Learn Counterpoint and Harmony
Counterpoint and harmony are far more closely connected than most teaching admits — too often they are taught as if they were two separate subjects. They are not. The finest harmonizations can frequently be heard, and explained, as lines; and the finest lines usually carry a harmony of their own.
Why together
Two crafts, one understanding.
Of course the two must be practised separately. You learn to write a clean line, and you learn about harmonization, and at first these feel like different crafts. But the good teacher does not leave them apart. The work I care about is the joining: showing how a harmonic decision is already a linear one, and how a line already implies its own harmony.
When a student first understands how the two are bound together, something opens. For me it was decisive — the moment my own understanding of music changed and deepened. It is one of the things I most love to teach.
Work can begin from species counterpoint, four-part writing, modal or chromatic practice, or directly from a passage in the student’s own piece. The format depends on the level, the goal and the kind of music involved.
I have had private composition lessons with Daniel Fladmose for a good six months now, and it has been a wonderful experience. In that short time I have gotten an enormous amount out of the teaching.
Gustav R. · Google review Read on Google
Counterpoint, chorale and harmony.
What is the difference between a counterpoint exercise and a chorale harmonization?
A counterpoint exercise and a chorale harmonization rest on the same principles, and you go about them in much the same way. The main difference is an inward one, a matter of how you set yourself to the task. In a counterpoint exercise you attend to the lines; in a chorale you choose to focus on the harmony. Overtly imitative counterpoint has no part in a chorale exercise, but clear, independent voices still matter there. They are simply a peripheral concern.
Should I learn counterpoint before harmony?
If you are new to both, I would without hesitation begin with counterpoint, and my recommendation is Fux and his species counterpoint. It is by far the simpler of the two to learn. When I teach it, I refer again and again to the harmonic series and to the psychology of how we hear, and both are important to keep in the back of your mind once you move on to harmonization. It does not take long in counterpoint before you discover that you are in fact harmonizing. Even the very first exercises hold elements of what I call micro-harmonization.
Why do chorale harmonization exercises sound better when each voice makes sense as a line?
The ear hears motion, and it perceives in time. That is much more akin to the nature of counterpoint. At the same time, lines that make sense on their own let the material shimmer, the way shot silk changes colour as it moves, and that gives nuance and a sense of depth. In much the same way, we tend to prefer paintings that are not exactly the same colour all over. We like small variations, and we rather like to see or feel that the picture is made of single brushstrokes, because they bear witness to an intention.1
1 On feeling the movement behind the brushstroke, see David Freedberg and Vittorio Gallese, “Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience”, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11, no. 5 (2007): 197–203, doi:10.1016/j.tics.2007.02.003.
Other ways to work together.
Composition lessons
The main access page — composition lessons, score feedback and portfolio preparation. Begin with a score, sketch, recording or question.
OpenOnline composition lessons
How online lessons work in practice — Zoom, shared scores, annotated PDFs, and detailed discussion across time zones.
OpenComposition feedback
A serious response to one piece, sketch, recording or portfolio. Written, annotated, online session, or a combination.
OpenPortfolio preparation
For applicants to music academies, conservatories or talent-development programmes. Diagnostic review, revision priorities, deadline planning.
OpenComposition lessons for adults
For adult and returning composers — informal first contact, flexible frequency, music that has already begun to take shape.
OpenMusic theory for composers
Theory not as rule-knowledge, but as a way of training the ear to understand what music is actually doing.
OpenOrchestration lessons
Texture, balance, register, doubling, colour — instrumentation studied against the actual sounding result.
OpenWorkshops and institutional teaching
For institutions, festivals and talent-development programmes — group sessions, masterclasses, lectures or short residencies.
OpenTell me what you are working on and where you are stuck.
A short example — even a few bars — is usually enough to begin. We can decide together whether to work systematically through counterpoint or harmony, or to approach it from inside a piece you are writing.
Ask about counterpoint or harmony