Can someone explain why a major chord on piano might be voiced Root 5th 3rd Root?












1















I've seen chord progressions explained using chords looking like this.
https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/55



enter image description here



My question is why this voicing over say just a Root 3rd and 5th?
Is it just that it sounds better?










share|improve this question





























    1















    I've seen chord progressions explained using chords looking like this.
    https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/55



    enter image description here



    My question is why this voicing over say just a Root 3rd and 5th?
    Is it just that it sounds better?










    share|improve this question



























      1












      1








      1








      I've seen chord progressions explained using chords looking like this.
      https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/55



      enter image description here



      My question is why this voicing over say just a Root 3rd and 5th?
      Is it just that it sounds better?










      share|improve this question
















      I've seen chord progressions explained using chords looking like this.
      https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/55



      enter image description here



      My question is why this voicing over say just a Root 3rd and 5th?
      Is it just that it sounds better?







      chords






      share|improve this question















      share|improve this question













      share|improve this question




      share|improve this question








      edited 4 hours ago







      Brandon

















      asked 4 hours ago









      BrandonBrandon

      484




      484






















          2 Answers
          2






          active

          oldest

          votes


















          5














          It doesn't sound inherently better or worse than the narrow root-3rd-5th voicing, just different. Somewhat palpably, a narrow-voiced chord will tend to sound intimate, focused, unitary, whereas a wide voicing will sound more open, dreamy or adventurous.



          But the reason for a given voicing of one chord can usually not be reduced to just its sound as such, but to the musical context. In particular if you use only narrow chords in root position, you'll inevitably have a lot of big jumps in parallel movement. This can be used as a stylistic element; some guitarists just slide around one chord shape over the neck all of the time. But it sounds rather raw and unsophisticated.



          Classical music and many styles after it strongly avoids this kind of parallel movement. In classical music, harmony isn't just understood as sequencing of chords but as a particular form of counterpoint between individual melodic voices. And this generally strives for smooth transitions with not too big jumps in each voice (unless as a deliberate effect), and tends to prefer contrary motion to parallel motion to “unglue” the voices. This is quite hard to do with only narrow voicings.






          share|improve this answer
























          • I know we’re not supposed to use comments just for praise, but damn this is a fantastic answer. Relatively concise while still talking about most of the most important issues. It kind of felt like an unanswerable question to me, but this absolutely nails it. This is why I love the music Stack Exchange, nicely done

            – Pat Muchmore
            46 mins ago



















          3














          There are probably countless reasons why you might choose to voice a chord this way; some which come to mind are:



          1. Intervals like the third sometimes sound a bit muddy in the bass register, therefore one might wish to have more space between the root and the third. See this question for more detail.



          2. It may arise due to the needs of proper voice leading. Depending on what comes before and after this chord, this voicing may well make for the smoothest/most pleasing transition.



          3. These kinds of voicings are also common in Chorale harmonizations (examples) which are commonly used as a tool for teaching harmony and voice leading (see above), which might be what that lesson is setting you up for. Chorale harmonizations are often written on piano staves (and played on keyboard instruments), but ultimately originate as vocal music which leads to making slightly different choices than one would make in music written with a keyboard instrument in mind.



          4. As you say, one might feel that it sounds better. The most important factor when describing chord voicings is generally the bass note, as it determines which inversion is being played, but there's generally more leeway in the placement of the upper intervals. This is often determined by wanting to have a certain note in the top (i.e. the melody) voice. It may also be said that adding doublings of the root (and to a lesser extent the fifth) tend to add "fullness" to the chord without affecting its function or overall character too much.



          You should try experimenting with different voicings yourself and see how different ways of arranging the intervals sound to you. Music would be quite boring after all if every chord was arranged strictly in ascending order from the root.






          share|improve this answer










          New contributor




          Arion Romanus is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
          Check out our Code of Conduct.




















            Your Answer








            StackExchange.ready(function() {
            var channelOptions = {
            tags: "".split(" "),
            id: "240"
            };
            initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

            StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
            // Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
            if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
            StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
            createEditor();
            });
            }
            else {
            createEditor();
            }
            });

            function createEditor() {
            StackExchange.prepareEditor({
            heartbeatType: 'answer',
            autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
            convertImagesToLinks: false,
            noModals: true,
            showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
            reputationToPostImages: null,
            bindNavPrevention: true,
            postfix: "",
            imageUploader: {
            brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
            contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
            allowUrls: true
            },
            noCode: true, onDemand: true,
            discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
            ,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
            });


            }
            });














            draft saved

            draft discarded


















            StackExchange.ready(
            function () {
            StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fmusic.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f79474%2fcan-someone-explain-why-a-major-chord-on-piano-might-be-voiced-root-5th-3rd-root%23new-answer', 'question_page');
            }
            );

            Post as a guest















            Required, but never shown

























            2 Answers
            2






            active

            oldest

            votes








            2 Answers
            2






            active

            oldest

            votes









            active

            oldest

            votes






            active

            oldest

            votes









            5














            It doesn't sound inherently better or worse than the narrow root-3rd-5th voicing, just different. Somewhat palpably, a narrow-voiced chord will tend to sound intimate, focused, unitary, whereas a wide voicing will sound more open, dreamy or adventurous.



            But the reason for a given voicing of one chord can usually not be reduced to just its sound as such, but to the musical context. In particular if you use only narrow chords in root position, you'll inevitably have a lot of big jumps in parallel movement. This can be used as a stylistic element; some guitarists just slide around one chord shape over the neck all of the time. But it sounds rather raw and unsophisticated.



            Classical music and many styles after it strongly avoids this kind of parallel movement. In classical music, harmony isn't just understood as sequencing of chords but as a particular form of counterpoint between individual melodic voices. And this generally strives for smooth transitions with not too big jumps in each voice (unless as a deliberate effect), and tends to prefer contrary motion to parallel motion to “unglue” the voices. This is quite hard to do with only narrow voicings.






            share|improve this answer
























            • I know we’re not supposed to use comments just for praise, but damn this is a fantastic answer. Relatively concise while still talking about most of the most important issues. It kind of felt like an unanswerable question to me, but this absolutely nails it. This is why I love the music Stack Exchange, nicely done

              – Pat Muchmore
              46 mins ago
















            5














            It doesn't sound inherently better or worse than the narrow root-3rd-5th voicing, just different. Somewhat palpably, a narrow-voiced chord will tend to sound intimate, focused, unitary, whereas a wide voicing will sound more open, dreamy or adventurous.



            But the reason for a given voicing of one chord can usually not be reduced to just its sound as such, but to the musical context. In particular if you use only narrow chords in root position, you'll inevitably have a lot of big jumps in parallel movement. This can be used as a stylistic element; some guitarists just slide around one chord shape over the neck all of the time. But it sounds rather raw and unsophisticated.



            Classical music and many styles after it strongly avoids this kind of parallel movement. In classical music, harmony isn't just understood as sequencing of chords but as a particular form of counterpoint between individual melodic voices. And this generally strives for smooth transitions with not too big jumps in each voice (unless as a deliberate effect), and tends to prefer contrary motion to parallel motion to “unglue” the voices. This is quite hard to do with only narrow voicings.






            share|improve this answer
























            • I know we’re not supposed to use comments just for praise, but damn this is a fantastic answer. Relatively concise while still talking about most of the most important issues. It kind of felt like an unanswerable question to me, but this absolutely nails it. This is why I love the music Stack Exchange, nicely done

              – Pat Muchmore
              46 mins ago














            5












            5








            5







            It doesn't sound inherently better or worse than the narrow root-3rd-5th voicing, just different. Somewhat palpably, a narrow-voiced chord will tend to sound intimate, focused, unitary, whereas a wide voicing will sound more open, dreamy or adventurous.



            But the reason for a given voicing of one chord can usually not be reduced to just its sound as such, but to the musical context. In particular if you use only narrow chords in root position, you'll inevitably have a lot of big jumps in parallel movement. This can be used as a stylistic element; some guitarists just slide around one chord shape over the neck all of the time. But it sounds rather raw and unsophisticated.



            Classical music and many styles after it strongly avoids this kind of parallel movement. In classical music, harmony isn't just understood as sequencing of chords but as a particular form of counterpoint between individual melodic voices. And this generally strives for smooth transitions with not too big jumps in each voice (unless as a deliberate effect), and tends to prefer contrary motion to parallel motion to “unglue” the voices. This is quite hard to do with only narrow voicings.






            share|improve this answer













            It doesn't sound inherently better or worse than the narrow root-3rd-5th voicing, just different. Somewhat palpably, a narrow-voiced chord will tend to sound intimate, focused, unitary, whereas a wide voicing will sound more open, dreamy or adventurous.



            But the reason for a given voicing of one chord can usually not be reduced to just its sound as such, but to the musical context. In particular if you use only narrow chords in root position, you'll inevitably have a lot of big jumps in parallel movement. This can be used as a stylistic element; some guitarists just slide around one chord shape over the neck all of the time. But it sounds rather raw and unsophisticated.



            Classical music and many styles after it strongly avoids this kind of parallel movement. In classical music, harmony isn't just understood as sequencing of chords but as a particular form of counterpoint between individual melodic voices. And this generally strives for smooth transitions with not too big jumps in each voice (unless as a deliberate effect), and tends to prefer contrary motion to parallel motion to “unglue” the voices. This is quite hard to do with only narrow voicings.







            share|improve this answer












            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer










            answered 4 hours ago









            leftaroundaboutleftaroundabout

            19.5k3484




            19.5k3484













            • I know we’re not supposed to use comments just for praise, but damn this is a fantastic answer. Relatively concise while still talking about most of the most important issues. It kind of felt like an unanswerable question to me, but this absolutely nails it. This is why I love the music Stack Exchange, nicely done

              – Pat Muchmore
              46 mins ago



















            • I know we’re not supposed to use comments just for praise, but damn this is a fantastic answer. Relatively concise while still talking about most of the most important issues. It kind of felt like an unanswerable question to me, but this absolutely nails it. This is why I love the music Stack Exchange, nicely done

              – Pat Muchmore
              46 mins ago

















            I know we’re not supposed to use comments just for praise, but damn this is a fantastic answer. Relatively concise while still talking about most of the most important issues. It kind of felt like an unanswerable question to me, but this absolutely nails it. This is why I love the music Stack Exchange, nicely done

            – Pat Muchmore
            46 mins ago





            I know we’re not supposed to use comments just for praise, but damn this is a fantastic answer. Relatively concise while still talking about most of the most important issues. It kind of felt like an unanswerable question to me, but this absolutely nails it. This is why I love the music Stack Exchange, nicely done

            – Pat Muchmore
            46 mins ago











            3














            There are probably countless reasons why you might choose to voice a chord this way; some which come to mind are:



            1. Intervals like the third sometimes sound a bit muddy in the bass register, therefore one might wish to have more space between the root and the third. See this question for more detail.



            2. It may arise due to the needs of proper voice leading. Depending on what comes before and after this chord, this voicing may well make for the smoothest/most pleasing transition.



            3. These kinds of voicings are also common in Chorale harmonizations (examples) which are commonly used as a tool for teaching harmony and voice leading (see above), which might be what that lesson is setting you up for. Chorale harmonizations are often written on piano staves (and played on keyboard instruments), but ultimately originate as vocal music which leads to making slightly different choices than one would make in music written with a keyboard instrument in mind.



            4. As you say, one might feel that it sounds better. The most important factor when describing chord voicings is generally the bass note, as it determines which inversion is being played, but there's generally more leeway in the placement of the upper intervals. This is often determined by wanting to have a certain note in the top (i.e. the melody) voice. It may also be said that adding doublings of the root (and to a lesser extent the fifth) tend to add "fullness" to the chord without affecting its function or overall character too much.



            You should try experimenting with different voicings yourself and see how different ways of arranging the intervals sound to you. Music would be quite boring after all if every chord was arranged strictly in ascending order from the root.






            share|improve this answer










            New contributor




            Arion Romanus is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
            Check out our Code of Conduct.

























              3














              There are probably countless reasons why you might choose to voice a chord this way; some which come to mind are:



              1. Intervals like the third sometimes sound a bit muddy in the bass register, therefore one might wish to have more space between the root and the third. See this question for more detail.



              2. It may arise due to the needs of proper voice leading. Depending on what comes before and after this chord, this voicing may well make for the smoothest/most pleasing transition.



              3. These kinds of voicings are also common in Chorale harmonizations (examples) which are commonly used as a tool for teaching harmony and voice leading (see above), which might be what that lesson is setting you up for. Chorale harmonizations are often written on piano staves (and played on keyboard instruments), but ultimately originate as vocal music which leads to making slightly different choices than one would make in music written with a keyboard instrument in mind.



              4. As you say, one might feel that it sounds better. The most important factor when describing chord voicings is generally the bass note, as it determines which inversion is being played, but there's generally more leeway in the placement of the upper intervals. This is often determined by wanting to have a certain note in the top (i.e. the melody) voice. It may also be said that adding doublings of the root (and to a lesser extent the fifth) tend to add "fullness" to the chord without affecting its function or overall character too much.



              You should try experimenting with different voicings yourself and see how different ways of arranging the intervals sound to you. Music would be quite boring after all if every chord was arranged strictly in ascending order from the root.






              share|improve this answer










              New contributor




              Arion Romanus is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
              Check out our Code of Conduct.























                3












                3








                3







                There are probably countless reasons why you might choose to voice a chord this way; some which come to mind are:



                1. Intervals like the third sometimes sound a bit muddy in the bass register, therefore one might wish to have more space between the root and the third. See this question for more detail.



                2. It may arise due to the needs of proper voice leading. Depending on what comes before and after this chord, this voicing may well make for the smoothest/most pleasing transition.



                3. These kinds of voicings are also common in Chorale harmonizations (examples) which are commonly used as a tool for teaching harmony and voice leading (see above), which might be what that lesson is setting you up for. Chorale harmonizations are often written on piano staves (and played on keyboard instruments), but ultimately originate as vocal music which leads to making slightly different choices than one would make in music written with a keyboard instrument in mind.



                4. As you say, one might feel that it sounds better. The most important factor when describing chord voicings is generally the bass note, as it determines which inversion is being played, but there's generally more leeway in the placement of the upper intervals. This is often determined by wanting to have a certain note in the top (i.e. the melody) voice. It may also be said that adding doublings of the root (and to a lesser extent the fifth) tend to add "fullness" to the chord without affecting its function or overall character too much.



                You should try experimenting with different voicings yourself and see how different ways of arranging the intervals sound to you. Music would be quite boring after all if every chord was arranged strictly in ascending order from the root.






                share|improve this answer










                New contributor




                Arion Romanus is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                Check out our Code of Conduct.










                There are probably countless reasons why you might choose to voice a chord this way; some which come to mind are:



                1. Intervals like the third sometimes sound a bit muddy in the bass register, therefore one might wish to have more space between the root and the third. See this question for more detail.



                2. It may arise due to the needs of proper voice leading. Depending on what comes before and after this chord, this voicing may well make for the smoothest/most pleasing transition.



                3. These kinds of voicings are also common in Chorale harmonizations (examples) which are commonly used as a tool for teaching harmony and voice leading (see above), which might be what that lesson is setting you up for. Chorale harmonizations are often written on piano staves (and played on keyboard instruments), but ultimately originate as vocal music which leads to making slightly different choices than one would make in music written with a keyboard instrument in mind.



                4. As you say, one might feel that it sounds better. The most important factor when describing chord voicings is generally the bass note, as it determines which inversion is being played, but there's generally more leeway in the placement of the upper intervals. This is often determined by wanting to have a certain note in the top (i.e. the melody) voice. It may also be said that adding doublings of the root (and to a lesser extent the fifth) tend to add "fullness" to the chord without affecting its function or overall character too much.



                You should try experimenting with different voicings yourself and see how different ways of arranging the intervals sound to you. Music would be quite boring after all if every chord was arranged strictly in ascending order from the root.







                share|improve this answer










                New contributor




                Arion Romanus is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                Check out our Code of Conduct.









                share|improve this answer



                share|improve this answer








                edited 3 hours ago





















                New contributor




                Arion Romanus is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                Check out our Code of Conduct.









                answered 4 hours ago









                Arion RomanusArion Romanus

                837




                837




                New contributor




                Arion Romanus is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                Check out our Code of Conduct.





                New contributor





                Arion Romanus is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                Check out our Code of Conduct.






                Arion Romanus is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                Check out our Code of Conduct.






























                    draft saved

                    draft discarded




















































                    Thanks for contributing an answer to Music: Practice & Theory Stack Exchange!


                    • Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!

                    But avoid



                    • Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.

                    • Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.


                    To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.




                    draft saved


                    draft discarded














                    StackExchange.ready(
                    function () {
                    StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fmusic.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f79474%2fcan-someone-explain-why-a-major-chord-on-piano-might-be-voiced-root-5th-3rd-root%23new-answer', 'question_page');
                    }
                    );

                    Post as a guest















                    Required, but never shown





















































                    Required, but never shown














                    Required, but never shown












                    Required, but never shown







                    Required, but never shown

































                    Required, but never shown














                    Required, but never shown












                    Required, but never shown







                    Required, but never shown







                    Popular posts from this blog

                    Liste der Baudenkmale in Friedland (Mecklenburg)

                    Single-Malt-Whisky

                    Czorneboh