Omitting the fifth

[sprucetophere]

My apologies, apparently the software won’t let me edit the previous post.

Given that my goal is to play and/or compose finger style versions of songs and tunes I hear (as opposed to read), would my time be better spent learning more harmony theory at this point, or using the basic knowledge of chord and scale construction and practicing bringing what I hear to the fretboard?

Thanks!

Robert

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

But certainly the tension in the sound of much 'New Age' music comes from abandoning the harmonies listeners have grown used to hearing and replacing with sus 2 or sus 4 chords to imperfectly harmonise a modal type melody which is perhaps closer to what you are thinking off?

I was thinking more of this ^^^^^^^

It has both the picardy third and the false relation of the F and F# in the Bye, bye, lully, lullay section. There can't be a stronger candidate for abandoned harmonies and tension than this famous 16th century choral piece. Pretty much every modern rendition I have heard tidies up the harmonies - and often the timing too!

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

I was thinking more of this ^^^^^^^

It has both the picardy third and the false relation of the F and F# in the Bye, bye, lully, lullay section. There can't be a stronger candidate for abandoned harmonies and tension than this famous 16th century choral piece. Pretty much every modern rendition I have heard tidies up the harmonies - and often the timing too!

Sorry what F# ? There is an F in the bass where it provides a 3rd to harmonise with A in the melody note 'by' in the first bar . I am not familiar with a 'picardy 3rd' but a quick google informs me that it's the practice of sharpening the minor 3rd of a chord to produce a more emphatic resolution to finish off a section with a major chord ( achording to Wikipedia) in the example you show G minor becomes G major on 'lay' in the 3rd bar, all the other harmonies are conventionally used intervals and unisons. I don't know anything about the traditions of harmonising early choral music but I suspect the notes chosen have more to do with providing contrary motion to contrast with the melody without having two notes clashing.
I don't think this is really related to the OPs first post which concerns jazz chords, and I suspect has more to do with the realities of trying to harmonise tunes with chords which have more notes than guitarists have fingers, try harmonising a melody with jazz chords to see that it's not really surprising that notes get left out.

[Robin, Wales]

Mmmm... I'm not sure that the score on that YouTube matches the vocals!

The score above is the original version showing the F and F# being sung at the time, which is what I'm hearing in the YouTube recording. The tune resolves to major as you say. With these factors, and the timing changes, it is a very difficult piece to sing, despite its "simplicity".

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by sprucetophere

Doug, youÂ’re right I was confused. The confusion involves forgetting that weÂ’re discussing the use of triads as tools to help visualize the fretboard versus necessarily playing those triads. There are many finger style pros and teachers (like yourself) that emphasize/prioritize committing to memory playing shapes of the triad. And, my confused question about whether I should commit to memory triads that were created from four or 5 ton chords that omit the fifth.

Technically, a triad is always 3 notes. Like C, E, G. Then you have 2 inversions, where you change the order of the notes, E, G, C, and G, E, C. Beyond that, you're either talking about extensions (4 notes, like a Major 7th, or 5, like a Major 9th), or you're talking about doubling up (or removing) voices. When talking about theory in general, you can run into all that stuff. And all kinds of things happen in practice on the guitar. Even something like a cowboy C chord, 1st position is all C's, E's and G's but you have all of them doubled up in the full chord, playing each in different octaves. And due to physical limitations of the guitar, some full chord shapes may double some notes while ignoring others, or even dropping some. And of course, it depends on what you want to hear. Theory is there to explain what you did, not to tell you what to do.

What we've been talking about is just a very limited, focused application of triads - identifying them as target tones on the guitar as an aid to knowing your way around the fretboard. There are other small building blocks that are useful. For example, I usually work out intervals: 3rds, 6ths and 10ths, especially in alternate tunings. That's just 2 notes. And again, I'm not just playing those 2 notes, they're more of a guide, a roadmap.

You could certainly choose other things to work out, like finding the location of all 4-voice chords, or all 5-part, or the shapes of all chords that omit one voice. But that's a lot of work, I'm looking for the most basic thing I can keep in my head. The rest I can work out easily by knowing how chords are constructed, as long as I can locate the core notes of a major triad.

A related question - once I have fully committed to memory all of the notes on the fretboard and the triads (and their inversions) on the top four or five strings, where do I go next?

If my goal is to both play as well as compose finger style versions of songs (instrumental finger style tunes as well as songs by Paul Simon et al) That is, would I benefit most from learning more harmony theory so that

Mostly, I'd suggest learning by doing. Just learn lots of songs, but don't get stuck in the mode of just following the dots - reading tab. It's fine to learn a song from tab, but try to also understand what's being played. What's the chord progression, for example (often not obvious from tab). A path toward writing is to arrange. So you might take a song you like, or any song. Take Three Blind Mice, or Mary Had a Little Lamb, it doesn't matter! I have a friend who arranges Twinkle Twinkle Little Star every time he learns a new tuning. (it was good enough for Mozart...) And try to arrange it in different keys and in different locations on the fretboard. You should find that your knowledge of triads in different locations helps.

You could start writing in several different ways. One is to come up with a melody, away from the guitar. Something you can sing. Even a few bars. Then arrange that on the guitar, so that you're at least playing bass notes and that melody. Another approach is to settle on some harmony and then try to come up with a melody that works against it. The "harmony" could be a bass line or riff, or just a chord change, or just try to write a melody around one of the triad shapes.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

Mmmm... I'm not sure that the score on that YouTube matches the vocals!

The score above is the original version showing the F and F# being sung at the time, which is what I'm hearing in the YouTube recording. The tune resolves to major as you say. With these factors, and the timing changes, it is a very difficult piece to sing, despite its "simplicity".

No it's different to the score above, no F#.
I'm sure it is difficult to sing, think I would have to hold my hands over my ears!

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by sprucetophere

A related question - once I have fully committed to memory all of the notes on the fretboard and the triads (and their inversions) on the top four or five strings, where do I go next?

An exercise I have found to be very instructional is to learn a melody by ear such as Coventry Carol linked to by Robin, then go through the score and work out all the intervals and chords used in the harmony, while you are doing that also think about what notes might be added to the intervals to transform them into triad chords, but beware I think you might be thinking that a triad is just any old three notes, that's not what we mean by triads we mean three notes stacked in 3rds using notes from the same scale.
The point being to take a musical score and deconstruct the melody and harmony in terms of the intervals used to understand how it is put together.
I'm not sure that just memorising the position of lots of triads will help if you do not also know which interval of the chord is represented by each note, the place you need to get to is the ability to land on any melody note and know what numeric interval in the scale of the melody is being played and also what which diatonic triads contain that melody note and which interval within that chord does the melody note occupy.
Now that's a lot of work to get to the point of being able to do that with just triads and intervals, but jazz stacks up more thirds to create 4 note chords and more, and then starts abandoning diatonic harmony altogether .
To rely on memorising scale and chord positions in order to arrange music might work but it seems to me a task akin to memorising an overwhelming amount of stuff and never really coming to understand what you are doing, so I say never actively try to memorise anything except the formulas needed to construct scales and their diatonic chords.
It seems to me a lot easier to memorise a formula needed to construct any major chord with just one sentence than it is to memorise the actual position of hundreds of chords which you will probably forget by the time you actually get around to using them in an arangement.
Through repeatedly aranging different melodies you will find that you have memorised the position of triads without actively trying to but they will be the triad possitions you know to be usefull in the context of the melody you are aranging at the time.

[Bob Womack]

And now a cautionary tale about carving out the fifth.

I was /producer/engineer on a job about ten years ago that involved a pop ensemble and a string quartet backing up a solo vocalista, an American Idol veteran. The string arranger and I were co-producing. We first recorded the pop ensemble with scratch vocals. When it came time to record the string quartet, my co-producer brought in her charts and proudly proclaimed that she had carved out the fifth because it was a trendy thing and was redundant, given that the overtone series implied the fifth anyway. The song was in a minor key. The string contractor/1st violin was extremely happy with the charts and complimented my co-producer on how well she had charted things out. We got the group settled and rehearsed and they were tight. I recorded them twice and then worked a little stereo magic by reversing the panning of the second take so that the quartet sounded fuller, more like a small baroque orchestra.

Once we got the takes, the string players attacked the fruit and cheese bar and spring water (part of the contract) with vigor for the rest of the three-hour session, signed their forms, and left. Did I mention that they were all union players being paid scale? Yup.

An hour or so later, as I was getting things set up for my guitar overdubs to happen the next day, the executive producer came in to hear the results of the string sessions. As I played back the song, a look of consternation came over the executive producer's face and it increased until the song finished. He looked at my co-producer and me and proclaimed, "It isn't minor key enough!" He was really upset, thinking about what it was going to cost them to bring in the union-scale quartet for another three-hour session. (♪♫ "a three-hour tour" ♫ ♪). Of course, my co-producer, the arranger became upset as well.

I let them fret for all of a couple of minutes and then said, "Don't worry folks, I've got this." Huh? Yeah. I've got an eBow, a magnetic bowing device that I can use to make my electric guitar sound like a violin or cello.



I can supply the fifth that makes the chords sound more minor. I had already planned to do some drone tones with the eBow so it would be no problem to complete the chords of the string section. The looked a tad skeptical. The next day I brought in my Les Paul did indeed overdub the fifths as well as the tonic at an octave to make make the chords full, containing both the initial triad and the first inversion. I sneaked my parts in beneath the quartet to just support it. The exec heard the result and a big smile lit up his face. He was ecstatic! Union rate saved.

So, there you go. Be aware that carving out chords is a handy way to moderate the harmonic content of the accompaniment but it is possible to loose that loving feeling along the way. Carve with comprehension!

Bob

[rick-slo]

It's not just the intervals themselves played on a guitar. For a given note it can well be what string and
what position on the fretboard that imparts its particular tone to the chord.