Quintal (3 notes)

Notes and formula

The formula is 0 – 7 – 14 in semitones: C to G is seven, G to D another seven. Folded into one octave the notes are C, D and G — a sus2 chord, though it does not sound like one when spread.

The spread is everything. Compressed, the chord is a suspension; spread across two octaves as stacked fifths, it becomes the wide, hollow sound the technique exists for.

Why it sounds open

Each fifth reinforces the overtone series of the note below it, so the chord fuses. But with no third anywhere, nothing tells the ear whether the music is major or minor, and the combination of solidity and ambiguity reads as space.

This is why the sound is associated with landscape: Copland, Vaughan Williams and a century of film scoring after them used stacked fifths to mean distance.

How to play it

On guitar the workable form is x–3–5–x–3–x, sounding C–G–D. The wide voicing on the lower strings — x–3–5–7–x–x — is more characteristic and harder to hold.

On piano it is played exactly as written, one fifth in each hand, and the wider the spacing the more the chord sounds like itself.

Where it belongs

In orchestral writing for openness. In folk and fiddle music, where drone strings tuned in fifths produce it automatically. In ambient and post-rock guitar, where it is the natural result of open tunings.

It also appears as a pedal: hold the stacked fifths and change the harmony above them, and the chord becomes a floor rather than a chord.

Against quartal harmony

Stacked fourths float because fourths do not reinforce their lower note. Stacked fifths anchor because fifths do. The two techniques look symmetrical on paper and sound like opposites.

Both avoid the third, and both therefore avoid committing to major or minor. That is the only thing they have in common.

Frequently asked questions