Title: parallel fifths are ok Metal guitarists who only use power chords: finally, my moment has come

You should write the holy book for the electric bass and become the prophet for Adamneelism

"Genre-free" would just become another genre, I think. Genre in music is kind of the opposite of genre in books. In books "genre-free" is thought of (by many) as "literature," and "genre-full" books (mystery, romance, science fiction) are "not-literature." In music the "genre-full" music (classical, rock, jazz, folk) is what many might describe as "serious music," while the uncategorized or uncategorizable music is just "ear candy."

I knew an amazing bass player who has almost completely lost his hearing, yet he still gigs to this day. It probably helps that he has lost his hearing progressively and always played in the same band, but he also is very innovative. He designed a special platform made of plywood with a loudspeaker under it. He routes his own bass signal along with a signal of the kick drum to this speaker and stands atop the platform while he plays. He is able to keep completely in time because he literally "feels" the groove. I thought you might find this interesting; in the event you do loose your hearing, all is not necessarily lost!

Adam, thank you SO much for the shout out and the very kind words. It's funny, our next video (which will be released on June 3, 2017) is a hip hop song that we used 2 beatboxers for instead of drumset :)

As a PhD student, I really enjoyed that rant about what science is and how it doesn't care about what you think. It makes me feel like some people out there, who are not formally trained in science (as you might be), still appreciate the basics of science. In a world where powerful people choose not to believe in facts because of their own opinion, let's stay hopeful for a brighter future filled with more of us, humble people who are able to recognize facts and science in general. Peace :)

is visceral your favorite word?

Adam, I love how knowledgeable and well-spoken you are. I find it inspiring. Thank you.

Your "Question and answer time with Adam Neely" has been my earworm for the afternoon.

I actually had a unique experience with parallel motion. Before going to school, I was pretty active in writing music of all kinds (rock, contemporary, and even some orchestral). At an early point, I soon found myself always writing the bass on the root, and the cello on the 5th (i.e. parallel 5ths all over). Only a year or two before going to school did I realize this was really limiting my music, making it dull, and uninteresting. Without knowing there was a "role" against it, I started limiting my own usage of parallel 5ths, and immediately found my string quartets more interesting. Although the culture of the Baroque era did shun it, I've found a more modern day personal use for the roles against parallel motion -by not allowing yourself to become reliant on them, you force yourself to be more creative. Do I sometimes use them? Absolutely. But I now always give it a second thought. At school I heard a teacher say, "You've got to know the roles to know how to break them." By learning to not use parallel motion, you're not committing to a life without it; you're learning the benefits of using them vs not using them. Only when you understand both sides will you understand when to use which.

I had "La Vie en Rose" in my head after watching this video, but the melody kept going up in my head... and that's when I realized it was Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring!" Maybe that's common knowledge, but that kinda blew my mind!

"Because bass solos suck!" I've felt this since I began to listen to jazz music, but never dared to put it in words. Thank you :P Despite of that, I've heard some really good bass solos :)

Hey thanks for the Apartment Sessions shoutout! Really dig your channel and your insights

I love your enthusiasm towards sciences

Was a bother skipping through the video to find the answer I was looking for but it was extremely worth the trouble. You rock!

hey adam, i've been a fan of your videos for a while now, thanks for being a great teacher.

Take it from those who have been there: grow your hair long while you still have hair to grow. Plenty of time to be bald when you're older.

Fantastic! Thank you sir!

Ethan Iverson's one of my favorite pianists! love the Bad Plus. Thanks for the apartment session link- super cool

I love the parallel fifths plyaed by the double basses in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring's "Spring Rounds" dance

I loved that example of switching the audio vs switching the video

I particularly enjoy your candid response to the haircut question.

Beethoven, of course, was devastated by his loss of hearing, but went on to write his best works. Faure also went deaf (hearing sounds in a distorted manner, rather than not at all, which made it painful for him to listen to music in particular) late in life, and continued working. I suspect being a musician puts your hearing at risk in a number of ways, but even deafness is not the end of the musical road.

hey Adam, i Love your videos. i'm missing your podcasts. For me was the best way to consume your q&a. thnks from brazil :D

Hey Adam, just wanted to say though I sing (cause I suck at any other instrument) your music theories are often useful/interesting/lead me to think stuff about the singing I never thought before. Thank you for that. Have a great day.

What you said about genres was really interesting. I really like a cappella music, which technically is an instrumentation, but often gets used as a genre. This is an ongoing topic in the scene, as it's not really specific enough to cover the diversity of music people make just using their voices these days. But your idea of genres as a sort of primer for the audience makes a lot of sense in that way!

fascinating point about the difference between bass and treble register - it's almost like the difference between sight and sound that you mentioned earlier - if the treble messes up that's one thing, but the bass, omg

Hi Adam! Love your videos, I've found that I've not only learned a lot of theory and concepts from your videos (a lot of which I'll end up researching more afterward) but have also found some new ways to approach writing music and found some focus and direction for when I practice and give myself new challenges (Side note: I've gone through just about every video at this point and now I'm pretty much just rewatching stuff, please post MORE!). As much as I love playing and writing music, I find myself hitting creative walls as soon as I sit down to try and record. I'll have ideas and riffs and all that in my head but once I try and put it into my DAW it doesn't seem to sound right, or I draw a blank, or the click track seems off and I spend way too much time fixing it or I'll get stuck in post production/mixing activities rather than keep recording and moving the song along, etc and it's honestly very frustrating and keeps me from being as musically productive as I want to be. Since a lot of what I do is on my own (solo project and collaborating long distance) this has become a hindrance and a wall I struggle to get past. Do you have any advice to solo musicians that have to write music in a DAW to try and overcome/avoid this roadblock? Thank you!

Thanks for putting Torchkas-alt’s song in the description!

Searched “parallel fifths” and hoped a vid by you would come up. Not disappointed

Both my parents were/are deaf, and were Pioneer educators, working with the deaf in a dozen countries across Africa. My father would always say that blindness cuts you off from things; deafness cuts you off from people. He'd never been blind ... but I think he was on to something.

Thanks so much for taking my question!

Breaking genre boundaries requires the existance of genres. Essentially, a genre is not something a piece *belongs* to, but rather something a piece *works with*. It can work with as many as its creator likes, but that doesn't make the genres go away.

Your videos are awesome! keep it up

It's cool to hear about beatboxing on this channel. I beatbox (and did so in a college a capella group) and have found that for the most part people don't really seem to consider it a serious pursuit and only associate it with a capella or some hip hop. thanks for talking about it!

So informative and interesting !!... Thank you

I've been to some jazz jams here in Chicago and all the players seemed very nice.

Thanks for linking the Apartment Sessions video, it was amazing!

Nothing better than seeing adam uploaded a video

Well, I didn't come for the bass. I don't even remember why youtube recommened this to me. I play guitar and check out a variety of theory videos for various instruments (or theory) since I find it all interesting. Like I enjoy reading about bass techniques/concepts just to learn. But the main reason I like this channel is due to the excellent presentation of interesting ideas and discussion. Keep up the good work!

Duke Ellington's "Chinoiserie" from the Afro-Eurasian Eclipse is FULL of parallel fifths and sounds awesome!

Super cool to hear you mention Janek Gwizdala, his daily vlogs have been a staple of my KZfaq experience for the past 6 months (and I'm a drummer). You'd be a great guest on his podcast!

Parallel 5ths and octaves are actually the oldest surviving notated harmonies we have, stretching back to the organum tradition of the middle ages. They fell out of favour by the time of Palestrina. 5ths were considered empty sounding in part writing while octaves, though sonically inoffensive were just viewed as a doubling. So consecutive octaves in say a 4 voice motet, would be considered as suddenly going into 3 voices and then back to 4. These prohibitions were kept by composers until the Romantic era with the odd exception. Octave doubling has been standard practice all through these eras, as can be seen between the cellos and double basses in any symphony. An early example of an exception to these rules can be seen in the final cadence of Beethoven's 'Waldstein Sonata'. The effect being used here was a block of Dominant followed by a block of Tonic.

Adam, Two questions: 1: what sort of non-musical inspirations to you draw from concerning the composition process? 2: What are your thoughts on the music of Philip Glass? (Glass specifically, not the whole of 'minimalism') Hope to hear from you! Cheers and many thanks for your standout content.

Honestly, I prefer the camera mic. Has some charming eq and compression built in that makes it sound more human

Genres are for finding stuff similar to what you like, how can anybody disagree with having such a great tool?

0:22 I feel bad for Beethoven.

Hey! Rice and beans! Brazilian (and also Cuban, I think) food! Very nutritious! I'm all about exclamation marks right now because I just lovelovelove it. It's nice to see people up there on the cold north eating it.

Whoa whoa whoa. Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus! That's awesome!

Heyo Adam! I've been learning music and E-Bass/Violin for a little more than 2 years now, but lately I lost motivation to continue. I've came to the conclusion that this is not caused by a loss of interest in the instruments or music themselves, but instead by a loss in interest to listening to other music. I've never been a person that listens to music particularely often and even prefer silence most of the time. Also I don't go out of my way to seek out new music or musical ideas often. As a result I don't get any inspiration to begin with. Today I got a small burst of inspiration by a clarinet solo in a metal cover that motivated me to practice for 2 hours or so, but that didn't last very long. I don't have any practice routine that I can default to if I don't know what else to do. I've tried building one a few times but I always got stuck not knowing what to do exactly and because it felt so tedious. Do you have any advice?

Read about Mandy Harvey! Deaf singer/songwriter who was a vocal major at Colorado State before losing her hearing in her freshman year suddenly. Still uses her senses such as her ability to feel vibrations and her recollection of how singing "feels" I guess. Performs and is very impressive.

I gotta say on the bass solos in jazz. I rarely hear them in recordings, but they seem to happen almost as frequently as any other rhythm section instrument on gigs. At least from what I usually hear

Thank you.

When using parallels you "lose" a melody(Or enhance a melody which you actually dont want to stand out).If you just want to enhance an existing melody it is perfectly fine to doulbe(or tripple) it. E.g. In Classic it was very common for Cello and Doublebass to play the same notes an octave apart i.e. Parallel.

For Nick Krueger: Between the Buried and Me are great genre hybridists. They’re my favorite band ever because of that. You probably know them already but if not, there you go.

When I'm playing with my college big band--as the bass player---, sometimes I fuck up, as we all do, and the director will look at me, stop everybody, stare at me, and then after a period of silence, he'll say "ah it's okay, it's JAZZ baby!" It's..kinda irritating...but also funny..

My bass guitar teachers used Simandl XD Also, I love how Guthrie Govan talks about Music Theory.

A book I highly recommend for bassists is Damian Erskine's "The Improvisor's Path". it explores how to learn about scales, arpeggios, soloing, playing chords on bass, etc. in a way that is thorough, cogent, and very approachable

Generally speaking, we can divide music into composition and performance. As performers we learn the fundamental concepts of timing, pitch, and dynamics. Later on we begin understanding more involved concepts like feel, rubato, timbre, articulation and ornamentation. Imagine someone who has fairly well mastered these concepts and wishes to progress even further as a musician. What would be the next step in becoming a better performer? How far can performance go?

i used the F. Simandl a lot on my early bass classes on college. And it was with an electric bass.

One thing about parallel fifths that wasn't mentioned was the idea of a complete chord. In for example a Dmaj7 chord, the D and sometimes the A in that chord can be left out and it still can function well as a D major chord but for classical works like counterpoint and all classical music all of the chord must be stated. Having parallel 5ths or 4ths will cause there to be a incomplete chord missing the 3rd or 7th which separates major chords from minor chords or the 7th which in a Dmaj7 chord is essential to give it that added 7th flavour.

Thanks... Definitely educational. One thing I wouldn't have noticed had you not switched to your phone for a bit--the color balance on your camera seems off. It makes you look purple, like the bad old days of NTSC TV with the "hue" control turned all the way to one end. Might be worth checking out.

Hey Adam! Thank you so much for your videos! Here are some questions: 1) It seems to me that 5-string basses are far more universal. You get these extra low notes, this modern sound, can play more things in one position without shifting, can play more compicated chords, can use low B-string or high C-string if you wish. But why so many bass players (you too) still stick to 4-string bass? 2) Have you ever used iRig with JamUp or Amplitube apps? Your impressions? 3) We all use our voice and can sing naturally, we all can hear simple rhythm and imitate it on drums. But we can't even get a sound from a trumpet for example intuitevely. Do you believe vocalists and drummers are generally less educated and less intellegent as musicians because their instruments can be learnt intuitevely more easily than piano, guitar, bass, sax etc.? 4) How can one spicy up 1-6-4-5 or 1-4-7-3-6-2-5 progression ? They are so boring and have so many common notes that it makes it hard to make them more interesting. Any reharm ideas?

With regards to the question on best boxing in jazz, check out The Shaun Johnson Big Band Experience. They are an up and coming big band from the mid west that I had the opportunity to play a gig with as a bass player. Their pianist beat boxes on some of their tunes. It was incredible to play with these great musicians.

Re- beat boxing. More from the London scene, Schlomo did a piece with Polar Bear several years ago. The intro namechecked the tension between a beat boxer and a drummer, viz. Seb Rockford. Who definitely did not shave his head.

About the loss of a sense, I think that yes, sight is more important in daily life, but hearing makes it worthwhile, same as losing an arm or a leg. I'd prefer to lose a leg, although it makes my life more difficult than when I would lose an arm.

so stoked that you brought up gene, he's amazing! If you're interested in seeing the top beatboxers you should look up Swissbeatbox. They host the beatboxing world championships and it truly is mind-blowing how far people have come in turning themselves into human synthesizers

I had to do a bit searchingto find who it was that said this (as I heard it so long time ago), but it was lady named Helen Keller: “Blindness separates us from things but deafness separates us from people.” She had a good understanding of this as she was blind and deaf.

So, Iverson's a fan? Excellent.

I am desperate to hear what you think of Frank Zappa. He has created such a unique sonic universe. Nowadays, there are a few musicians whom when I listen to, I can hear echoes of his melodic sensibility, but he really seems to be on his own little musical planet. I particularly loved some of the concepts he used, like "the Right Note"; the only note which can truly inhabit that particular space in that musical idea. Or conceptual continuity, the repurposing of musical and lyrical ideas to create a system of internal reference building up to a cohesive picture of the artist's work over a lifetime. I was fascinated by xenochrony, a technique for designing studio recordings by cataloging isolated tracks systematically such that FZ could compose a studio record from memory of different musical parts from different times and dates. I loved how unusual his rhythms and melodies are. How is his music treated in the academic community, and how much respect does he really attract? I can't imagine he is popular with classical musicians, especially after his famous speech "Bingo! There goes your tenure!".

Tigran Hamasyan is an amazing jazz pianist who incorporates beat boxing and really interesting rhythmic concepts in his pieces. Check out his song "What the Waves Brought." There's a live performance on here with a kick ass beatboxing solo and it's really something to behold.

0:22 What would you do if you lost your hearing? About being part of a space; As a musician struggling with hearing loss, the first thing I noticed after getting hearing aids was how spatial everything became. I could hear distance again, not even knowing I had lost that.

Good video like always Adam. What you said about genres being used to help a listener know how to listen to music was super interesting. I do that all the time, and often in extreme cases but never thought about it before. For instance, when showing a friend new music, i'll say, Chumbawamba is a punk band (because they're punks), Earth is a metal band (because someone might just think that they're listening to reallly slow country music when hearing The Bees Made Honey... album) Pygmy Lush is a screamo / blues band (because they used to be in Pg.99), ect. I never thought about it before this video, but I guess when I do that I'm trying to help a new listener get in the mindset that I assume the band has... which is pretty arrogant of me I must say.

On the bass solos, there’s a very nice bass solo in the song Arabia off of a David Grisman and Jerry Garcia live album. And Victor Wooten’s solo bass is ridiculous! Check em out

So a bit of clarification on there not being good Bass solos. I've worked in studio recordings as a mixer, and while I'm certainly not the industry's go-to mixer, I find that the key to any solo is separation. It's not just what's there, but what isn't. a solo in the frequencies of the other instruments gets muddied up. It becomes a chord instead of a melody. So rule number 1 for solos is keeping it out of the frequency of other instruments, if you can't do that, you'd tend to isolate it on one stereo channel and put the other similar frequency instruments on the other. Bands with two guitar players do this a lot. But in the vein of absence is just as important as presence, you have the fact that the bass is a supportive frequency set that most songs would find odd if not present. This is why many bands, when hitting the guitar solo will (in the recording) spawn an additional guitar to make sure they don't lose any of the important supportive notes behind them. A rhythm guitar player will keep playing under solos, a lead guitar player will continue their lead riff even under the solo. But for bass, it'd sound "strange" to play a song where the bass goes missing during the traditionally louder portion of the song. So rule number 2 is that the bass can't stop playing what they already were. There ARE ways around this, which is basically to have the other instruments go boring for a brief period to give the bass room to play, be heard, stay on the supportive role, and be distinct enough from the usual bassline to draw focus. So while other instruments can play higher frequencies to get to the solo range, Bass solos require that the other instruments play less, and less interesting to make room for them. So it's a difficult situation that requires more willing participants than other types of solo.

Just to add something to the "what if you lose your hearing" discussion This probably varies from person to person, the way hearing affects their life and how they'd handle going def or something like that changes from the way they've lived their life so far, but for me, experiencing sound is so crucial for my perception of the world arround me that i believe that, if i lost my hearing, i would lose my mind as well. I have small mental breakdowns everytime there's too much silence for too long, i cannot imagine how i would survive the process of not hearing without losing my mental sanity.

Also Viridian by Between the Buried and Me has a very tasteful bass solo in it.

omg.... that "Luke McGinnis’ Apartment Sessions" was amazing

I've been playing guitar for 14 years and it always feel like a battle between tone and playability when it comes to action and string gauge.

Was just gonna hear and proceed, but that bass solo part made me click the like.

the haircuts mad tough my dawg rock it

From my understanding (and being corrected a lot on the Xenharmonic Alliance) parallel fifths and octaves being avoided in the Renaissance and later probably got adopted for a couple of reasons: the adoption of meantone temperaments, and the resulting emphasis on third-based harmonies. Parallel fifths sound very strong, stronger than parallel thirds (within the key, not literal parallel major thirds or the like), and thus using parallel octaves and fifths in a musical system that is emphasizing thirds can be counterproductive. And, of course, parallel fourths were allowed in some circumstances; plus, parallel fifths and octaves were unavoidable in large ensemble pieces.

If you want genre-hopping, I'm a huge fan of Igorrr. Probably the best black-metal-opera-folk-breakcore-classical mashup band out there.

To me, the holy book for electric bass is the James Jamerson book.

Hey Adam, love your channel. The hearing question got me. I'm only new to my career in audio and have had to backtrack and start up-skilling in other areas thanks to hyperacusis and tinnitus (no known cause I'm told, but its exacerbated too easily to work full time in audio, found that out the hard way). It's gutting. Still, maybe that means I'll get a career that pays a decent wage to afford to support you on Patreon, eh?

Kneebody is a great genre breaking band. It’s somewhere between avant-garde and jazz and psychedelic music.

Adam, I realized I had perfect pitch at about age 17 when I joined my local community band and could name the note that my neighbor was playing and tell them how flat or sharp they were. Fast forward to now and I've started losing my hearing(30% in my right ear and about 25% in my left,) but I still have the ability to recall pitches from my head and tell them what they are when I can hear them. Just some food for thought. Maybe being born deaf is kind of tough to be a musician, and being a normal person with adequate ears may cause a problem, but I haven't really had any problems with solos or chord changes when I can see them in front of me on a piece of paper.

Hey Adam, New to the Chanel here. I just wanna say I love the balance you strike in your videos of practicality and pure theory. Also I appreciate your views on genres. That's actually something I've had a hard time with for a long time. So I guess I'll say I'm in a post-punk/psychedelic/shoegaze band. whatever. Sequence start certainly uses a lot of themes of inspiration. I hear at least 6 different "styles" working together. Probably not what people imagine from an elevator pitch. What's the typical response like when someone here's sungazer for the first time?

I actually always thought your hair is cool. Suits you, sir! Also, I think the word "gigging" sounds really fun now. Gigging, gigging, gigging, gigging.

Hey Adam, I often find myself thinking about which bands from current times will be deemed relevant to musicians in a century or two. I know it's hard to predict exactly who they might be, but something tells me The Doors might have better odds than, say, 98 Degrees. I'd be interested to hear your take on this idea -unless you practice agnosticism in the field of musical divination. Cheers!

Do more composing based on different time periods in Sibelius. You did a counterpoint once, I'm interested to see other forms.

Actually the John McLaughlin Trio's live recording of Blues For L.W. at Royal Festival Hall breaks into a Beatboxing section before reprising the head. It's quite good.

i love how adam paused on "tho"

Everything is okay in music. Beyond that it simply depends on the style you're going for. Do you want to copy a style or do something original?

Hahaha, i have had 3 bass solos this year in my high school band, all funk. Omg, bass solos are the best

I read that parallel fifths where once over used (before Fux and Bach) and then they believed that parallel fifths sounded too simple or something like that. I think it was in "Counterpoint: The Polyphonic Vocal style of the Sixteenth Century" by Knud Jeppson.

Hey Adam ! I really consider working in the field of musical technology developpement, and as such i wanted to know if you ever interact with companies or people that are doing so in you musician daily life (wether it is about a brand new amp coming out or a completely different tool/software/technological concept you never heard about) ? In a more general matter how do composers or performers interract with engineering or new technologies when it comes to music ? That being said i really appreciate your videos. Don't change, you're awesome !

I think what the commenter who was disputing the metronome subject was trying to say was that they don't perceive the actual rhythm any better at lower frequencies, rather that the sound of the metronome is easier to pick out over the mix. Not a disagreement with the fact that we perceive rhythm more accurately at low frequencies.

Dale Music! I remember that place.

The reason that I was taught that parallel fifths and octaves should be avoided is that it lessens movement of the music. That contrary motion in voice leading creates more motion. This was during the early period of Progressive Rock, which used a lot of parallel motion, and I saw that it would often create music that sounded like a nuclear explosion in suspended animation. When people in class would point to the use in something of parallel fifths by Beethoven, the teacher would respond, "Well, he's Beethoven"...