Why are parallel fifths forbidden?
preprint
OA: closed
CC-BY-4.0
Abstract
when two fifths, in the sense of parallel fifths, sound one after the other in a piece of music, the music is perceived as "wrong" or "disturbing". So far, there has not been a generally accepted explanation for this. In this work, a reason, based on the Theory of Musical Equilibration, is presented. According to this, the fifth in the triad has the role of a background, as it were a stage, on which the third can unfold its sensitive effect in the listening experience. If parallel fifths sound, the impression is comparable to a play in which not only the actors move on the stage, but in which the entire stage shifts to the side with a jerk, which could give the viewer the impression of an unforeseen event disrupted the plot of the theatrical performance. Correspondingly, parallel fifths in certain styles give the impression that something has happened that is actually not part of the composition in question but is faulty and disturbing.
My notes (saved in your browser only)
Citation neighborhood (no data yet)
We don't have any in-corpus citations linked to this paper yet. The paper's references may be in our DB but unresolved to ``paper_id`` (resolution happens at ingest when the cited DOI matches a row we already have). Run the cross-source citation reconcile pass to retry.
Source provenance
- europepmc
- last seen: 2026-05-19T01:45:01.086888+00:00
- unpaywall
- last seen: 2026-05-22T02:00:06.705733+00:00
License: CC-BY-4.0