Parallel 5ths Are Fine - Q&A #5 

Was literally headed down to the comments to post this. Much thanks!

I think it has /c/ in the middle of the URL in the description instead of /channel/

How do I not notice these things?

Jon Campbell +

@@AlexKnauth +

You should probably watch an Indian classical music RU-vidr for that rather than 12tone. There are a couple if you are so inclined.

3 years later: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-geSOK65rhdQ.html

Parallel fifths only matter when we are talking about music with independent voices in it. Power chords don't have independent voices in them. Actually, the fifth is just doubling the bass note, and playing power chords is basically the same as playing single note lines. When it comes to parallel octaves, sure, doubling a part is completely fine and everybody does it, but when you have two separate voices that do their own thing but there's an occasional parallel fifth/octave between them, that does sound a bit off. This of course depends on the style that we are talking about. There's definitely value to learning voice leading. Sure, you shouldn't try to apply traditional voice leading to all music, but it's pretty important if you want to understand how functional harmony works. Also, you can still apply it to rock music - there are still at least two potentially individual voices in rock: the melody and the bassline. And when you pay attention to the intervals between the bassline and the melody, you can create more melodic basslines. This is basically contrapuntal thinking and the voice leading rules are at least a good starting point for how to write a melodic bassline. Also, you don't find a lot of parallel fifths in the music of Beethoven and Mozart, at least not between the melody and the bassline. Sure, no rule is absolute, but this doesn't mean you shouldn't learn them. When you learn the basics of voice leading, you need to do everything correctly in the exercises. Otherwise you will not learn it properly. Some theory teachers probably teach voice leading a bit too strictly without making it clear that you shouldn't apply traditional voice leading to all music. But it is true that in polyphonic music that uses traditional harmony, parallel fifths do stand out as sounding a bit off.

Two script supervisors! Although in their defense their brains likely did what mine did when I was reviewing the script and just saw "Mozart" and didn't bother to double-check the full name.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?

Jose, in another video, 12tone said Ludwig instead of Wolfgang. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

They chose to be angry instead of amused? Some people are weird...

That was a reference to Douglas Adam's "Restaurant At The End Of The Universe" and is a meme. I don't think anybody was really very angry.

These are a few of my favourite things

I don't even know much about Uralic music...

yeah, when people say "europe" they usually refer to a handful of european countries. it's not as egregious as when "asia" is reduced to china, korea, and japan, but it's a similar type of problem. "europe" is just france, germany, and the uk. maybe add spain and italy if you're feeling adventurous. the rest of us don't exist unless it's time to grab some nordic pagan gods for the next big movie or whatever

I would also guess that the distortion can make other "chords" sound muddy.

Yes, its okay for that kind of music. But for 4 part writting is somehow forbidden.

gingercore69 I think you’re confusing parallel fifths with power chords (sometimes called 5 chords)

Duncan Robertson right... So... If i have a chord change from e5 to a5... Did 2 notes apart by the interval of a fifth move in the same direction? Because thats basically the definition of a paralel fifth

Yeah that would have parallel fifths. It’s just the way you said it didn’t really make sense, since you can have all sorts of dense chords with parallel fifths as well.

Duncan Robertson yeah sure, but take them away and it changes alot... Use the 6th, the third... Even changing from e5 to a8 is in theory not a paralel fifth nor octave, and it sounds so much different... I just love the sound of thirds and 6ths mostly

Duncan Robertson you are totally right i didnt write it clear enough in my first coment

Just to check we're on the same page, D dim 7 is (D F Ab B) and E dim 7 is (E G Bb Db). Okay, it's a question of what you're modulating _to,_ not _from._ To modulate to C, you need that B and F tritone so it's going to be B dim 7, a.k.a. D dim 7, F dim 7, or Ab dim 7. This is true whether you're resolving to C major or C minor, but it's more in keeping with the scale if we write B dim 7 resolving to C major and D dim 7 resolving to C minor. Same notes, though. Jazz also uses B dim 7/G resolving to C. This is a B dim 7 chord plus a G in the base (G B D F Ab), so there's all the notes of G7 in there. Except that it's not written as B dim 7/G, it's written as G7(b9).

I was going to comment this exact thing

Mike Kushins the least versatile. The real one only exist in old churchs and some concerto house. The timbre by it self is automatically connect with church music, and it have to much harmonic content that make any chord blur.

Are you sure that pipe organs are less versatile than accordions?

I agree, especially when it comes to basic musical education. When you are surrounded by a certain style of music and don't even hear any music from other cultures, I don't see a point in focusing that much on the music from other cultures. Sure, some people are interested in it and there should definitely be courses that focus on the music from other cultures. But generally speaking, it makes sense to learn mostly about the music of your own culture because that's the music that you are most likely going to hear and play. I don't think this implies that "our music is better than theirs" (though some people may have this kind of an attitude). It's just common sense - why learn about something in depth when you are most likely not going to play and listen to that kind of music? Sure, it's interesting, but is it really practical? I do think having some kind of a knowledge of the music from other cultures is valuable, but should we spend more time on Chinese music than Beethoven's music? I don't think so. Beethoven's music is a lot more relevant to most people who study in a Western music school. When it comes to approaching the music of other cultures from the perspective of your own, I don't think this is a good thing if you want a really in depth understanding of the music of other cultures. But if you just want a basic understanding, sure, focusing on the differences between the music of your own culture and the music of other cultures is probably the most effective way of learning it.

Fernie Canto But isn't that more of a semantic issue? Also, you always need to leave something out. You need to start from somewhere. And when you start teaching music theory, you obviously start from the basics of the Western music theory since that's most relevant to the vast majority of the people in the class. When it comes to advanced music theory, sure, I think then it's fine to start talking about the music theory of different cultures. But if you start talking about that straight away, that's just going to confuse a lot of people. The beginning of music theory teaching starts from the very basics and leaves a lot of music, even a lot of Western music, out (I mean, if you study in a more classical oriented school, they may not talk much about other styles in the theory classes, and if it's a more pop/jazz oriented school, they probably don't talk much about classical). Sure, people should know that different cultures may have different ways of thinking about stuff and that what they learn on theory classes may not be the best approach to all music. But the same even applies to the classical way of thinking vs the jazz way of thinking, and a lot of classical musicians learn little about how jazz musicians think, and a lot of jazz musicians learn little about how classical musicians think. It would be cool if people could just learn about a great variety of stuff, but there's only a limited amount of time and people also need to get a good grasp of the very basics. And this doesn't happen if the lessons focus on too many things. There are also more relevant and less relevant things, and the music from different cultures is not a very relevant thing. I mean, many classical musicians don't even know much about the theory of jazz music, even though it's a music style from the same culture. Music theory teachers need to prioritize things. If people have trouble with understanding functional harmony, then it makes no sense to start talking about how other cultures treat harmony. Learning the basics takes time. It's about what's most relevant to the students. To most people in the Western world, Western music theory is music theory (that's the only theoretical knowledge they need for the music that they play and listen to). That's just how it goes. Always specifying that we are talking about Western music theory when the assumption is that most people listen to Western music would be pretty unnecessary.

I disagree about the Eurocentrism for much the same reasons. It may be that elements of other cultures find their way into the music of the west and that these make for interesting additions but the form and theory of western music should be kept somewhat conservative in education or the traditions and styles will quickly disappear. The formal nature of written western music should not be replaced out of a misguided need for diversity in all things, it is perfectly valid to learn how things were done in the past and to understand those methods and how they can apply today. But if western music adopts the scales of other countries and the forms of other cultures it will cease to be western music entirely. Borrowing heavily from other cultures and appropriating their sounds and forms will not improve European music as a distinct culture it will dissolve it. Learning about the music from other cultures is valuable and interesting and maybe it has room along side traditional music education, but placing too much emphasis will reduce the value placed on their own culture by students and the audiences for any type of formal music have already dwindled to almost none. It is crying out in a death knell already, to focus education on other cultures at the expense of your own is suicide of the culture.

Yeah not working for me either

Click on the icon at the end of the video

Fernie Canto riiiiight. Imma fix my comment

I personally feel it is lazy and insulting. Like a lot of 20th century written music it has a gimmick and acts profound when it is really petty.

I think it's a bit pretentious too. I feel like it's absolutely fine to have a piece of music that's just a block of silence, as only a piece of music itself. That's valid, but what isn't is claiming that you authored it, or giving it a title. Because nobody wrote a block of silence, that's existed forever. And having not wrote it, you don't get to tell people what they have to call it either.

you're not lol

he's also holding the pen wrong

I'm a lefty and I never noticed

Though, sometimes a third (or inverted third) is used as a passing double stop, I should note.

It's a huge problem in history too. I took a two-year "World History" course in high school, and we maybe spent one chapter on the Japanese and Chinese (combined, mind you) before World War II.

Synthesizer piano has you beat.

Sorry! I thought so but unfortunately right after recording things Jabril had to go out of town for work stuff so I wasn't able to ask him to re-record it. I tried to see if I could fix it in editing but sadly my post-production skills aren't that refined.

Thanks

Yep. Very effective. No arguments allowed.

1812 Overture thinks so.

worked with gansta rap.

Camelia sinensis You’re a snob.

there is literally nothing to hear.

just a room full of uncomfortable people. might as well record a doctor's waiting room.

J. Allan Are you for real?