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Lady Gaga does nothing but annoy the piss out of me 95% of the time I've known of her existence. Will expand on this later.

Many of things you mention are indeed absolute rules in common-practice harmony. Thus, two voices may not move in parallel fifths or octaves, parts should not cross, suspensions must be prepared and resolved, etc. To address your specific questions: #1. This rather depends on what one is harmonising. In a chorale the soprano melody is fixed so you would have no choice about whether a common tone was to be repeated or not. If it is original work, then the rule you cite probably came about to avoid having a static soprano line. The sopranos can descend a third in this progression without any risk of there being parallel intervals as all the other voices are moving upwards. However, if the progression was IIb - V - I then writing this fall from the common tone is less advisable, as it is then very difficult to avoid both parallel octaves and doubling of the third in the V chord. #2. The exception you describe is indeed the best way of writing this progression, and voices should always move the shortest distance if there are no common tones. However, this situation occurs because one is moving to a consecutive chord, which whilst not against the rules is less encouraged than moving to a more closely related harmony. #3. Doubling the root or the fifth is the most common. Doubling the third is not encouraged, and never if the chord is in first inversion. The only exception is if it is problematic to write a chord containing the fifth degree (perhaps because of range or voice-leading) in which case one may write the root and the third only in the four voices. I teach chorale harmony (amongst other things) in the Lessons section here, so PM me if you want lessons.

to me "lady" gaga is a piece of scraggy. "her" music it's nothing but a bad copy/paste of others like madonna or so. nothing new and that's way she desperate attempts to be a different by licking her own vagina in music videos. and above all she is so ugly that her mom first named her scraggy Happens.

I think "Famous Gaga" is a pretty decent example of social reflection in the form of art. Her videos and music sell, which is a pseudo-representative commentary on what society (at least those members of it who buy her music, millions worldwide) consumes in the form of "cultural" forms of expression. There's not much to over-think here. She's a cultural phenomenon because she shouldn't be doing well if culture rejects her outright "freakishness" and vulgarity. Not only does the culture around Gaga overlook it, they practically go "Gaga" for it. They buy it largely because of its freakish vulgarity, because this personae she creates with her music and her appearance appeals to some people. And these people are influential in turning other people on to her music (and perhaps onto the culture it appeals to), thus the huge following she has now. But I think it's mostly the cultural aspect that interests me most. If you reject the culture or the values presented therein, you're likely to find "amateur Gaga" more appealing. Either way, she has tremendous talent and does an outstanding job of connecting her music to the culture that she appeals to in society. I think this is what's important to understand about her. She's not some cheap parlor trick to appeal to an audience like so many other pop artists tend to be. She's genuinely skilled, genuinely appealing within the culture that consumes her work and understands her, and that should be a pretty good measure of her influence in the broader context. I happen to think that if you identify yourself with the culture Gaga appeals to, you're represented well by her. There's nothing wrong with that.

i will probably be a minority here, but i think its pretty sick what she does, sounds like she is sanctifying her twisted approach for relationships, she knows that's whats happening in the world now-and that's what she present for them, to make those feelings of insanity ok in our "not" sick society. its very not far from promoting vodka to kids.

Well, the short answer is that these rules of thumb are also described in other textbooks. But (if I remember correctly) these rules are just made up by induction of the principles used by old composers who did use rules but these were the rules of counterpoint and not of voiceleading. Voiceleading is in principle not much easier than counterpoint, but in practice I'd say it is. These rules of thumbs are, of course, no actual laws. You are free to stretch their boundaries, or leave them altogether. Modern composers don't use these principles of voiceleading too often, but even composers like beethoven and mozart and bach etc did not always totally adhere to them - especially in instrumental (keyboard)music. Basically, these rules are a way of making sure that (in classical composing) the voices and harmonies shift as smoothly and as pleasant as possible, and making sure that every voice is very much independent and moves stepwise and logic (that is the why for those rules regarding crossing of voices, paralles etc). The rules are based on vocal music, and because vocal music has it's limitations (the pitches have to be created by the voice, not just by putting a finger down on a piano or violin) people wanted to write for it in such a way that it would not give any trouble when singing. Those 2 rules you stated are ways of making sure that all the voices move as little as possible between chords, because large leaps are harder to sing than small leaps. And they also make sure that no voice is deprived of its 'independence' to the others: if two voices move in unison or octave, they are practically doing the same, therefore making the distinction between the two hard/impossible. I think this fascination for independence came with the polyphonic practices and stayed even when composers were beginning to write more monophonic. The 5th is doubled if the root cannot or isnot to be doubled. Just make sure that the leading tone (7th tone in a scale) is never doubled: it is too dissonant for that (according to the rules ofcourse). 'More satisfying' would mean that the total amount of stepsize is smaller, that some form (like a cadence) is used, or that they just voted before sending the book into print on what voiceleading between chords would be most agreeable - and that one won. EDIT: Ah yes, to the how and why for specific exceptions you should listen to someone like siwi