Examples of song without a root note played?

[nightchef]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

Lots of old traditional tunes don't resolve to the root, which produces the effect that they don't quite resolve at all, the root is ambivalent and the listener has a choice of two notes generally a fifth appart such as in The Lewis Bridal Song (Maries Wedding) The Blarney Pilgrim and Down In Yon Forest ( some versions of the melody), it's a neat trick for short dance tunes because the players can go round and round the same tune for hours without it ever sounding like it's finnished, you don't really notice this till you take music that is traditionally not harmonised with chords and then try to arrange it for a chordal instrument like guitar.
But that's not what the OP is asking, he/she is looking for a song which never plays the root of the key it's in which is a nonsensical question , if you remove the root from a scale you get a 6 note scale in a different key just remove a second note and you have a choice of a minor and a major pentatonic scale, starting from C major remove C and F you get Emin Pent and Gmaj Pent, so zillions of songs really.

I don’t think it’s a nonsensical question at all. If I start “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring” on an E, it goes E-G-E-A-G-E-F-G-E-A-G-E. Now there are several keys or modes those notes could be located in—F major, B flat Lydian, E Phrygian, for instance—but if I play an F major, B flat major or E minor chord under that melody, it stops sounding like a schoolyard song and sounds like jazz. The plain, simple implication of the melody is that it’s in C major. Yet the note C never appears in the version I learned as a kid.

[Andyrondack]

I think it is what it is, an old traditional song that doesn't resolve to any key.

[blue]

A very young Paul Shaffer, yes that Paul Shaffer, who had no knowledge of theory met Miles Davis. He asked for advice. Miles said "Never play the root" and walked away

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by LemonCats

Anyone got examples of songs that never actually play the root note of the key(s) its in?

You need to be a little clearer what you're asking. Here's some points that might help:

Firstly, you mean the "tonic", not the "root". "Root" means the name note of a chord. (It can sometimes be used for the tonal centre of a mode, which has a similar role to the "tonic" of a "key".)

Secondly, a song can be in a "mode" instead of in a "key".
E.g., a song using the notes ABCDEFG (the natural notes in any order) might be in "the key of C major" or "the key of A minor".
Or it might be in "D dorian mode" or "G mixolydian mode". These are both very common, and sound (respectively) like the D minor key with a major 6th (B instead of Bb), or the G major key with a b7 (F instead of F#). Somewhat rarer are E phrygian mode (E minor with v2) and F lydian (F major with #4).

Thirdly, in all those cases, your ear will be usually be able to detect the keynote or tonic. IOW, one note (and/or chord) will emerge as the overall "home" note or chord, which will almost always be the final note/chord - simply because it will sound most conclusive. That's how we tell the difference those keys and modes which all use the same 7 notes. (An additional difference with the key of A minor is that it will commonly use an E major or E7 instead of Em, to help distingiush it from C major. If A is the keynote and there is no E major chord - no G# note anywhere - then you say it's "in A aeolian mode".)

In fact, one big difference with modes compared with keys is that a song in a mode is likely to emphasise its "keynote" (modal tonic) much more than a song in a key will. And it will probably use far fewer chords. That's because modes (other than major/Ionian) are tonally weak. If you use a lot of chords harmonised from the same scale, it's the Ionian tonic that will tend to draw the ear. So to use (say) Dorian mode, you need to focus much more on what is normally the major key ii chord, in order to make it sound like the "i" in a minor key and not the ii in major.

Fourthly ... yes, this is complicated! ... in some music it's hard to be sure of the keynote at all. A song might be using all those 7 notes (ABCDEFG), but none of the chords used might have any stronger "home" sound than any of the others. The progression just seems to meander around - usually a 4-chord loop - without settling anywhere. This is actually very common in modern popular music.

Now - in any of those cases, a song might not use one specific note. I.e. there might only be six notes (or even less) employed in total - including in all the notes in all the chords, as well as the melody.
That might not be unusual, but it would be unusual for none of the remaining notes to have a sense of "keynote" (or modal root note).
I.e., the kinds of song that tend to groove along on an inconclusive 4-chord loop tend to employ all 7 notes of the scale in those chords. And if they don't then, it's common for one note or chord to emerge as the keynote (or modal root).

So ... bearing all that in mind, does that help clarify the question you're asking?

[al_az]

Jon,
Excellent, concise review.

[James May]

This is an interesting and tricky for several reasons, some of which have been stated.

But, in the (I think) intended meaning of the OP, I'm having a hard time coming with concrete examples. Julia is close, as the melody only resolves to tonic of on the last syllable of Ju-li-a.

Sympathy for the Devil comes close as well. Mick only hits the tonic at the end of each verse, on NAME, as far as I can remember.

I will try think of others, but the main problem with question is defining the tonic, as many songs are in the relative minor in the verse, then major in the chorus, or vice versa. I suppose you could say no tonic with respect to the mode of the section.

[bseej]

Originally Posted by JonPR

You need to be a little clearer what you're asking. Here's some points that might help:

Firstly, you mean the "tonic", not the "root". "Root" means the name note of a chord. (It can sometimes be used for the tonal centre of a mode, which has a similar role to the "tonic" of a "key".)

Secondly, a song can be in a "mode" instead of in a "key".
E.g., a song using the notes ABCDEFG (the natural notes in any order) might be in "the key of C major" or "the key of A minor".
Or it might be in "D dorian mode" or "G mixolydian mode". These are both very common, and sound (respectively) like the D minor key with a major 6th (B instead of Bb), or the G major key with a b7 (F instead of F#). Somewhat rarer are E phrygian mode (E minor with v2) and F lydian (F major with #4).

Thirdly, in all those cases, your ear will be usually be able to detect the keynote or tonic. IOW, one note (and/or chord) will emerge as the overall "home" note or chord, which will almost always be the final note/chord - simply because it will sound most conclusive. That's how we tell the difference those keys and modes which all use the same 7 notes. (An additional difference with the key of A minor is that it will commonly use an E major or E7 instead of Em, to help distingiush it from C major. If A is the keynote and there is no E major chord - no G# note anywhere - then you say it's "in A aeolian mode".)

In fact, one big difference with modes compared with keys is that a song in a mode is likely to emphasise its "keynote" (modal tonic) much more than a song in a key will. And it will probably use far fewer chords. That's because modes (other than major/Ionian) are tonally weak. If you use a lot of chords harmonised from the same scale, it's the Ionian tonic that will tend to draw the ear. So to use (say) Dorian mode, you need to focus much more on what is normally the major key ii chord, in order to make it sound like the "i" in a minor key and not the ii in major.

Fourthly ... yes, this is complicated! ... in some music it's hard to be sure of the keynote at all. A song might be using all those 7 notes (ABCDEFG), but none of the chords used might have any stronger "home" sound than any of the others. The progression just seems to meander around - usually a 4-chord loop - without settling anywhere. This is actually very common in modern popular music.

Now - in any of those cases, a song might not use one specific note. I.e. there might only be six notes (or even less) employed in total - including in all the notes in all the chords, as well as the melody.
That might not be unusual, but it would be unusual for none of the remaining notes to have a sense of "keynote" (or modal root note).
I.e., the kinds of song that tend to groove along on an inconclusive 4-chord loop tend to employ all 7 notes of the scale in those chords. And if they don't then, it's common for one note or chord to emerge as the keynote (or modal root).

So ... bearing all that in mind, does that help clarify the question you're asking?

^^^^^ This

Originally Posted by al_az

Jon,
Excellent, concise review.

And This.

[Andyrondack]

If you take a C major scale remove the C note, you no longer have a C major scale, you have a bunch of notes, not a scale or mode, it becomes such only when you make a melody out of it and with the notes ABDEFG a melody can be constructed which resolves to any note except F because there is no 5th interval available for the resulting scale, you can also construct a melody which does not resolve at all . The op's question is logically nonsense because you can just as well describe any non resolving melody as an 'unfinished' tune which might have resolved to any of the notes for which a 5th is present had the player carried on. If it is constructed to resolve to any one of the notes for which a 5th is available
then it is in the key of that note, it cannot be said to be in any key for which the tonic is 'missing'.