Suggested Learning Resources
- The following third species counterpoint rules should not be broken
- o All first species rules as applied to the first note of the counterpoint measure
(beats 2, 3, 4 may be consonant or dissonant harmonic intervals with the cantus)
- o You may not have parallel perfect intervals down beat to downbeat
- o You may not have parallel perfect intervals offbeat to downbeat (beat 3 to beat
1 and beat 4 to beat 1)
- In third species counterpoint, the following guidelines may be broken
in some cases, but the result is a weaker sense of counterpoint
- o You should not have more than two consonant skips in a row.
- o Counterpoint line should be primarily conjunct (very few leaps if any)
- o Movement from beat 4 to 1 (over the barline) should be by step, not skip or leap
- o Counterpoint that contains a double neighbor embellishment is a strength
- o Counterpoint that contains a cambiata is a strength
Objective 13.3: Identify strengths and weaknesses of third species counterpoint