Week 13 — Readings & Resources · Progression, and Two Independent Voices

Course: MUS 156 Music Theory I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 13 of 16 (Week 13) · two sessions per week
Your primary reading is the Week 13 chapter (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer.

How to use this page

Everything here is a link to an external resource — open it in your browser, the way you'd open any link a friend sent you. Nothing to buy, download, or sign into.

The load is light on purpose: six links, grouped by the unit's three big ideas. One item per group is plenty; all six is thorough. If a link disagrees with the course on a convention, the course convention in the Week 13 chapter wins. One heads-up for this week specifically: older writing on voice leading loves historical vocabulary from the full counterpoint discipline — the one that waits for MUS 158. Where a page wanders into terminology this course hasn't taught, skim past it guilt-free; the parts you need are the parts the chapter named.

① The four motions and the two rules

Maps to the chapter's motion-types and independence-rules sections, and Session 1's Segments 3–4.

• Contrapuntal motion — Wikipedia — the four relationships between two moving lines (contrary, oblique, similar, parallel), with short notated examples of each. Same definitions as ours, compactly stated. (reading, ~5 min)
• Consecutive fifths — Wikipedia — the deep history of the parallel-fifths rule: why the interval fuses voices, where the prohibition came from, the hidden/direct-fifth distinction, and — worth the visit by itself — the section on styles that use parallel fifths on purpose, from medieval organum to modern rock. Read it as vindication: the rule is about independence, exactly as the chapter says. (reading, ~12 min; skim the notation-dense middle freely)

② Two voices worth studying — Bach's Invention No. 1

Maps to the chapter's whole thesis: two lines, each worth singing alone. The Two-Part Inventions are the reference recordings of two-voice independence — Bach wrote them as teaching pieces for exactly the skills in this unit.

• Bach: Invention 1 in C Major, BWV 772 (Urtext Edition) — Bach Piano Scores — a performance with the two-voice score scrolling as it plays. Watch the two hands trade the same idea, cross centuries of the rules you just learned, and never once blur into each other. Try following only the left-hand line for one full listen — it survives alone, which is the whole test. (video with scrolling score — turn captions on with the CC button if you want the player interface labeled)
• Bach: Invention 1 in C Major, BWV 772 (Musical Analysis) — Bach Piano Scores — the same piece with the analysis drawn on: where the idea passes between the voices, and how the two lines answer each other. You now own enough vocabulary to follow most of it; anything beyond this unit's scope, let wash over you. (video — turn captions on with the CC button)

③ The gig payoff — harmony vocals that hold their line

Maps to the chapter's payoff section and the studio's writing rounds.

• How to Harmonize — Harmonies in thirds (Country, Pop, Rock) — Jeff Rolka — a working vocal coach building harmony lines in thirds, the workhorse interval from this week's procedure, with sung examples you can echo in the car. This is Rule "default to imperfect," taught from the bandstand side. (video — turn captions on with the CC button)
• How to Sing Flawless 3 Part Harmony for Worship — Worship Refocus — a worship-team method for stacking parts that stay out of each other's lanes; listen for how much of the advice is this unit's checklist in different clothes (stay in your range, don't shadow the melody, know whose line the ear should follow). It stacks three parts where we write two — the principles port straight across. (video — turn captions on with the CC button)

Pick-one quick path (≈15 min total)

Short on time this week? You've read the chapter — then do exactly these two:

1. Listen to the Invention No. 1 (Urtext Edition) in group ② once through, following only the lower line.
2. Read the "in popular music" stretch of Consecutive fifths in group ① and come to class ready to defend a power chord.

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move pages. If a link fails, tell Professor Hemsworth and lean on the chapter in the meantime — it covers everything the quiz covers.