Being a musician has made me aware of the two major ways that musical tones are ordered in the Western traditions of composition.

The more common of the two refers tones to an organizing center or key, in what is called harmony, while the less prevalent of the two, known as counterpoint, lets tones move independently, free of restrictions from a tonal center. This division of approach on how tones should “behave” when they come together is symbolic, I think, of a parallel division in human life. More on that later.

The harmony approach compels tones to sound consonant when coming together as melody and accompanying tones, restricting their independence as they move along. Thus channeled into a continuous harmony of sound, the tones become vitally dependent upon one another for their musical function. A simple example of the harmonic tendency in composition is the singing of “Amen” at the end of a hymn, each tone in the two chords being a member of the same key, moving in harmony.

But what about a melody that winds its way without a strict reference to a preset harmonic center? Can such an independent string of tones, free of accompanying chords, unconcerned with its relation to any harmonic tonal centers, be in any way completely musical? And can adding other such independent strings to the mix also make music? Yes, this can be. It is a mode of composition that has produced much music still performed and highly appreciated. Such superimposed melodies are called voices or lines (of music). The different parallel lines may or may not “harmonize,” each being concerned primarily with its own development. And the lines need not be, as in a round, echoes or repetitions of the same melody. There may even be a proliferation of lines, no two alike, as in a Bach fugue.

Reduced to plain language and using human terms, the harmonic imperative for tones is: “You must give up your independence to make music.” The contrapuntal imperative for tones is: “You must hold to your independence to make music.” Oddly, these opposing approaches have yielded music of great character and enduring admiration through the centuries.

The individual parts of a composition centered in harmony like Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake or Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! are incom­plete and fragmentary if not accompanying a melody. When played by themselves (as in rehearsal), the separate parts become disjointed, rhythmic strings of tone. Played with their associated melody, a unified concord of musical sound is created. Harmony is like a gem flashing facets of light and color around its key center.

In counterpoint, however, melodic lines go their own way, without harmonic accompaniment such with chords. The composer may specify certain constraints: restriction to certain keys, acceptable rules of motion, possible harmonic cadence at key points along the way. But within these restrictions the voices are free to move and develop “as they please.” Played alone, each part (voice) of a Bach fugue is musically self-sufficient – an independent and engaging line of music in itself. Joined with the other lines of the work, each voice completes the full design of the composition. This is true also of many modern compositions. Any part of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), for example, played by itself (as in rehearsal) is musically complete within itself.

Metaphorically speaking, I see counterpoint as the “developing of self in the service of the many” and harmony as the “denial of self in the service of the many.” It seems to be the essential conflict between oppos­ing approaches to almost all social and political problems.

Is the line – of music, of political philosophy, of social doctrine – driven by the attraction of harmony or by the freedom of counterpoint? Is the personality of an idea, an action, or a movement molded by the harmonic tendency to blend differences, calm and soothe frictions, orient molecules (words, colors, materials, people) into a sort of “crystalline formation” tuned to and in concert with an all-powerful Center? Or is the personality of an idea, an action, a movement driven by a contrapuntal ten­dency to resist the seduction of a Center that draws things to itself, to make it possible to move in freedom and richness of detail that celebrates life and existence?

Image: Anthony J. DeBlasi / by permission

The two modes of ordering tones in composition (harmony and counterpoint) are not, as it may appear to be, mutually excluding but in subtle ways complementing. How this relation plays out in the act of composing – how the tension between a pulling in and a pushing away from a tonal center is achieved – is beyond the scope of an essay.

What may help is reference to a striking representation of the this drawing into a center and a pulling away from it: the mandala. This is a radial pattern like that of a flower, the eye, a cathedral rose window, with endless variations in art. The pattern is, in a graphic sense, a template of creation – the Big Bang, the germinating seed, a baby rapidly filling the space around its biologic egg/seed center. The elements of the design are oriented both toward and away from an originating center, in a mutually embracing act that produce an object or organism of unique character.

Mandala // Image: Picryl / public domain

Not meeting a balance between centrality and individuality in this act, or the effort to banish one or the other tendency in order to reach finality, cancels any successful outcome that might have resulted. In music total harmony would yield a row of chords and nothing else; extreme counterpoint would produce chaotic noise.

In nature a balance is regularly attained in the way, for instance, that a particular acorn becomes a particular oak tree, or how snowflakes crystallize in endless individuation, or how the union of a specific egg with a specific sperm becomes a particular person . . . a creative process that runs through all of nature.

It should be expected that reaching for extreme individuality (extreme “counterpoint”) could end in chaos and destruction. And it should be no surprise that aiming for total concord (total “harmony”) is equally destructive – One World Fever, for example, playing its chords of utopia and making the brightest and the best among us forget that no world could exist without attracting and repelling forces.

So, how does one with a creative bent find that “golden mean” to a work well done? To my mind this is a task best begun in the heart and advanced with the spiritual aid that stems from the Creator. This “conclusion” came to me early in life, when my view of music and my view of the world coincided to form a special unity. In the simple way of a child, I felt that life is a kind of music, and that the world began as a burst of rapture from God.