Rootless Chords Tutorial

americanmose (31)in #tutorial • 6 years ago

As the name implies, "Rootless" means there's no root in the chord.
Rootless chords are chords without the root present.
It is believe that every chord can be seen as a rootless form of another chord.

How do we locate the rootless form of a chord?

Simple;
Look deep

Let's try an example using a normal Cmajor triad as C-E-G

If you look deep you'll find out that its also a Rootless Amin7[A-C-E-G]

Did you see the Cmaj triad in the Amin7 chord as A/CEG which is A/Cmaj.

Another rootless chord will be Abmaj7#5 [Ab-C-E-G]

Which is simply Ab/C-E-G.

I believe you're following up?
I guess so:

Let's try another example using F minor triad as F-Ab-C

Look it at triad very well you'll see a Dmin7b5[D-F-Ab-C] chord.

Your ability to locate chords makes this easy.

It can also be seen as a Rootless Dbmaj7 chord as Db-F-Ab-C.

Now you try this.

Find the Rootless form of the following chords

D minor [D-F-A]
F7 tetrad [F-A-C-Eb]
G diminish triad [G-Bb-Db]
C dim7[C-Eb-Gb-Bbb]
Ebmin7[Eb-Gb-Bb-Db]

There are several principle for detecting a rootless chord.

Let me share just one today.

"Every Altered dominant chord has its Rootless form a tritone interval away from its root"

Let's try few example.

E7#5#9 as E-G#-B#-D-Fx [Enharmonically; E-G#-C-D-G] will have its rootless from a tritone away from the root which is E
So the tritone will be Bb.
Adding Bb to the chord we'll have
Bb + E-G#-C-D-G
Juxtaposing it in stack of 3rd, we'll have
Bb-D-Ab-C-E-G which is a Bb13#11 chord Harmonize from Bb Overtone scale [Bb-C-D-E-F-G-Ab
Also called Bb Lydian dominant scale or Bb Dominant #4 scale.

In modern music; Rootless chords had evolve from being a chord without the root note present.
Now you see a chord called rootless but the root is present in it but "Not in root position"

An example makes this better.

Cmaj7 in second inversion [EGBC] and third inversion [GBCE] can be termed Rootless.
Because the Root [C] is not the lowest note.