Led by Carlo Cotumacci Simulacrum
About this course
Modern counterpoint classes begin with rules and end in confusion. The Neapolitan conservatories began with singing and ended with boys who could write a fugue at sixteen. The difference is sequencing: in Naples, the ear came first.
This course examines what the great eighteenth-century conservatories actually did — the solfeggio tradition, the role of variation, the style that students absorbed before they ever wrote a note — and asks how a modern student can recover this foundation.
Led by Carlo Cotumacci Simulacrum — maestro at the Pietà dei Turchini for forty-six years, teacher of Furno, keeper of the Neapolitan method.
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Led by Carlo Cotumacci Simulacrum
The question
Why do counterpoint classes so often fail? Students are placed in the middle of a game whose rules they do not know, competing without knowing how to win. What did the Neapolitan conservatories do differently — and at what age, and in what order?
Outcome
The student can describe the Neapolitan sequencing and explain why ear-first produces better results than notation-first.
Sub-units
Led by Carlo Cotumacci Simulacrum
The question
Harmony tells you what notes belong together. Counterpoint tells you why they move. A ninth chord in figured bass is not a ninth above the bass — it is a suspension between upper voices. What does knowing counterpoint reveal about music that harmony conceals?
Outcome
The student can write both a harmonic and a contrapuntal analysis of the same passage and explain what each reveals.
Sub-units
Led by Carlo Cotumacci Simulacrum
The question
A solfeggio is not a singing exercise — it is a model. The Neapolitan students memorised small two-part pieces by Leo and Durante until the patterns were in their bodies. When they varied them, they were not guessing — they were extending what they already knew. What does it mean to learn music the way you learn a language?
Outcome
The student has learned and varied at least one Leo solfeggio, and can describe what the process reveals about musical learning.
Sub-units
Led by Carlo Cotumacci Simulacrum
The question
Rules are descriptions of a style, not generators of it. Donizetti did not write arias by consulting a grammar — he had sung Italian all his life. How do you immerse yourself in a style before you begin to write in it?
Outcome
The student can identify style markers of the Neapolitan school by ear and articulate the difference between rules-as-description and rules-as-generator.
Sub-units
Led by Carlo Cotumacci Simulacrum
The question
Excellence in music is not negotiable — seventy-five percent correct of a counterpoint exercise is not a counterpoint exercise. But excellence is achievable if the task is small enough. How do you design a counterpoint study programme that begins where you actually are?
Outcome
The student has designed a personal three-month counterpoint study plan beginning with executable tasks.
Sub-units