Parallel harmony

In music, parallel harmony, also known as harmonic parallelism, harmonic planing or parallel voice leading, is the parallel movement of two or more melodies (see voice leading).

This article is about parallel voice leading. For harmony related by common tones, see Parallel chord. For the beetle genus, see Diaphonia (beetle).

Illustrative example
Quartal chords descending by semitone

Lines with parallel harmony can be viewed as a series of chords with the same intervallic structure. Parallel means that each note within the chord rises or falls by the same interval.

Examples from works
Diatonic planing from "Feuilles mortes" ("Dead Leaves") by Claude Debussy.[1]
Triadic planing from Le Tombeau de Couperin by Maurice Ravel.[1]Play 
The "organ chords" in Debussy's tenth prélude, La cathédrale engloutie

Prominent examples include:

In the Schuman example (Three Score Set for Piano), the inversions of the chords suggest a bichordal effect.[2]

In the example to the right, we see a series of quartal chords in parallel motion, in which the intervallic relationship between each consecutive chord member, in this case a minor second, is consistent. Each note in the chord falls by one semitone in each step, from F, B♭, and E♭ in the first chord to D, G, and C in the last.

See also

References
  1. Cope, David (2000). New Directions in Music, p. 6. ISBN 1-57766-108-7.
  2. Kliewer, Vernon (1975). "Melody: Linear Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music", Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music, pp. 332–333. Wittlich, Gary (ed.). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-049346-5.
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