The term harmony has two meanings in music. A harmony can
refer to an individual chord or triad that occurs in a work of music
("harmony" in this sense refers to the togetherness of disparate
notes when they join together to make a triad or chord). Harmony also
refers to the "logical" way chords or harmonies progress in
tonal music. The following example, from the chorale "Du Lebensfuerst
, Herr Jesu Christ" from J. S. Bach's Cantata Gott faehret
auf mit Jauchzen, will illustrate these two ideas.
Counterpoint refers to the joining together of individual
melodic lines to create a work of music. Listen to the opening of "And
with his stripes" from Handel's Messiah (
).
The passage begins with the sopranos singing the following melody by
themselves:
Play soprano line ->
Shortly thereafter, the altos begin singing a melody whose opening echoes
what the sopranos just sang:
Play alto's echo ->
Yet while the altos are singing, the sopranos begin to sing a different
melody against the alto part:
Play soprano's continuation ->
Play both parts ->
In other words, the sopranos are singing a tune that "counters" the
tune in the alto part. (NOTE: "And with his stripes" is an
example of imitative counterpoint--the altos imitate
what the sopranos sang. Not all counterpoint involves imitation,
although imitation is a common contrapuntal device because it helps the
listener recognize and hear the individual melodic lines.)
Counterpoint is often considered to be the opposite of harmony: whereas
harmony views music "vertically," as a succession of chords,
counterpoint looks at music "horizontally," as the simultaneous
joining of melodies. This distinction is somewhat misleading if it suggests
to us that some works are "harmonic" whereas others are "contrapuntal." Rather,
elements of both harmony and counterpoint play a role in most classical
music, although our attention may be directed more to one or the other.
Consider, for example the Bach chorale above. Although we looked at the
work from the perspective of its triads and their progression, the work
is also contrapuntal: it combines four individual melodic lines sung
by different parts of the chorus. Listen to each of the individual melodies
that make up the chorale, then listen the the chorale as a whole:
Soprano part
All Parts (piano)
All Parts (chorus)
Alto Part
Tenor Part
Bass Part
Similarly the contrapuntal joining of melodic lines in "And with
his stripes" is done in such a way as to create harmonies and harmonic
progressions. Listen first to the combined melodies of the alto and soprano
lines, then listen to the progression of complete triads those individual
lines imply.
Play the lines ->
Play the the implied harmonies ->
A nice metaphor to describe the relationship of harmony and counterpoint
is consider the relation of horizontal and vertical design in an ornately
patterened woven rug. The pattern arises from many parallel strands of
multi-colored wool. Yet without some guiding principle to control the
alignment of those individual strands, the pattern would quickly fall
into chaos.