The term “part-writing” implies many things, but for our purposes, this will be our first attempt to combine the fundamentals of melody (counterpoint) and harmony (voice-leading from circle-of-fifths progressions) into functional music using diatonic tonality.
By simply applying the various skills and techniques that we have studied thus far, we can:
The goal of Units 10 and 11 are to solidify this process, beginning with a demonstration of the fundamentals of part-writing using only our basic knowledge, then exploring the stylistic errors of four-part chorale writing, and finally exploring the full application of part-writing in a chorale style.
We will be referring to Dr. Butterfield’s handout, Part-Writing Error Checklist and Guide, for the next two units, so you may want to print this out.