I can’t I.D. a note to save this current esteemed incarnation - much appreciated if someone here can nail it for me.
It occurs (I think) at the top of each measure (at :10, :17, :25…):
Is it a combination of guitar and keys on that bit? Sounds almost like it’s farted out by some satanic mellotron (while giving birth to the It’s Alive baby).
It’s not just a single chord. The weirdness seems to be parallel fifths - the bane of all young music majors. Considered one of the major no-nos if done inadvertently, but can sometimes be very effective if used sparingly and deliberately.
In classical theory, specifically in parts meant to be independent voices/providing counterpoint, they are considered a no-no. In modern music, harmonizing in fifths is quite common.
If Steve Howe did it, it was correct.
Thanks. Interesting comparing the examples in that link with the fifth in SK. I have to admit with my inexpert ears that I’m having a difficult time trying to correlate those examples with the SK fifth.
Can you provide an example or two? Thanks in advance.
Well, pretty much any power chord riff in guitar rock is parallel fifths. Take “Smoke on the Water” for instance. In vocal harmonies, you have stuff like the chorus of “Eight Days a Week, I looooooove you.” The first four words are parallel fifths; the “I love you” is parallel fourths. Or in the Lorde song “Royals,” the “We’re Driving Cadillacs in our Dreams” part is in parallel fifths. Or the intro to the B-52s “Roam.”
I know I also have heard it in hard rock/heavy metal music with guitar solos in parallel fifths, but I’m blanking right now. Parallel fifths are usually used in modern music to “thicken” the sound. They can have a very open, kind of medieval sound to them.
Anyhow, if what you’re referring to is the “head” of the repeating Mellotron figure, it sounds like a G and A smooshed together. There also seems to be a little tape flutter there, to me, so it kind of sounds like its drifting slightly in and out of tune.
If it’s on guitar, it’s parallel fourths (which of course are the same as fifths, only inverted). Béla Bartók was the first to teach me that, when I was playing book 5 of Mikrokosmos (piece #131, titled “Fourths”). Building up fourth and fifth chords instead of the usual triads is called quartal and quintal harmony. One song by Gillian Welch has wonderfully deft chord voicing on her guitar that at first appears like a triad with a dropped mediant, but is really an interesting inversion of fourths chords with added sevenths.
You are describing “open fifths” – triads omitting the 3rd. In classical harmony, whenever any two voices are a fifth (or a fifth plus N octaves) apart and move in the same direction together, that’s parallel fifths, whether there are any other voices or chord tones or not.
Open fifths are parallel, the reverse is not true.
Parallel fifths are so common in contemporary music that I have a hard time detecting it. Even when played in 18th Century harmony class, it was evident mostly to the instructor, not the students. Most pop composers/arrangers simply ignore this aspect of voice leading. Indeed, much pop, 3-part vocal harmony is entirely parallel fifths, but not open fifths.
I think the thing that makes that chord is a nasty organ tone. The fact the chords you guys are discussing gets the organ’s warbles to rub together the way they do makes it almost sound like guitar distortion.
Similar to clavinet sounds used in funk, e.g., Superstition.
And yes, I said “get’s the organ’s warbles to rub together” with a straight face. That’s a legitimate musical term, I tell ya.
Actually, I think I mean A & B smashed together, but I don’t have a keyboard to check against.
Well, part of the post was describing open fifths (the “Smoke on the Water” example might fall under it), but the part with the guitar solo, I do mean parallel fifths, as in a fast melody line being harmonized purely by playing a fifth over it. (Or a fourth under it.) I don’t mean the underlying harmony being in fifths.
ETA: Ah, I see. I think you are making the distinction about there being other chord tones in the harmony, but two of those harmonized voices in three- or four-part harmony moving in fifths, but I’m giving examples where it’s just pure two-part harmonization in fifths.
Yes, the sustained chord at the times stated is using the notes A and B, a tone apart. It sounds like the root tonality of the chord at that point is B so the notes would be the dominant seventh and unison of that chord.
Smoke On The Water is fourths. See here starting at about 1:00,
Well, how 'bout that! It’s funny, as I play it in fourths on the keyboard (which, I realize, is not a cool way to play this song), but on guitar I just use power chords (fifths.) I never realized that it was actually fourths on the guitar. Cool info! (Well, I guess it’s like playing a three note power chord, just leaving out the lowest string.)
So, it is just the chord’s structure? No thoughts on the organ tone?
Harumph. 
Well, I mentioned it before. I think it’s a Mellotron, and to me it sounds like it’s got a bit of a warbly tape in it or something. Or perhaps it’s a few cents off everything else, but I swear I hear it waver in pitch.
Oh yeah, warbles! Yes, the pitch waver really throws the intervals used into relief.
I tried to tell you that.
You dig the concept of “inversion,” right?