The pull of motion

How to practice

1. Play a stepwise line. Try 3̂ → 4̂ → 5̂. Three notes: the 3̂ is consonant (no arrow), the 4̂ shows a pull-arrow back to 3̂, the 5̂ is consonant again. You can hear the 4̂ as a passing dissonance between two consonances.

2. Try a leading-tone resolution. Click 5̂, then 7̂, then 1̂ (which over the held tonic is unison). You'll see the 7̂ flash red with a sharp arrow pointing back to home — the strongest pull in the diatonic vocabulary.

3. Test the Phrygian half-step. Click 5̂, then ♭2̂, then 1̂. The ♭2̂ shows an arrow pulling down to 1̂ — the half-step from above. Compare its visual position (LCM 240, far out) and its sound to the leading tone's pull from below.

4. Stay in the consonant column. The left side of the picker (1̂, 5̂, 4̂, 6̂, 3̂, ♭3̂) is the consonant column — marked with ✓. Play any sequence using only these notes against the bass; every note will sit in the green/yellow zone with no pull arrow. This is what first species counterpoint feels like when you do it right.

For counterpoint students

The held bass here functions like a cantus-firmus note. Each melody note is a moment of choice — and each choice is at some distance from the bass. In first species, every note must be in the consonant column (the green ✓-marked buttons). Each time you hover a non-consonant option, see the pull-arrow appear and ask: do I have a destination for this dissonance? If not, it doesn't belong here.

The pull-arrows are the same ones the analyzer used in BWV 38.6 — leading tones pull up to 1̂, chordal sevenths pull down to 6̂, Phrygian half-steps pull down to 1̂. Internalizing them here means recognizing them anywhere.

What the trail shows

Up to five recent notes appear as fading dots on the plot. The most recent is brightest; older fades out. After playing a short melody you can see the path it traced — which gives the same information as a melodic contour, but in terms of distance-from- home rather than pitch height.