Re: anti-looper bigots

[Toby G <carpet8@mac.com>]

The no parallel fifths rule is mostly for part-writing music for multiple 
monophonic instruments.  It's a good rule--if you write a four part 
chorale 
and it suddenly sounds hollow, parallel intervals is probably the reason 
why.  If you're making up guitar or bass parts and they're not in 3 part 
harmony or if they're distorted, parallel fifths could sound wonderful.

I have experience with being in bands and having a guitar and bass doing 
complementary lines that will sound like crap at one point, then I look at 
the notes being played(usually a parallel interval), adjust one of my 
notes 
to another octave, and it sounds SO much better.

\t
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Good" <bsgood@gmail.com>
To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 5:33 PM
Subject: Re: anti-looper bigots


> Jim Goodin wrote:
>> Love the Slayer story Kevin as well as the church forbidden 'tri-tones' 
>> and to take that further when I was a freshman music major studying 
>first 
>> year theory according to Paul Hindemith, we were instructed to avoid 
>> parallel fifths in all of our assignments, strangely that was the 
>writing 
>> on the wall for me and was to become my favorite interval in so many 
>> directions.
>
> I know there are authoritarian clowns who insist on rule-following with 
>no 
> rational justification. But I've always taken rules like "no parallel 
> fifths" to be things you work with while you're learning, temporary 
> limitations you agree to in order to develop compositional control. You 
> learn to recognize parallel fifths, you learn why you might want to 
>avoid 
> them in a particular style of music--and then you do what you want when 
> you're making your own music.
>
> An old teacher once told me that he didn't introduce rules so that his 
> students would follow them rigidly. He presented the rules he used to 
>get 
> his sound as a case study. When a student of his went on to develop a 
> musical language of his/her own, with different rules, he considered it 
>a 
> great success.
>
> I've recently been infatuated with a Jon Hassell sort of 1-2-5 parallel 
> voicing on my soprano, using a pitch shifter. Everything I play that way 
> incorporates parallel fifths. Nobody has tried to punch me out yet for 
> doing it.
>
> Brian
>
>