What is Perfect Fifth?

Information about Perfect Fifth

perfect fifth
Inverse perfect fourth
Name
Other names diapente
Abbreviation P5
Size
Semitones 7
Interval class 5
Just interval 3:2
Cents
Equal temperament 700
Just intonation 702
Enlarge picture
Examples of perfect fifth intervals
The perfect fifth or diapente (sometimes abbreviated P5) is a musical interval which is responsible for the most consonant, or stable, harmony outside of the unison and octave. It is a valuable interval in chord structure, song development, and western tuning systems. The prefix perfect identifies it as belonging to the group of perfect intervals (perfect fourth, perfect octave) so called because of their extremely simple pitch relationships resulting in a high degree of consonance.

The perfect fifth is historically relevant because it is the first accepted harmony (besides the octave) of Gregorian chant, a very early formal style of musical composition. The perfect fifth occurs on the root of all major and minor chords (triads) and their extensions. It is one of three musical intervals that span five diatonic scale degrees; the others being the diminished fifth, which is one chromatic semitone smaller, and the augmented fifth, which is one chromatic semitone larger. The solfege of the perfect fifth is "Do - Sol". A helpful way to recognize a perfect fifth is to hum the starting of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, which is a familiar perfect fifth. The perfect fifth is abbreviated as P5 and its inversion is the perfect fourth.

In simple terms a perfect fifth can be played on a piano keyboard by holding down two notes, one of which is the seventh note higher than the base note.

Perfect fifth (equal temperament)
The file plays middle C, followed by G (a tone 700 cents sharper than C), followed by both tones together.
Problems listening to the file? See media help

Use in harmony

The perfect fifth is a basic element in the construction of major and minor triads, and because these chords occur frequently in much music, the perfect fifth interval occurs just as often. However, because many instruments contain a perfect fifth as an overtone, it is not unusual to omit the fifth of a chord (esp. in root position) since it is already present due to this overtone.

The perfect fifth is also present in seventh chords as well as "tall tertian" harmonies (harmonies consisting of more than four tones stacked in thirds above the root). The presence of a perfect fifth can in fact soften the dissonant intervals of these chords, as in the major seventh chord in which the dissonance of a major seventh is softened by the presence of two perfect fifths.

One can also build chords by stacking fifths, yielding quintal harmonies. Such harmonies are present in more modern music, such as the music of Paul Hindemith. This harmony also appears in Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring in the Dance of the Adolescents where four C Trumpets, a Piccolo Trumpet, and one Horn play a five-tone B-Flat quintal chord.

A bare fifth, open fifth or empty fifth is a chord containing only a perfect fifth with no third. The closing chord of the Kyrie in Mozart's Requiem is an example of a piece ending on an empty fifth, though these "chords" are common in Christian Sacred Harp singing and throughout rock music, especially hard rock, metal, and punk music, where overdriven or distorted guitar can make thirds sound muddy, and fast chord-based passages are made easier to play by combining the four most common guitar hand shapes into one. Rock musicians refer to them as power chords and often include octave doubling (i.e. their bass note is doubled one octave higher, e.g. F3-C4-F4).

An empty fifth is sometimes used in traditional music, e.g. in some Andean music genres of pre-Columbian origin, such as k'antu, tarqueada and sikuri. The same melody is being led by parallel fifths and octaves during all the piece. Hear examples: , .

Use in tuning and tonal systems

A perfect fifth in just intonation, a just fifth, corresponds to a frequency ratio of 3:2, while in 12-tone equal temperament, a perfect fifth is equal to seven semitones, or 700 cents, about two cents smaller than the just fifth.

The just perfect fifth, together with the octave, forms the basis of Pythagorean tuning. A flattened perfect fifth is likewise the basis for meantone tuning.

The circle of fifths is a model of pitch space for the chromatic scale (chromatic circle) which considers nearness not as adjacency but as the number of perfect fifths required to get from one note to another.

See also

  •  • [ e] Diatonic intervals
Perfect : unison (0) | fourth (5) | fifth (7) | octave (12)
Major : second (2) | third (4) | sixth (9) | seventh (11)
Minor : second (1) | third (3)| sixth (8) | seventh (10)
Augmented : unison (1) | second (3) | third (5) | fourth (6) | fifth (8) | sixth (10) | seventh (12)
Diminished : second (0) | third (2) | fourth (4) | fifth (6) | sixth (7) | seventh (9) | octave (11)
semitones of equal temperament are given in brackets
inversion has several meanings. There are inverted chords, inverted melodies, inverted intervals, and (in counterpoint) inverted voices. The concept of inversion also plays a role in musical set theory.
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perfect fourth
Inverse perfect fifth
Name
Other names diatessaron
Abbreviation P4
Size
Semitones 5
Interval class 5
Just interval 4:3
Cents
Equal temperament 500
Just intonation ~498.
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semitone
Inverse major seventh; diminished octave
Name
Other names minor second
or diatonic semitone;
augmented unison
or chromatic semitone
Abbreviation m2; aug1
Size
Semitones 1
Interval class 1

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In musical set theory, an interval class, or ic, is the shortest distance in pitch class space between two unordered pitch classes. For example, the interval class between pitch classes 4 and 9 is 5 because 9 - 4 = 5 is less than 4 - 9 = -5 ≡ 7.
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In music, just intonation is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of whole numbers. Any interval tuned in this way is called a just interval; in other words, the two notes are members of the same harmonic series.
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An equal temperament is a musical temperament. It is a system of tuning in which every pair of adjacent notes has an identical frequency ratio. Equal temperaments are often intended to approximate some form of just intonation.
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In music, just intonation is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of whole numbers. Any interval tuned in this way is called a just interval; in other words, the two notes are members of the same harmonic series.
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In music, a consonance (Latin consonare, "sounding together") is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance, which is considered unstable.
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UNiSON: Rebels of Rhythm & Dance (sometimes known as simply Unison) is a rhythm video game released for the PlayStation 2 in 2001 which featured unique controls and, at the time, beautiful graphics for its genre of game.
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Perfect octave
Inverse unison
Name
Other names -
Abbreviation P8
Size
Semitones 12
Interval class 0
Just interval 2:1
Cents
Equal temperament 1200
Just intonation 1200 In music, an octave
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perfect fourth
Inverse perfect fifth
Name
Other names diatessaron
Abbreviation P4
Size
Semitones 5
Interval class 5
Just interval 4:3
Cents
Equal temperament 500
Just intonation ~498.
..... Read more.
Perfect octave
Inverse unison
Name
Other names -
Abbreviation P8
Size
Semitones 12
Interval class 0
Just interval 2:1
Cents
Equal temperament 1200
Just intonation 1200 In music, an octave
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In music, a consonance (Latin consonare, "sounding together") is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance, which is considered unstable.
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æculorum, amen." The Latin is pronounced in the manner of Renaissance Germany, based on Åbo's German ecclesiastical connections.
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In music the root (basse fondamentale) of a chord is the note or pitch upon which that chord is perceived or labelled as being built or hierarchically centered upon.
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major triad
Component intervals

perfect fifth
major third
root Generally speaking, a major chord is any chord which has a major third above its root, as opposed to a minor chord which has a minor third.
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minor triad
Component intervals

perfect fifth
minor third
root

Generally speaking, a minor chord is any chord which has a minor third above its root, as opposed to a major chord which has a major third.
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In music, extended chords are tertian chords (built from thirds) or triads with notes extended, or added, beyond the octave. Ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords are extended chords.
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In music theory, the term interval describes the difference in pitch between two notes. Although frequently used in connection with intervals, the term "distance" does not adequately describe the physics and subjective effects of two interacting frequencies.
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diatonic scale (from the Greek διατονικος, meaning "[progressing] through tones", also known as the heptatonia prima
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tritone
Inverse tritone
Name
Other names augmented fourth, diminished fifth
Abbreviation TT
Size
Semitones 6
Interval class 6
Just interval 7:5, 10:7, 45:32...
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semitone
Inverse major seventh; diminished octave
Name
Other names minor second
or diatonic semitone;
augmented unison
or chromatic semitone
Abbreviation m2; aug1
Size
Semitones 1
Interval class 1

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augmented fifth
Inverse diminished fourth
Name
Other names -
Abbreviation ?
Size
Semitones 6
Interval class 4
Just interval 25:16
Cents
Equal temperament 800
Just intonation 773 An
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solfege or solfeggio (sometimes called solmization, see Etymology below) is a pedagogical technique for the teaching of sight-singing in which each note of the score is sung to a special syllable, called a "solfege syllable" (or "sol-fa syllable").
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Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is one of the popular English nursery rhymes. It combines the tune of the 1761 French melody "Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman" with an English poem, "The Star," by Jane Taylor.
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perfect fourth
Inverse perfect fifth
Name
Other names diatessaron
Abbreviation P4
Size
Semitones 5
Interval class 5
Just interval 4:3
Cents
Equal temperament 500
Just intonation ~498.
..... Read more.
musical keyboard.]] A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers on a musical instrument which cause the instrument to produce sounds.

Keyboards almost all share the common layout shown.
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Do or C is the first note of the fixed-Do solfege.

In Western music, the expression "middle C" refers to the note "C" (or "Do" in fixed-Do solfege) located exactly between the two staves of the grand staff, quoted as C4 in scientific pitch
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"Overtones" redirects here. For the album by Just Jack, see Overtones (album).


An overtone is a natural resonance or vibration frequency of a system.
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A seventh chord is a chord consisting of a triad plus a note forming an interval of a seventh above the chord's root. When not otherwise specified, a "seventh chord" usually means a major triad and a flat seventh (a "dominant seventh chord").
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