Parallel harmony

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In music harmonic parallelism, also known as harmonic planing or parallel voice leading, is the parallel movement of two or more lines or chords (harmonies). Examples may be found in Claude Debussy's "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune" (1894), Maurice Ravel's Daphnis and Chloë Suite No. 2 (1913), Richard Strauss's Elektra (1909), Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, "Columbine" (1914), and William Schuman's Three Score Set for Piano (1944). In the last example the inversions of the chords suggest a bichordal effect. (DeLone et al. 1975, p.332 to 333)

See also: Parallel key.

[edit] Source

• DeLone et al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music, chap. 4. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-049346-5.