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<font size="+1"><font face="Times New Roman">Jeppesen was the
counterpoint text I had as an undergraduate (1960s). It was a
one-semester course. (The second semester we used Kent Kennan's
book based on baroque counterpoint.) I worked hard to try to get
it right</font></font>. My skills improved slowly over many
years after that. Now I can go back to the books and really
understand what their strengths and weaknesses were. Today I write
pretty good counterpoint (or so I've been told by persons who know),
and I owe it to those seeds that were sown. With all respect, to say
that Jeppesen had no idea how counterpoint works seems like a pretty
broad generalization on the part of Prof. Väisälä. <br>
<br>
Christopher Bonds<br>
Wayne State College, Emeritus<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/24/2014 11:10 PM, Olli Väisälä
wrote:<br>
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type="cite">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; "><font
class="Apple-style-span" size="3">I always found it
ironic that Palestrina is the model for general
principles of melody writing. This has been the case
since Jeppesen, a scholar who admired Palestrina's
tunes for their Wagnerian qualities, and who had no
idea how counterpoint works. </font></span></p>
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Dear Prof. Schubert,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Your harsh verdict of Jeppesen ("no idea") would be more
productive, if you took the trouble of substantiating it.<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; "><font
class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; "><o:p><font
class="Apple-style-span" size="3"> </font></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; "><font
class="Apple-style-span" size="3">I would like to be
a fly on the wall of the present-day counterpoint
classrooms where this type of writing is taught—is
it just recycled Jeppesen? It's for sure not any
historical source: no treatise in the Renaissance
addresses "good melody writing" (except for the most
obvious errors). Palestrina, like everybody else,
stole, modeled, recycled, and wrote brilliant tunes,
but there was no theory of melody in his day. <o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
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<div>I think Jeppesen was fully aware that there was no such
theory in Palestrina's day. But this certainly does not suffice
to imply that we should not utilize Palestrina's music – or
Jeppesen's ideas about it – in trying to approach principles of
"good melody writing."</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best wishes,</div>
<div>Olli Väisälä</div>
<div>Sibelius Academy</div>
<div>University of the Arts, Helsinki</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:ovaisala@siba.fi">ovaisala@siba.fi</a></div>
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