The Instant Composer: Counterpoint by Fux - PDF eBook

About Johann Joseph Fux

What’s an Instant Composer? A songwriter or composer who can create music on demand without breaking a sweat. And you can learn those starting techniques in The Instant Composer: Counterpoint by Fux PDF eBook.

For those who want more, we also offer for separate purchase, The Instant Composer: Counterpoint by Fux Home Study Course available in a Lite Edition (course only - for those who already own the Fux book) or a Complete Edition which includes both the Counterpoint by Fux PDF eBook and the course with 14 PDF lessons and approximately 2 hours of supporting video lectures.

Counterpoint by Fux was originally published at the expense of the royal crown in 1725 as Gradus ad Parnassum (Latin for Steps to Parnassus) by Johann Joseph Fux, court composer for three Hapsburg emperors in Austria. It's the book that trained Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and many other distinguished and successful composers. In Greek mythology, Mt. Parnassus was the highest point of a mountain range in central Greece, home to Apollo and the Nine Muses who mythically inspired the arts. The end result of going through all of Fux's steps was training that would take your skill to the mountaintops.

With Gradus ad Parnassum, Johann Joseph Fux created a self-directed method for the young person wanting to learn music, but who couldn't afford music lessons. Compositionally, Fux's training goal was to teach the student how to write in each mode. He accomplished this instruction by giving examples in each mode along with specific cadential endings. By the end of three-part counterpoint, you’ve actually learned to reharmonize in each mode.

With modes (chord scales) matched to specific chord positions (dorian on ii minor, etc.), we now discover that Fux in 1725 set forth the "modern" chord scale approach to composition.

It's from these cadential ending studies and the use of the raised leading tone that leads you to an intuitive approach to understanding secondary dominants (which Schoenberg observed in his Structural Functions of Harmony).

About the Alexander Edition of Counterpoint By Fux

In 1742, just a year after Fux's death, Lorenz Mizler, a student of Bach, translated the original from Latin into German directly under the eye of Bach, so stated Bach biographer Phillip Spitta.

This Alexander edition was created from a new translation commissioned in 1990 of the 1745 Mizler edition. Revised by Peter Lawrence Alexander, author of the Professional Orchestration.^™ series, this edition is a modern, easy-to-read English translation with an all new layout and re-engraved music examples. It moves in a direction different from that of Alfred Mann’s 1965 translation.

In keeping with the spirit of Fux for providing basic instruction, the first section of this book adds a Music Basics section written by Peter Lawrence Alexander, which is a condensed version of the first 23 chapters of Peter’s book Applied Professional Harmony 101. For those who have limited music theory knowledge, this section will take you through the basics of reading music notation by covering note values, scales, chords, key and time signatures, modes, etc., so you have a good grounding for studying Fux's method.

Instead of being a direct translation of Fux's work, Fux’s guidelines have been outlined in a simple, step-by-step, easy-to-read approach that teaches you compositional techniques that you apply in each mode: Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Ionian. By the time you’ve gone through three-part counterpoint, you’ve learned how to reharmonize in each of these modes!

In this present edition, you’re given a clear didactic approach based on Fux's modal examples. The book also contains pieces to study after a majority of the lessons. Everything you need is in this one volume.

How to Study

When applied to songwriting, Fux gives you guidelines for crafting out melodies that are still used in today’s pop music.

You’re encouraged to both write and record your homework with vocal samples. Later, you can go back and record them with solo strings and sectional strings, thus helping to build your string writing techniques, too.

Each mode presents its own set of writing challenges (especially Phrygian!) that appear even in music today.

So don’t wait! Get The Instant Composer and start building your compositional chops today!

Click on the Contents tab above to see the Table of Contents for this book.