"Dear Fux"

Dear Fux,

If the Christian Coalition gets their way, will teaching species counterpoint be prohibited in the schools? What will happen to Salzer and Schachter?

Cynical in Scranton, PA

Dear Fellow Cynic,

"Creationist Counterpoint" does in fact seem poised to become the required school of thought should the Christian Coalition come to power. Pat Robertson has already made public his desire to eradicate the "Endangered Species Counterpoint Act" altogether. Thus, rare species of counterpoint such as "47 against 1" will face almost certain extinction, in the absence of U.S. government protection. And so-called "Free Counterpoint" which flourished during the promiscuous 1960's will go the the way of long side-burns, the dodo bird, and the National Endowment for the Arts. As for Salzer and Schachter, the truth is that they are one and the same person, or actually three in one. Early in this century, a music theorist named Heinrich Schachter left his native Stuttgart and the family porcelain figurine business which specialized in "Salzer und Peppar Schenkers" (salt and pepper shakers) and emigrated to the United States where he began a lucrative music publishing career under various pseudonyms such as "Salzer" and "Schachter" (and later many other names). His sermons were soon accepted dogma in music departments far and wide, and his disciples installed in powerful administrative positions. Schenker/Salzer/Schachter et al. will most likely be convicted of demagoguery and "crimes against musicality" and sentenced to some sort of musical "gulag" where he will be "rehabilitated" by transcribing the mittelgrunds of the collected works of Pat Boone.

We can trace the roots of the species counterpoint controversy back to the sixth century, when the firebrand (and short-tenured) Pope Darwinicus penned his 590 A.D. treatise entitled "The Origin of Species Counterpoint", which was roundly denounced by other popes, such Pope Gregory who, in the year 600, claimed that the rules of counterpoint were given directly to him by his good friend, God. Revelation being the most compelling method of Christian argument, Gregory's assertion of divine elision settled the issue for almost a milennium. But, in the fifteenth century, Pope Pius II proposed the existence of modes which he explained in his 1463 tome "Pius a la Modus: A Counterpoint Cookbook." Gregory, however, prevailed over all other popes, and through deft use of intimidation, disinformation, and by aligning himself with a group of wealthy Republican bishops and cardinals, ascended to power. To this day, the "Creationist Theory" of counterpoint is taught throughout the pre-industrialized world.

~JF