Perfect fifths, what is that?

[Sphereal]

Hello!

Sounds To Sample (http://www.soundstosample.com) got some nice production tips on different types of music., ref: http://www.soundstosample.com/content/Pro_tips/1

What i really dont understand is a chapter in the "Progressive house production tips" about "Perfect fifths", ref: http://www.soundstosample.com/Progressi ... ction_tips

Perfect fifths:
Lots of progressive tracks contain synth lines that play harmonically in perfect fourth or fifth intervals. You can arrange this easily in your favourite synth / plug-in by creating a sound with two oscillators, with the second oscillator tuned five (perfect fourth) or seven (perfect fifth) semitones up.

Could someone please enlighten me what this really means, in basics? (with some examples if possible)

Thanks any help!

Regards: Chris / Norway

[jancivil]

google is your friend
http://www.google.com/search?q=perfect+ ... =firefox-a

[james0tucson]

In hard-driven music (not just Rock Guitar, etc.), thirds get muddy.
If you omit the third, it's still there in the overtones, especially with distortion.

The tip you posted is just another way to get power chords.

Motion with fifths ("parallel fifths") is considered bad form in classical harmony.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2230920220

I don't necessarily buy the rationale for the rule - (in voice leading it deprives a voice of its individuality) - but I'm sadistic enough to respect it as an automatic fail in homework assignments

[Gamma-UT]

Could someone please enlighten me what this really means, in basics? (with some examples if possible)

Don't worry about the perfect bit too much. The important part is to do with the intervals between notes (ie the position in the scale above the root note). In today's music, they aren't perfect anyway because of the way that the ratios of the frequencies between notes have changed since when the first musical scales were devised. But that's not a big issue for doing progressive house.

If you listen to Not Exactly by Deadmau5, the lead line does exactly what the Sounds2Sample cribsheet says. The basic lead plays something like A-A-C-G-A followed by A-A-F-A-G. But the line has an insistent quality to it that comes from having one of the oscillators tuned a fifth higher. You don't have to do it this way, you can just play AE-AE-CG-GD-AE as two-fingered chords using a basic patch that has all the oscillators tuned to the same note - they will both wind up with the same sound.

Fourths used this way have a slightly more sour feel to them. But as the cribsheet says, lead lines based on fifths and fourths are used all over the place in progressive house, and quite a lot of early techno. You can get a sense of drive from them with extremely simple lead lines. It can also work for bass.

----

As far as classical harmony goes, I haven't seen a full explanation of why parallel fifths were bad. But before Fux was teaching species counterpoint, organum was all about parallel fifths. It might be that classical harmony decided to get well away from organum or that the flourishes that singers put into their lines meant they'd wind up hitting the tritone - a number of the rules in Fux are designed to avoid tritones appearing by accident. I guess it also means a pair of lines wind up dominating the harmony rather than blending in neatly the way Palestrina and others decided it should work. That's possibly one reason why parallel fifths turn up so often in dance music: because they stand out.

[Uncle E]

In the scope of the Sounds to Sample tips, they're merely talking about tuning oscillators in fifths, an old ELP/prog/fusion trick. It's rather strange that they're using a theory term like Perfect Fifths.

[Download SOphist]

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2230920220

so was it that bach bloke that killed my kitten? damn power chordz !!

[Gamma-UT]

In the scope of the Sounds to Sample tips, they're merely talking about tuning oscillators in fifths, an old ELP/prog/fusion trick. It's rather strange that they're using a theory term like Perfect Fifths.

Um no, that's not what they're saying. Read it again: "Lots of progressive tracks contain synth lines that play harmonically in perfect fourth or fifth intervals." - they just add that the easy way to do it for a simple one-oscillator sound is to take two oscillators and tune one up. For a more complex sound, you have to sequence both lines. For a lot of prog house, the sounds usually aren't that complex so you can get away with that. But they tend to use melodic lines as parts of chords.

[Music Engineer]

a perfect fifth is when one frequency is exactly 1.5 times the other (frequency ratio of 3/2). in our standard equal tempered 12-tone system, the fifth you play on the keyboard is about two cents off from that ideal frequency ratio. thirds are off much more than that.

[Nystul]

a perfect fifth is when one frequency is exactly 1.5 times the other (frequency ratio of 3/2). in our standard equal tempered 12-tone system, the fifth you play on the keyboard is about two cents off from that ideal frequency ratio. thirds are off much more than that.

I'd call that a just fifth, which would remove any doubt that one is talking about the exact tuning. Clearly that's not what is talked about here. Here they simply mean an interval of seven semitones (as opposed to a diminished or augmented fifth).

[A.M. Gold]

The "perfect" part is just a music theory term. They just mean fifths on the keyboard. A melody that always uses a fifth interval (for every note of the melody) instead of just single notes is often used in electronic music of various kinds. It's common to find synth presets with the oscillators tuned in fifths to achieve this sound, as people have already mentioned here. No biggie.