u/65TwinReverbRI

This has come up recently in a couple of threads as well as in the past.

Independent voices may be doubled, and when doubled, the doubling voice is not a new part or separate voice, so there is no “voice-leading” between them or rather, the “voice-leading rules only apply to the voice it’s doubling”.

Consider a string section of 5 instruments, with the following:

C - B
G - G
E - D
C - G
C - G

The bass is merely doubling the cello an 8ve down, and this is still 4 “real” parts as they’re called. It is not parallel 8ves in the “voice-leading rules” sense.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have this which we cool people know as power chords:

G - A
C - D

What are these parts doing? Are these “real” parts? 2 voices, or just 1 that’s doubled?

There are often arguments made that there are no parallel 5ths here, (and thus, no voice-leading) because there are no actual voices/parts and it’s all doubling. It’s basically a melody, reinforced at the 5th. Adding additional 8ves to either note doesn’t change that (or does it :-)

What about this in 4 parts now:

C - D
G - A
E - F
E - D

So is there voice-leading? Of course most people would say yes, and this is classic CPP voice-leading.

But is the G doubling the C (or vice versa) and thus the parallel 4ths are not really 2 separate voices? Is this “true” 4 part harmony, or only 3 real parts, or heck, is the E playing along and doubling too, so it’s only 2 real parts…?

Bb- A
G - A
C - D

What about this? 3 real parts? Or is the G just doubling the C again making this only 2 real parts?

Does moving in parallel turn into doubling and thus make any voice-leading “non-existent” for lack of a better term.

Or is it just parallel 8ves, or 8ves and 5ths, or 8ves 5ths and 4ths, certainly we don’t think of parallel 3rds and 6ths as doubling - at least not in a harmonic progression sense. Or is it only when it’s “not including any contrary motion” or things like that?

I know what I think, but I thought it would be interesting to hear what other people think.

Welcome to r/musictheory !

Before posting:

1. Please do an internet search first to see if you can find an answer elsewhere (but know that AI generated overviews are almost certainly wrong).

2. Please search this subreddit to see if your question has been answered before.

3. Please check our FAQs: https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/wiki/index

4. Please familiarize yourself with our rules.

Please note that posts that are just a link, or sometimes with a link embedded, will be flagged by reddit and may not go through. If your post isn’t going through try putting the link as text in the body of the post instead.

#A new rule (#9) has been added here at r/musictheory

Going forward:

• Any post that is wholly or partially generated by AI must be disclosed as such. A simple statement like “This post was generated using AI” or “This post was created using AI assistance” will suffice.

• Posts that are or are even suspected of being AI generated that do not disclose that fact will be removed at the Mod Team’s discretion.

• We discourage AI creation of music and other creative endeavors. Therefore:

  1. Healthy discussions about AI tools used in Analysis of music and in similar Music Theory areas are allowed and welcome, so long as they do not violate other rules.

  2. Healthy discussions about the impacts of AI in music creation, performance, notation, and so on are allowed and welcome, so long as they do not violate other rules.

  3. Linking to or including AI generated content for the purposes of discussion as in #1 and #2 above is allowed, however it needs to be disclosed that those items are AI generated. Lack of this disclosure may result in removal at the Mod Team’s discretion.

• Posts that link to or include AI generated or suspected AI generated content without any other kind of meaningful discussion will be removed at the Mod Team’s discretion.

u/Rykoma, U/MaggaraMarine, U/Zarlinosuke, please check the mod mail for a message. Thanks!