The art of counterpoint: a Mazzola-type three-voice first-species counterpoint model

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Okumura, Ren, Shibayama, Takuro
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Okumura, Ren
Shibayama, Takuro
author_facet Okumura, Ren
Shibayama, Takuro
contents We propose a three-voice extension of Mazzola's algebraic model of first-species counterpoint. A three-voice sonority is represented as \(a+\varepsilon_1 .b+\varepsilon_2 .c\), where \(a\) is the lower voice and \(b,c\) are the lower--middle and lower--upper interval classes. Starting from a strong dichotomy \((X/Y)\) of \(\mathbb Z_{2k}\), we introduce a harmonic mask \(H\subseteq X\times X\) and define the admissible three-voice consonances \(X_H\). We then construct a Hichert-type successor relation by applying the ordinary two-voice admitted-successor mechanism to the active pairwise projections. In the twelve-tone Fuxian case, the proposed mask has 26 admissible bass-rooted interval pairs, including complete and incomplete sonorities, and yields a finite directed successor structure.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2606_01102
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The art of counterpoint: a Mazzola-type three-voice first-species counterpoint model
Okumura, Ren
Shibayama, Takuro
Rings and Algebras
Combinatorics
00A65, 05C20, 20K01, 20B25
We propose a three-voice extension of Mazzola's algebraic model of first-species counterpoint. A three-voice sonority is represented as \(a+\varepsilon_1 .b+\varepsilon_2 .c\), where \(a\) is the lower voice and \(b,c\) are the lower--middle and lower--upper interval classes. Starting from a strong dichotomy \((X/Y)\) of \(\mathbb Z_{2k}\), we introduce a harmonic mask \(H\subseteq X\times X\) and define the admissible three-voice consonances \(X_H\). We then construct a Hichert-type successor relation by applying the ordinary two-voice admitted-successor mechanism to the active pairwise projections. In the twelve-tone Fuxian case, the proposed mask has 26 admissible bass-rooted interval pairs, including complete and incomplete sonorities, and yields a finite directed successor structure.
title The art of counterpoint: a Mazzola-type three-voice first-species counterpoint model
topic Rings and Algebras
Combinatorics
00A65, 05C20, 20K01, 20B25
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.01102