thing that counterpoint is not.
Invest in a study and you music will be good, just that, just because machines do not need humans to compose.
A basic thing are Fugues and Inventions from Bach, pure develop not a chordal improvisation, a thing that machines dont do.
So, music nowadays is boring and poor because theres no melody and counterpoint, but bass (usually wrongly called as melody) and chord songs can be good, although they are rare.
The ugly truth about pop music that no one care...

 

Music theory + brain between your ears = able to do anything musical.

Go and get this tutorial set: http://www.dancemusicproduction.com...ntals/fundamental-7-music-theory-counterpoint

Remember, music is a language, learn how to speak it properly.

 

Last edited: Nov 14, 2015

Tonica Fugata can do it - pretty well, and up to three different additionl voices!
Ludwig is supposed to do it - never really tried it, but that's stated in the user manual.
Probably is a task that RapidComposer can handle as well.
If you are a bit more adventourous, and can use Windows XP, you could try CAMPS to recompose the melody using the same chord progression - an emulator like Oracle Virtualbox could do.

And yes, no... counterpoint is chordal based - on a per beat harmony development.

 

Wrong! harmony is the consequence of the counterpoint, chordal based music exist before melody.
2 superior diplomas and music say that I am right.
Beethoven always said that he was a chordal composer because the theme and chord came before counterpoint, it exists but isn't a counterpoint based music.
People should study before post... a shame right?
Thats why people with knowledge stopped to write here...

 

It's a bit Chicken and Egg though isn't it? You write a melody and then fit chords around it. Or vice versa. I challenge anyone who thinks that they can get in the head of a composer and know from the raw music itself which came first. Maybe there are some things that I could take a guess at without feeling too much like a musical snob. The changes obviously play a big part...

I also would've thought genre would be important here. You can hear counter point in turnarounds of a 12 bar blues. In a more classical setting it would require knowledge of the leading tone in minor keys and complex stuff like that. Stuff I don't know much about.

Really interesting question. When I next get a bit of time i'll fire BIAB up and see what that can do with making a melody counter point.

 

When two or more instruments play different notes at the same time, what you hear are chords. Well, if the instruments are just two, I'd rather say suggested chords, but in modern days you are likely to have a bass line below the melody and the second voice. And this means that the chordal development created by the different voices play a central role in developing an effective counterpoint.

Then, of course, there is more than simply that to a good counterpoint. As stated but a number of manuals I have read, for a real, or if you prefer a good/reffctive/remarkable...e (put in your own definition) counterpoint, each voice should be interesting enough to be played on its own, as the main melody. But whether harmony is a consequence of the counterpoint, or the other way round (which I guess depends on one's point of view), it's an implicit element to consider. According to what I read throught a number of texts - a list of those on the subject in my digital library below, in no particul order - I would add that in my opinion the change in the harmonic sensibility along the centuries is what in the end has progressively changed the accepted rules in counterpoint writing.

Finally, beyond the particul matter, I would add that I really think that anybody has the right to express is own opinion, and I am not scared to discuss mine with those who are available to to do the same, actually paying respect to a different point of even if they don't share it. To discuss with those who think to have the truth in their pockets, and that anybody who dare to express a different opinion must definitely be ignorant, or eventually an idiot, is a waste of time. Too bad somebody can't see the difference between the right to express his own opinion, and the abuse of it. But the ignorant and/or the idiot will probably never learn it... a shame right?

COUNTERPOINT IN COMPOSITION THE SYUDY OF VOICE LEADING
F. Salzer C. Schactter, McGRAW- HILL

COUNTERPOINT
Walter Piston. VICTOR GOLLANCZ

COUNTERPOINTBased on Eighteen-Century Practice (Fourth Edition)
K. Kennan. PRENTICE HALL

ELEMENTARY COUNTERPOI(NT
F: J. Hordwood, BOBBINS MUSIC

FUNDAMENTAL COUNTERPOINT
H. Norden, CRESCENDO PUBLISHING COMPANY

COUNTERPOINT FOR BEGINNERS
C. H. Kitson, OXFORD UNIVERSITARY PRESS

PRONCIPLES OF COUNTERPOINT
Alan Belkin (self distributes)

A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO SIXTEENTH-CENTURY COUNTERPOINT
R. Gauldin, WAVELAND PRESS

A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY COUNTERPOINT
R. Gauldin, WAVELAND PRESS

SIXTEENTH CENTURY COUNTERPOINT
H. G. Trythall, BROWN & BENCHMARK

 

Last edited: Nov 14, 2015

It's really not an chicken/egg problem. It's about a different approach composing, actually the one they used before anyone was thinking "chords". In counterpoint you are using (more or less) independent melodies developing them "horizontally" in time.
Vertical thinking in chords accompanying a lead melody simplified that melody-oriented (and modal) approach later and describing some new ideas about harmony, that had not existed before.

 

I see what you're saying but I don't fully agree with it.

From a classical point of view, bass means a role, the foundation. In electronic/pop music, the bass is more like "the patch/preset/sound" and it is also the melody or hook of the song. It can have a foundation role but it is also the melody, specially when there's nothing else going on besides a beat.

About the topic.. looking for "automatic" anything to write music is like paying someone to f#%k your girls. All this "automatic creativity" is the reason why we've been stepping backwards in music for so long.

 

If you're familiar with notes, try Avid's Sibelius. This program also has a lot of options and plugins to create harmonies and generate counterpoint melodies.

 

there are two types of "educated" people. there's the one who says "i have many years of formal training and education and therefore everything i say is correct and anyone who says anything that opposes what i say is wrong". then there is the enlightened person who says "i have many years of formal training and education and one thing that i have learned is that there are no absolutes and there are nearly always valid opposing viewpoints that should be carefully considered." the world is full of the first type, and they love to hang out on internet forums and spew their superior opinions of authority. and - as you say - the shame is that there are so few of the second type.

 

You are right realibytez. I guess this is a problem in general with was is called “formal tuition”. A degree shows that you have learned a lot of notions the way they were taught to you, but not that you have understood their deepest meaning, nor that you are able to look at them in a critical way.

Yet, beyond that, I would add that the western classical music culture is particularly self referent, and in the music field the formal tuition produces mainly technically superb but absolutely narrow minded performers, that simply ignore or deny what they can't translate into a score they can relate to, being it the western musical traditions, ethnic music, jazz, avantgarde...

About the software that claims to “write music”, I really think we should avoid the generalizations. Until a few years ago, it was as good as its developers were, although I suppose that even the cheapest program - and I am not thinking to the price – can in the end prove useful to offer some inspiration. It's the twenty first century answer to the Mozart's dice!

Currently, there are a few experimental programs that can do wonders, and eventually “learn” from the stuff you feed them with. And since the Artificial Intelligence is still dawning, we might expect some interesting developments in the future. Try a Google search with “Emily Howell” or “Kulitta” as key words, and you'll be amazed.

A nice, minor example of what I have in mind is a little freeware called MaestroGenesis, that's meant to produce accompaniment tracks in an interactive evolutionary way, rather than simply rely on ready made styles as Band In A Box and the likes. Worth a try.

Talking in particular of counterpoint writing, I think Tonica Fugata is another excellent program that shows the point: it can writes basically in Bach, Max Reager and a so called Jazz style, but you can train the program to learn to harmonize in the style of other composers supplying a consistent number of musical examples (10 to 20 to obtain consistent results, is suggested in the manual), and using what the developers call Neural Network Analysis.

Finally, I agree with Hans242 about how useful the plugins of a program like Sibelius can be to arrange and eventually compose, even if it's clear that you can't expect to “automate” the creative process with them. The basic techniques used by composers and arrangers to manipulate a few bars of melodic material to expand them into a longer, articulated piece of music - augmentation, diminution, mirroring, inversions and so on – are so much easier to use with a computer software! And if these sounds like foreign words to you, try to find a copy of William Russo's “Composing Music: A New Approach”, that's should REALLY be regarded as a compulsory reading.

I just would add that you don't necessarily need expensive programs like Sibelius or Finale to get a number of the useful tools. Mirrorings and inversions, for instance, can be done using an inexpensive shareware like Harmony Assistant, or even some free software. ImproVisor, that's another freeware that anybody should have a look at, has a “contract/expand melody by 2 or 3” feature, oddly missing in Sibelius, that I've spent a few enjoyable hours playing with.

Let me conclude telling the beyond a computer program there is always a man, eventually more than one, and the results the user can obtain depend on him as well as on the developers. I'm not sure if really" we've been stepping backwards in music for so long", like Kuros said, although any time I turn on the radio I am tempted to say it's true. But if it is so, the problem is not the "automatic creativity": it's the lack of "human creativity" while using what, in the end, remain just tools.

 

It's the same meaning, really.. doesn't matter if it's chicken or egg.

Call it lack of human creativity, laziness, affair with technology... doesn't matter. When people turn of their critical thinking and creativity in favor to shortcuts and "easy blenders", well... most can't even be bothered to at least use different presets.

"Automatic" stuff when used by someone who didn't turn off his brain is a different matter, it can be a source of new ideas or even a time saver but never a substitute for the human input.

I am not criticizing the OP, I don't even know what he wants to do with this (maybe he wants it as a learning tool)... I just briefly vented about how much soundalike-brainless-automatic music we have already these days when in the past people looked for ways of bettering themselves as composers, not ways to "compose" with as little effort as possible.