I know that if you take a major or minor triad chord, you can often remove the fifth because it will still be somewhat implied by the root note. But what about the other way around; can you have a major or minor triad and remove the root note, and still have this two-note interval sound like, or take the place of, a major or minor chord?
I ask because on my keyboard I discovered that if I simultaneously play the notes G and the E BELOW it, it sounds major to me. If I play the same G with Eb instead, it sounds minor. If I also included the C in each case, it would clearly be the root note and I'd have a major or minor chord. But I'm just playing two notes here, with the root missing, yet it still sounds either major or minor. Is the missing root note (in this case C) still being implied? thanks.
Yes - but not so much implied as inferred in this case, I think. You are hearing it that way because you've already heard the C under it and its presence is still in your memory so you are mentally supplying it. Someone else hearing it from cold will be much more likely to hear it as it is - a minor third.
Play something in the key of E minor and try again. I'm sure you'll hear it as minor again. It's a context thing.
But the funny thing is that I heard it as major & minor when I just turned on the keyboard and I haven't played the C yet. I wonder if it's because when I noodle around with progressions and melodies on the keyboard, I usually do it in C or Am to keep things easy. Maybe I'm so used to hearing C as the tonal center that it's been hard-wired into my brain to some extent. I'll try again to see how it sounds to me first thing when I wake up tomorrow.
I were writing a song in C, could I sometimes use the intervals as I described, in place of a full Cmajor or Cminor chord? ...provided that the tonality of the song is clearly defined as C?
So when you hear any two-note interval fresh by itself, without any context or harmonic memory, and both notes are sounded at exactly the same time, is the lower note usually/always perceived to be the root of the interval/incomplete chord?
Seems to me like trying to "not think about a cat", it's really hard to try to consciously *not* think about something. :)
So when you hear any two-note interval fresh by itself, without any context or harmonic memory, and both notes are sounded at exactly the same time, is the lower note usually/always perceived to be the root of the interval/incomplete chord?
With two notes, you don't necessarily have a chord (though there was recently quite a thread about that, too), so I'm not sure you'd necessarily hear a "root". If you did, though, my own (fairly uneducated) guess is that you'd tend to hear the lower note as the root, especially before hearing some non-sounding note as the root.
-- Voidious
Someone else hearing it from cold will be much more likely to hear it as it is - a minor third.
Fretsource is correct; it's the third that determines major or minor in this case, not the root, not the 5th.
I've just started grappling with this missing root stuff in my bass improv lessons and it's bugging the heck out of me. :lol:
"Everybody got to elevate from the norm."
I'm not much on theory :oops: it would seem to me that the chord without the root will not sound wrong if its slipped in place somewhere in the middle of a song for the whole triad, but it won't sound totally right either.
You really want to use rootless chords when your playing with a bass. They will still work even if you are playing solo as long as there is strong ontext.
"And above all, respond to all questions regarding a given song's tonal orientation in the following manner: Hell, it don't matter just kick it off!"
-Chris Thile
