counterpoint, art of combining different melodic lines in a musical composition. It is among the characteristic elements of Western musical practice.

The word counterpoint is frequently used interchangeably with polyphony. This is not properly correct, since polyphony refers generally to music consisting of two or more distinct melodic lines while counterpoint refers to the compositional technique involved in the handling of these melodic lines. Good counterpoint requires two qualities: (1) a meaningful or harmonious relationship between the lines (a “vertical” consideration—i.e., dealing with harmony) and (2) some degree of independence or individuality within the lines themselves (a “horizontal” consideration, dealing with melody). Musical theorists have tended to emphasize the vertical aspects of counterpoint, defining the combinations of notes that are consonances and dissonances, and prescribing where consonances and dissonances should occur in the strong and weak beats of musical metre. In contrast, composers, especially the great ones, have shown more interest in the horizontal aspects: the movement of the individual melodic lines and long-range relationships of musical design and texture, the balance between vertical and horizontal forces, existing between these lines. The freedoms taken by composers have in turn influenced theorists to revise their laws.

The word counterpoint is occasionally used by ethnomusicologists to describe aspects of heterophony—duplication of a basic melodic line, with certain differences of detail or of decoration, by the various performers. This usage is not entirely appropriate, for such instances as the singing of a single melody at parallel intervals (e.g., one performer beginning on C, the other on G) lack the truly distinct or separate voice parts found in true polyphony and in counterpoint. Finally, contemporary theorists generally use the word counterpoint in a narrow sense for musical styles resembling those of Palestrina or Bach and emphasizing clear melodic relationships (e.g., melodic imitation) between the voice parts.

Counterpoint can be considered more broadly, however, as an essential element in many styles within Western music. Composers in different periods have used counterpoint differently: in the Middle Ages they used it for the superimposing of different rhythmic groupings; in the Renaissance for melodic imitation; in the Baroque for contrasts between groups of instruments or voices; in the Classical period in conjunction with tonality, the organization of music in terms of key; in the Romantic in the combining of leitmotifs, or short melodic fragments; and in 20th-century music in the arrangement of isolated components of sound.

Counterpoint in the Middle Ages

The earliest examples of actual written counterpoint appear in the late 9th-century treatise Musica enchiriadis. Here a plainchant melody, or “principal voice” (vox principalis), is combined with another part, “organal voice” (vox organalis), singing the same melody in parallel motion a perfect fourth or fifth below (e.g., G or F below C).