Perfect Fifth - Bare Fifth, Open Fifth, or Empty Fifth

Bare Fifth, Open Fifth, or Empty Fifth

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 and of the first movement of Bruckner's Ninth Symphony are both examples of pieces ending on an empty fifth. These "chords" are common in Sacred Harp singing and throughout rock music. In hard rock, metal, and punk music, overdriven or distorted guitar can make thirds sound muddy while the bare fifth remains crisp. In addition, 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 and sikuri. The same melody is being led by parallel fifths and octaves during all the piece. Hear examples: Play K'antu, Play Pacha Siku.