Aaron Rabushka ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>Perhaps I should have said that my major disgruntlement with parallel
>fifths came and went when I was in the eighth grade.  My kvetching about
>theory is now more of a source of amusement to me than anything.

I shudder to think that it was 32 year ago that, while on holiday in
Greece, I met a woman who had once had composition lessons wtih Ralph
Vaughan Williams.

I clearly recall her telling me the story of his setting her as an exercise
to write a movement of a string quartet.  During the following lesson, as
they were going through it together she suddenly noticed something and said
"oh, no!"

"What is it?" asked RVW.

"Look, there, parallel fifths" she replied, showing him the bars in
question.

There was a pause. "Well, did you *mean* parallel fifths?"

She thought for a minute. "Yes, I think I did."

"Well then, what's the problem?"

Deryk Barker
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