A look at the practice of Counterpoint as a metaphor of the societal forces that shape individual and collective behavior in democratic societies expressed as a constant negotiation between the "vertical" rules of engagement (harmony-law) and the "horizontal" limits of individual self-determination (multiple melodies, interacting as independently as possible from one another). The main focus of the course will be the study of the critical limits within which individual self-expression and social balance are maintained, and of how this balance is translated into musical discourse. The aim of the course is to help rethink the practice of Counterpoint, not as a colonial product but as a musical practice that can evolve independently of its colonial association and be practiced in various cultural contexts and musical traditions, a distillation process from a practice that can then be rethought in completely non-European cultural and musical contexts. Depending on the background of the students, the assignments for the course will be compositional experiments, extensive essays or a combination of both, in addition to in-class presentations.