This is how I understand it too - though "the rules of counterpoint" as they are taught today were really codified after Bach (who was already ~50 years out of date!). Typically (not always!) the "rules" of a style of music are malleable and flexible and argued over while the music is still relevant and codified into unchangeable standards after they have fallen out of fashion. Blues is a good modern example. Dubstep and the 100 related genres and vaporwave and it's 100 related genres, are counter-examples, instead slightly changing the rules becomes a new subgenre, which I feel is the same effect but manifesting itself differently.
Bach himself "breaks" at least one rule in every piece, and I can think of one rule that was really due to technological limitations of the time - not modulating to more than 2 keys away, because they didn't have 12-TET and going more than a few keys away sounded more and more dissonant - keyboard instruments were tuned to a specific key.
The story I'm trying to tell is people arguing about the rules of music is no different than how composers/producers/song writers about music today with modern genres, and when some genre dies, the old guard tries to keep it "pure" by zeroing on a set of commonly used stylistic techniques and calling it "the rules" which makes the music more bland and uninteresting by smoothing out the rough edges.
I was taught counterpoint by one of Shostakovichs last students, and my opinion on rules is greatly influenced by him - it's good to learn the rules, even though they aren't really rules, and all the greatest music from that time was written decades before the rules were even codified.
Bach himself "breaks" at least one rule in every piece, and I can think of one rule that was really due to technological limitations of the time - not modulating to more than 2 keys away, because they didn't have 12-TET and going more than a few keys away sounded more and more dissonant - keyboard instruments were tuned to a specific key.
The story I'm trying to tell is people arguing about the rules of music is no different than how composers/producers/song writers about music today with modern genres, and when some genre dies, the old guard tries to keep it "pure" by zeroing on a set of commonly used stylistic techniques and calling it "the rules" which makes the music more bland and uninteresting by smoothing out the rough edges.
I was taught counterpoint by one of Shostakovichs last students, and my opinion on rules is greatly influenced by him - it's good to learn the rules, even though they aren't really rules, and all the greatest music from that time was written decades before the rules were even codified.