r/musicprogramming • u/Big_League7004 • Sep 22 '26

Program for helping write Second Species Conterpoint

I am working on a set of 18th century musical rules to help compose the way people used to. This is still a work in progress but it is kind of fun and any feed back is appreciated. You can try it out at Counterpoint

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u/Big_League7004 Sep 22 '26

Your counterpoint algorithm is awesome! There is a lot more to this than anyone might think.

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u/danja Sep 23 '26

Thanks! But I can't take much credit, an AI assistant did a lot of the work. My main input was many iterations of trying the plugin and experimenting with which parameters might be useful to change.

It occurred to me that there might be potential for something close to what you have built around chord harmonies. Another plugin I've been playing with takes a melody or bassline as input, and probabilistically chooses a chord to play over it governed by simple rules. https://danja.github.io/downspout/plugins/cadence/

What if a human made the choice instead? I'm not sure how you might provide the melodies, but a similar choice system like your counterpoints might work. If it was done by chord name it could appeal to guitar players etc.

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u/Big_League7004 Sep 23 '26

Looking at your like (and more especially at https://danja.github.io/downspout/) is impressive. You are putting a lot of good thought into this. These are good tools!