False relations in the late Renaissance 

The 1 dislike is probably Zarlino.

I've just spent 17 minutes and 45 seconds watching a music theory video with open mouth

There's truly strange thing happened with me: I'm writing a course work in my 3rd year in conservatory as a theorist-musicologist My work is about comparing 3 performances of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo for ones as most authentic (or historically informed, as u said) Imagine my shock, when in the end you showed as example EXACTLY THOSE 3 PERFORMANCES IM WRITING ABOUT

I’ve become addicted to simultaneous false relations in Tallis, Gombert, Ockeghem, and the like. They’re so satisfyingly crunchy to listen to.

Best youtube channel ever.

The introduction is absolutely brilliant! You are pure treasure

Hahaha!! the intro and Outro music with the false relations 😂 you're great man!! I think exactly the same way about the Orfeo's example! Great vídeo, like all the others!

Elam-- Your voice is SO beautiful.

Everytime EMS uploads a video i feel like it's Christmas lol, thanks for the wonderful video and yes, a Mi Contra Fa shirt would be awesome ^^

I find myself saying this in every video but this chanel and website is an absolute gem on the internet

Very nice hypothesis/approach on the #6 in the 'e morta' passage. Thanks for sharing!

Very good chapter. Thank you. Also Mr. Blow's "Rules for playing a Thourough Bass" (Ms British Museum Add. 34072; Arnold. p. 163 - 172) give very interesting examples of these relations applied to cadences and progressions in continuo playing.

Incredibly great! Thanks.

I like the way False Relations sound, and can be found in the Lute music of John Dowland. I enjoy the sense of humor you intersperse in your videos, as they have a similar effect in the didactic subject matter you present as the False Relations have in the music itself.

I love the use of humor and silly animations in your videos. I laughed out loud at some points and was asked what was so funny... I don't think they expected it to be a music theory video. :)

I jumped in joy when I saw this upload, thank you so much!

Mr. Rotem you are positively hilarious. I laughed so hard so many times.. truly delightful and enlightening!! Thank you!

14:16 I like very much this chord

O nata lux baritone was one of my perennial responsibilities at a prior church job. (Always the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, in the thick of carnival)

I would buy a shirt with "Mi Contra Fa" on it. Dolla dolla bill y'all.

You have a beautiful singing voice, as well as your numerous other talents!

I love the clever humor! And the learning of course!

I was so looking forward to some Purcell examples when he was mentioned *sob* Great video!

One of your best episodes. Your brilliant channel might trigger a renaissance of renaissance music in the near future. thanks

Forgive the long entry, but your video is of great interest to me. I think you touched on something important when you said that these so-called false relations often sound good because of well-crafted lines by the composers. There is a paradox, that one cannot create good music by following the rules, but neither can you do so by ignoring them. Why? The rules have a raison d'etre-they are not arbitary-but they are limited to analyzing what I term "point dissonances", taken out of context from actual music. In real music, we are also hearing those two notes against what came before, and at the same time anticipating the future. I think this may be why J.S. Bach rejected Fux, Rameau, and other theorists, as " too strict", and according to KPE Bach, as "dry mathematical stuff." For example, 'Barofastus' Dream' begins on what today would be called a d minor chord, proceeds to the dominant, and cadences on an unexpected D major-thus the F#. When the soprano voice begins the third bar on F natural, I hear not only the F# to F dissonance, but a return to the original tonality, from 2 bars before, which mitigates the dissonance. In a way, the F# resolves backwards to F. That voice then continues with dotted half notes in today's d minor, F E D C#. Of course they probably heard this in the Dorian mode, and some sounds may have shocked them, but the return to the original scale would still be there, no matter what the modality, and the mind would hear that. To me, the arbitrary dissonances that abounded in the 20th century are ugly, but properly prepared and resolved dissonances are beautiful. Is there any dissonance that could not be subsumed by such a process? Even the Monteverdi C# against c , which is admittedly jarring, is sandwiched between 2 E major chords a bar before and after. The dissonant bar comes out of E, and returns into it. The diminished octave, C# to c, resolves by half steps, in contrary motion, to a major 6th, D to b, and from there E to b, returning to todays E major. WE HEAR CHANGE, AND MOTION, OVER TIME; NOT POINTS AGAINST POINTS. The rules were created by human reason. Rather than blindly follow the rules, we must seek to follow not just the reasons for them, but reason itself. Only then can we know how to lawfully break the rules, not in an anarchistic way, but in the sense of: " I come not to overthrow the law, but to fulfill it." Let me pose a friendly challenge to your readers. Play this chord on the piano (using piano tuners' names). D3 A3 E4 C5 F5. As a point dissonance it sounds ugly. In the music, it is gorgeous. Hint: It occurs 5 measures into a very famous work. You hear it in terms of the imitation in the entire 4 previous measures. Do you know it?

Thanks Elam you made my day

These videos just get better and better. Thank you 😀 👏

I think I remember hearing "English cadences" for the first time during Rowan Atkinson's Medieval comedy skits.

I have used false relations in my own pieces without knowing the name I now realise. Particularily when in minor one voice moves from the tonic down to the dominant, I might use notes from aeolian, while a secondary voice moves up from the dominant to the tonic by using notes from melodic minor

Thanks for this. The Byrd _Ave Verum Corpus_ also contains, though not a false relation, another harsh clash in the penultimate bar, where the bass descends to an Eb against the held D in the tenor.

This video represents and before and an after in my comprehension of musica ficta. The earliest simultaneous false relation I've seen is on Machaut's Kyrie III, with a Fa# written on the triplum and a Fa on the tenor (going to mi and re). Studying music from the 14th and 15th centuries you find a lot of maybe-yes-maybe-not false relations, depending on the ficta you choose. After watching this video I feel more confident when choosing fictas for a false relation. Tuda!!

I am a great fan of renaissance music and literally listened open-mouthed to this riveting video. As a composer, I found the "false relations" hugely interesting. In fact, the part where Orfeo learns Euridyce is dead sounds like Gershwin calling from the far future! Toda raba and keep up the excellent work.

The intro music made me giggle

Fantastic-so well done, so SO interesting, funny, smart...THANK YOU!

first one of your videos I've seen, and really enjoyed it. Well created and presented.

Brilliant video as usual.

Instant subscribe. These videos have it all.

Well done. I have noticed that false relations are often found after a cadence, between one musical period and another. In other cases they very often go a semitone up if they are sharp, down if they are flat

So pleased to find you've done a video touching on some early English composers! Although I was sad that you didn't mention my absolute favourite, Orlando Gibbons. There's a lovely and startling example of false relations in one of his keyboard preludes, a short 4-part 9-bar affair (piece no. 4 in "Musica Britannica XX Orlando Gibbons Keyboard Music"). In bar 7 there is a G sharp in the tenor while the alto jumps from an E to a G natural (totally unprepared!) The G natural then resolves down a semitone to F sharp while the G sharp resolves a semitone up to A, which somehow makes it even nicer.

I love your blob graphics!

Another fantastic video. Thanks!

I love Renaissance music , thank you for this wonderful video!😃👋

Nice chapter... But for first time I have a little disagreement with it: you don't talk about Spanish use of the mi contra fa on Polyphony and even best, in tablature instrumental writing! Most probably taken for the oldest franco-flemish tradition, so influential on Spanish renaissance, our music from the period is as much full of this simultaneous false relations as English one if not more! Not to talk, some years later, of Correa de Arauxo's Facultad Organica, sooooo full of marvellous moments like these (and many times signaled in the printing with a pointing hand ☝️as saying "look how bad a boy I am, and that's not a mistake!") So, congrats, as ever, but... A second chapter on that talking of Spanish music? (I would be pleased to help...)

As. College Music Major, this was informative as well as entertaining. I love your videos, and will continue to search for more of them!

I love your videos! Please keep it up :)

For a modern take, there is a lovely false relation in the second movement of Tippett's Concerto for Double String Orchestra.

Thank you Elam

William Tisdall's "Pavana Chromatica" in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (II) is a delightful stroll through false relations--perhaps one of the most beautiful examples of their use. Thanks for the video!

Bravissimi!!!!!! A fantastic series!!!!

Love this!

As a tenor who has sung many false relations, I applaud this wonderful overview. Cheers from sunny Vienna, Scott

Oh that was wickedly delicious. I kept on thinking of how many times Beethoven would crunch out dissonance in order to make an emotional point. There was Mozart's "musical joke" that also came to mind. He did something along these lines, I think, for a string trio or quartet? Loved this show and those great examples of dissonance.

Thank you! It is very interesting .. especially Monteverdian example... actually I thought about it in concern of Italian music too... By the way in the first English example you give these dissonances are not so noticeable because of moments of form where they appear... they belong to different phrases (except last one with B - and Bb)... I think this contextual effect is also very important (maybe even the most important for perception of the semantic quality of interval).

Great video, as always! It remembered me a madrigal from Caimo, Piangete Valli, when we hear a simultaneous false relation in the same octave, between canto and alto, I guess. Also remembered me Giovanni Felice Sances' Stabat Mater, with soooo many simultaneous false relations between canto and the fundamental of the continuo. So beautiful! About the 'e morta' passage, couldn't the B be flat? Warm hugs from Brazil! 😊

Bravo et merci ! There is also an augmented 4th at the beginning of Barafostus' Dreame (F => H in the tenor, bars 1-2). Great video and channel, many many thanks!

Bravo! fantastic video! thanks!

Wonderful!

Wow! Brilliant and funny and informative...THank you very much!

#6 for the win !!

Don't believe im addicted to this vids u guys are amazing 🌞🤗👑🧙‍♂️

I enjoy all your videos. But since I often play music from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, this was especially interesting to me. And it helps explain why I'm so drawn to that music. Thank you!

Wonderful Examples!

Listening to the given examples, it almost seems as if a piece becomes "modern sounding" when it employs false relations. Interesting stuff!

Esa disonancia de octava disminuida me ha recordado al efecto de un #9 en un dominante en musica moderna, o un toque blues

By and large, Tallis is the composer who uses simultaneous false relations the most, e.g. in the 40 voices motet "Spem in Alium", where it has really an agonizing effect!

Zarlino was the one to hit dislike button for this lovely video

Fux mentions this in Study of counterpoint a priori. Thank you for confirming what I suspected mi-contra-fa meant!

Liked before watching 👍

Would've thought the Byrd O Salutaris Hostia a6 would've been an important addition!

Fascinating and compelling study, like everything I have heard of your videos, which are many! thank you! To further complicate things, how do the tuning systems of the time relate to and change how these false relations sound? (I'm not able to draw any conclusions, by ear, as to which tunings are used in the examples you have here).

You sing very well.

Coincidently, I was exactly wondering about that in the previous video at the end of Palestrina's "Osculetur Me".

Great material, thank you! Although there is a small spelling mistake: Morley (not Morely) :)

I suggest you to listen Alonso Mudarra's 'Fantasia X' where false relations suits the most beautifully to my ears

wonderful. all hail those dissonances!

After watching this video I realized that the hookline of APP's song 'Psychobabble' contains a false relation, too, since its chord progression is A-G-C--A. Now I understand why it sounds so intriguing and why it was so hard for me as a kid to figure it out by ear.

Caviar with a cup of gentian tea.

So we discover that Coltrane's Giant Steps is based on false relations!

I have sung a lot of Franco-Flemish music, and I find singing the false relations very satisfying. It's also good to know that they're being edited out less these days- it's a lot easier to just follow the rules of ficta for each part than to try and make everything fit! The Eton Choirbook has a lot of excellent false relations. My favourite is bar 314 of John Browne's Stabat Mater, at least as sung in my edition :-) www2.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Stabat_Mater_dolorosa_(John_Browne)

Fascinating! Could these cadences be the true origin of the 7#9 chord found in blues and jazz centuries later ?? Could you give references to these cadences in Purcell's music, as you mentioned? Thank you very much!!

Listening with pleasure. Maybe you will give an analysis of "Moro, Lasso, Al Mio Duolo" by Carlo Gesualdo? I had a choral director who programmed it for a concert. It seems to be one of a kind.

an other very interesting video :-) may it be John Dowland that Thomas Morlay is critisizing in his book (because Dowland present himself in his preface as graduated of the 2 english famous universities, and he said that learned with differents famous europeen masters..) ?

7:02 Good news, everybody! Professor Farnsworth likes Byrd...

Thanks for the video! Question: What would be your opinion about the G vs G# in the ending of "Piagn'e sospira e quand'i caldi raggi" from Monteverdi's 4th book of madrigals? It's a repetitive homophonic E ¿major/minor? chord over the words "E inrileggendo poi le proprie note", and the Canto part has a G# while the Tenor part has a G. It's on Amadino's (1615) edition but not in Pierre Phalese (also 1615), and given that Monteverdi used to write this kind of lines (maybe not "that" harsh) my doubt is if could be an edition mistake in Amadino or a "voluntary correction" in Pierre Phalese. By now my approach is to use G# on both voices, contrary to Malipiero's edition that removes the sharp from the Canto part (P. Phalese version), but maybe it's none of the above and G/G# must sound toghether... any idea is well received.

Ok, after bingewatching your videos, I have to install some harpsichord sounds on my keyboard. Maybe some temperaments as well?

I like Zarlino’s terminology “nonharmonic relation.” But the Maj3-5 progression, a 14th-century standard, is still recommended by Bermuda around 1550, even in two voices.

I hate this age. O K, time goes on. But what i feel, it is the Age of Many Forsaken (cultural) treasures. Hence I REALLY APPRECIATE Your GRAT MISSION even, iam (i sono profesor di music) as You are as well. Although I know this thnigs, it is so "divertimento", amusing to me, and I hope, many beginners see this. Go ahed! Congrats!

Didn't know there's jazz in the Renaissance.

ganda

Out of curiosity, do you like any modern music? I'd love to know what you dig.

Sylvia Messaggiera always sings like this, she’s an odd card, I know her!

I find it very interesting that in the Barafostus' Dreame, the change of chord from bar 4 to 5, sounds very much like what modern composers would do in film music

I thought that a false relation was an enharmonic note used to take the place of an interval in a temperament like meantone.

"Such cadences are written in an old and stale manner". For me, a guy from 2020, it's so modern LOL

16:14 sounds a little bit like blues

false relation is renaissance jazz

How does the music of Gesualdo fit into this?

Dear Elam, I hear a F major buffer chord at 3:08 and there is a D in second voice, so it should sound as a sextachord. Am I right?

Doesn't the natural 6th in the moment Orfeo learns she died cause a false relation with the bass? That's obviously less harsh, but that's still something

Cross relations are the highest order of harmony. 😈