The consecutive 5th/ Octave rule in House Music

[MadBrain]

Jazz big band 4 voice parallel harmonization
- is almost the polar opposite [of Classic 4 voices ("choral")]:

Due to the parallel 7ths chords, it's pretty much guaranteed that you're going to have lots of parallel 5ths (which aren't forbidden at all).

- not so much. 'parallel 7th chords' through itself does not force a situation of 'parallel 5ths'. That could wind up as a flabby-sounding thing to avoid, which is easily enough done by voicing in parallel 4ths (which might be more typical). And "the bass note is NOT part of the voices" seems problematic as well.

Additionally, stylistically the perfect fifths in the harmony might be omitted altogether.

In general it's kinda hard to avoid 5ths because:

- 7th chords have two 5ths in them instead of just one. For instance, Dm7 has D,F,A,C (D-A, F-C), and inversions still have one 5th (F,A,C,D has F-C; C,D,F,A has D-A) - only the A,C,D,F inversion is free of 5ths.

- Typically, that Dm7 would be followed in the melody by something like Em7 or C6, which also have two 5ths in them, and they aren't the same 5ths as in Dm7 so that's an almost guaranteed parallel 5th. If your melody goes F,G, then you can write A,C,D,F - B,D,E,G. This has no parallel 5ths. But almost any other melodic note combination, such as D,E, will probably force you to write parallel 5ths (D-E will end up something like F,A,C,D - G,B,D,E, which has a parallel 5th from F-C to G-D... or you could go for F,A,C,D - G,A,C,E, which has a parallel 5th from F-C to A-E).

- The chords are voiced in parallel motion, and you can't repeat notes if the top note moves. Without contrary motion and oblique motion (the best tricks to avoid parallel 5ths in choral harmonization), your notes are going parallel essentially all the time and it's going to be hard not to have parallel 5ths.

- You can't reduce the "density" of the chord on the spot to avoid the parallel 5ths - it sounds weird. The whole melody line should be all harmonized with 4 note chords, and most of these contain two 5ths (m7, maj7, 6, maj9 without root, m9 without root, 11), or at least one (7, m6, m7b5, 9 without root). The exception is dim7 and similar variants of dominant chords such as alt7 or aug7, but you can't really harmonize a melody line with just these.



As for the bass not being part of the harmonization, what I mean is that of course the bass will play the song's chords (using a technique like walking bass for instance), and the brass section harmonization will also be written to work with the song's chords (generally playing inversions of the chord for melody notes that are chord tones, and some compatible passing chord for melody notes that aren't). So of course they will work together, but they are not harmonized together in the way they'd be in choral harmonization style.

One should resort more to concrete examples and model the arranging talk following that, this as an overarching 'theory' might not be terrifically useful.

Mhmm. The technique is explained in books like "Arranging for Large Jazz Ensembles" (by Dick Lowell and Ken Pullig). I've also seen the same stuff in a jazz arrangement class. Haven't seen resources on the Internet about this though. But I can assure you it's a very real arranging technique.

However, repeated notes are forbidden: if the top note moves, interior voices have to move too (normally in the same direction as the top note).

Forbidden by what, why? In what music? We'll want to limit this to a discussion of the style that's restricted to that, the context. Where does that come from?

Repeated notes should not be used in this jazz parallel harmonization technique because they sorta stand out and sound weird... kindof like one of the instruments staying glued in place while everybody else moves. The arranging book I mentioned spends 4 pages giving techniques to avoid these repeated notes. It's still possible to use repeated notes of course, but in this kind of arrangement they normally sound worse.



All the stuff above only applies to the classic 4 voice parallel harmonization technique used in Jazz big band arrangement (the book calls it "concerted writing with mechanical voicings")!

[jancivil]

In general it's kinda hard to avoid 5ths because

of this premise:

The chords are voiced in parallel motion, and you can't repeat notes if the top note moves.

Which I wanted to be clarified in terms of a style/context. As you gave them they appeared to be general principles as per 'jazz harmony'.

All the stuff above only applies to the classic 4 voice parallel harmonization technique used in Jazz big band arrangement (the book calls it "concerted writing with mechanical voicings")!

I'm glad we cleared that up.

[Functional]

It's not that harmony with consecutives isn't usable, but in classical music the standards are very high and that's why they don't 'allow' anything that isn't the absolute best.

But that doesn't mean that just because it isn't the absolute best, you have to throw it away. If you have a nice melody or riff on top, or a solid song structure with good unity and contrast, or a solid rhythm , then you have a solid piece of trance music.

To add on top of this, let me represent a good piece of music



Yeah, this is not trance nor house, this is techno. However, I believe that this demonstrates the latter quoted paragraph extremely well.

The whole song uses three notes for the more fundamental harmonic structure with added elements to contribute for the atmosphere it creates. Though the three notes form a diminished chord. While they're not played out together, they still contribute in that manner to the tension that's present thoroughly in the track.

But more importantly, that is what you get when you have laid out elements perfectly as you want. From tempo to structure of the song, from score to the sound design of the song.

And thus, even though the score used in that song would not be approved by a single classical composer out there, it's still the perfect one for it.

And yeah, there's no fifths involved directly though, but it's just to demonstrate the specific point about relativity. If you had the ability to strip out all the elements individually out of songs, you'd notice that most of them aren't necessarily that strong on their own. But together, each one plays out it's part perfectly and the result is beautiful.

Take in for example Jazz. Say you have a saxophone player who can perform the circular breathing technique. Well, if he was on his own, just jamming around, playing that E-flat through two minutes in one succession, while it's amazing, it doesn't really blow anyone's mind, apart from the people who are amazed by the feat directly and pay attention.

Now, suddenly, you have a band, which has prepared for that part. I will promise you, that in that context, if it's the one single right note in the perfect time, you can blow the sax for quite a while and eventually the whole crowd finds their jaws on the floor.

At least that's my five dollars.