October 24, 2022

Last week, one of my counterpoint students, who is currently working on the basics in two parts, asked me the following question:

Q: "What's it like to get better at writing counterpoint? Do you eventually get faster at considering many possibilities and discard weaker options (e.g. noodling lines), or do you get better at considering a few stronger options? Is it similar to chess or go where a weaker player considers many candidate moves and discards many options but apparently stronger players only consider fewer moves?"

Here's what I wrote back to him:

A: That’s an interesting question. Composing from scratch is enormously complicated, and I think music in general shouldn't be compared too closely with playing a game, but if we take the situation of writing counterpoint against an existing line, then there are some similarities to strategic thinking in chess or go. As with those games, you’ll learn to reject a lot of the “moves" that may seem reasonable to you now, and will get faster at seeing the “good moves" available to you. Eventually you will immediately see the “best moves", as the "expert player” does. Obviously, one can’t expect to achieve that level very quickly. It takes many years. Your confidence level and accuracy of self-perception will improve with time. In these games, the inexperienced players tend to think they know more than they actually do. They have false confidence out of ignorance (until they get demolished by the better player). The best players have worked hard to develop strong skills and the confidence that comes with that, and they will also tend to be humble about that and will want to help the weaker players to get better, because they have learned how difficult the game actually is. — AAH