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bach-parallels · huang2019-bach-doodle

Revision c3f41450-80c6-4ddf-aa3d-78bb461be1a9 · 11/1/2026, 9:53:06 PM UTC
Claim ID
bach-parallels
Assertion
Although Bach is known for carefully following the rule against parallel fifths and octaves, the 382 Bach chorales used to train the Bach Doodle model contained 132 parallel fifths (0.023 per measure) and 51 parallel octaves (0.009 per measure). Many of these can be excused because they occur in special circumstances such as phrase boundaries or with non-chord tones.
Quote
one well known characteristic of Bach's counterpoint writing is how carefully he followed the rule of avoiding parallel fifths (P5s) and parallel octaves (P8s). ... We were surprised to find that in the 382 Bach chorale preludes we used in our train and validation sets, there were 132 instances of P5s (0.023/measure) and 51 instances of P8s (0.009/measure). ... However, many of these instances can be “excused” because they occur under special circumstances such as at phrase boundaries or when using non-chord tones
Quote language
en
Locator
section: 6.3
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