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Fourth Species Counterpoint

Fourth species is all about making suspensions. It is like first species with each note shifted over by
a half-beat.

The Basic Technique

You should begin with an eighth-note rest. Put something consonant on the second half of the beat
and hold it over into the next beat.

If the held-over note makes a new consonance, you are free. You may jump to any new consonant
note.

If this is you can jump to a


consonant... new consonance.

5 3 6
2

However, if the held-over note is a dissonance, you are locked in to making a suspension figure. You
MUST resolve it down by step.

Hangover note so you MUST resolve


is dissonant... down by step.

5 3 6 4 3

Thus, fourth species involves a lot less freedom than the other rhythmic formats. You will often find
yourself “trapped” in a long chain of suspensions.

7 6 7 6 4 3 9 8

Getting Blocked

Sometimes you get stuck with a suspension that will not resolve to a consonance. What can you do?

dissonance doesn’t resolve

5 4 3 o5 4
3

One solution is to go back to your last “free” point and rewrite. We can just start this example over
from the beginning and avoid problems.

3 7 6 3 6

The other option is to “break” the species - before the trouble spot you can simply stop holding over
notes. Instead, you write in second species for one beat. You will move to a consonance on the
troubled beat and jump to a new “free” note after that.

cons on new consonant


the beat note
don’t hold

5 4 3 6 8

Obviously you don’t want to break the species too much, because it would defeat the purpose of the
exercise.
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One of your other main concerns in planning your melody is arriving at a proper ending. You really
have no choice but to work backwards.

You know that you need to land on an octave, and approach that octave from ^2, ^7, or sometimes ^5.

3 8

Now, can we stretch something across the beat


that would resolve to the D? Yes! Let’s do it again...

consonant prep sus


preparation suspension

3 4 3 8 6 4 3

Remember that you can also engineer a “free” point to connect to your ending. Or you can break the
species.

consonant and here.


here...

“free” point 3 8
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Parallels

If successive offbeats have 5ths or 8ves that are seperated by dissonant suspensions, it is considered
bad parallels. The idea is that the ear simply “slides” past the dissonant downbeats and connects the
octaves or fifths.

BAD diss

8 9 8 9 8 9 8

However, if a consonant interval falls on the beat, it interrupts the series and the 5ths or 8ves are no
longer connected.
OK

5 6 5 6 5 6 5

Happily, it is impossible to make direct fifths or octaves in this format because all motion is oblique!
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Making Suspensions in Mixed Species

Ultimately, what you need to know to make a nice suspension is that it has three parts. It starts as a
consonant note, possibly introduced on an in-between beat. This is the preparation.

Then you hold it over. This is the suspension. Finally, you have a consonant resolution
downwards by step, after the beat.

How you get into it and what happens afterwards are totally up to you!

prep sus res

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