3rd Above 3rd Below?

[stewblack]

Do you still refer to an E below the root note C as a third? 

Similarly once above the octave do notes (intervals? 🤷🏻‍♂️) automatically become 9, 10, 11 and so forth? 

Also, once again using key of C purely as an example, if the major 7th is flattened from E to E♭ is that referred to as a flattened 7th, a flat 7, or by some other term? 

Thank you. 

[Stub Mandrel]

My understanding: Strictly intervals are counted up from the root, so note below it doesn't exist. Anything past the octave is made up.

Seriously, I think a 'third' is really the interval not the note so E to C is a minor 6th or an augmented fifth (I think...) and yes above the octave they continue 9, 10 etc.

But in chords rules get bent because it doesn't make sense when the root note isn't the lowest note i.e. it's an inversion  (as far as I can tell). For me adding the low 'E' to a C chord  would be interpreted as doubling up the third with a low bass. I would write C(E) rather than Cm6 as that would be C-E-A♭ rather than E-C-E-G

6 hours ago, stewblack said:

Also, once again using key of C purely as an example, if the major 7th is flattened from E to E♭ is that referred to as a flattened 7th, a flat 7, or by some other term? 

I think you mean the B? B is the Major 7th, B♭ is the minor 7th.

This is at the limits of my theory knowledge... I did go to this page to confirm down to E was a minor 6th...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_(music)

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Just now, Stub Mandrel said:

This is at the limits of my theory knowledge...*

*Or as a friend of mine once said, "He's run out of sh1te!"

[stewblack]

15 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

*Or as a friend of mine once said, "He's run out of sh1te!"

Ha ha! Surely not 😂

[stewblack]

But seriously folks.. I'm pretty sure that in the key of C the 3rd is an E, and when flattened a bit becomes E flat. 

However I may have explained myself badly in my first post. 

EDIT I am a dufus. I meant 3rd not 7th. Soz. 

Edited August 24, 2020 by stewblack

[Reggaebass]

6 minutes ago, stewblack said:

But seriously folks.. I'm pretty sure that in the key of C the 3rd is an E, and when flattened a bit becomes E flat. 

I love these questions and I wish I knew more about it and had more time to study . 

the way I know it is , from C to E is a major third, and C to Eb is a minor third,    but isn’t the E below C a minor sixth 🤔

 

[stewblack]

1 hour ago, Reggaebass said:

I love these questions and I wish I knew more about it and had more time to study . 

the way I know it is , from C to E is a major third, and C to Eb is a minor third,    but isn’t the E below C a minor sixth 🤔

 

This is what I need to know. 

I am studying a Jamerson score and annotating the notes. So say he starts with R(oot) O(ctave) R 3rd 5th R. All is well, but then he plays that E and G below the root C and I am blithely still calling them 3rd and 5th but I don't know if I should be. 

[nige1968]

Whatever the interval Em is the 3 chord if you're in C Maj. Going up, the interval between the two is a major third, going down it's a minor 6th, but it's still the iii in terms of the key of C.

Mind you, I talk sh1te sometimes.

Edited August 25, 2020 by nige1968

[Stub Mandrel]

2 hours ago, stewblack said:

But seriously folks.. I'm pretty sure that in the key of C the 3rd is an E, and when flattened a bit becomes E flat. 

However I may have explained myself badly in my first post. 

EDIT I am a dufus. I meant 3rd not 7th. Soz. 

Then it goes from major third to minor.

How strange the change...

[stewblack]

15 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Then it goes from major third to minor.

How strange the change...

Great idea for a song. You hum it..... 

[Skinnyman]

As I understand it...

If you’re playing in the key of C and C is the harmonic centre then E is a major third (you’re playing C major) and Eb is a minor third (you’re playing C minor). If you’re playing the E below C (or the Eb) you’re still playing a C major (or minor) but now it’s the first inversion. 

It only becomes an Em with a minor 6th if the harmonic focus has shifted and E has become the focus (or tonic). Otherwise it’s C major (first inversion) or C/E.

I’m paraphrasing (badly) from David Mead’s excellent and very readable Chords and Scales for Guitarists 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chords-Scales-Guitarists-David-Mead/dp/186074432X

Highly recommended 

 

[NickA]

Down a 3rd = up a 6th. Down a fourth = up a fifth.  Down a fifth = up a fourth etc.  You can still refer to a note as a 3rd below another but the chord interval will be the invertion of that interval.

[jrixn1]

2 hours ago, stewblack said:

I am studying a Jamerson score and annotating the notes. So say he starts with R(oot) O(ctave) R 3rd 5th R. All is well, but then he plays that E and G below the root C and I am blithely still calling them 3rd and 5th but I don't know if I should be. 

I don't think there's really any right or wrong; but yep, that's how I'd do it:

 

I think I understand what you're doing, which is learning scale degrees.  These are the intervals relative to the root, and it's a good exercise and learning tool for how, why, and when to use certain notes in certain situations.

One of the first things to notice is that he is mainly using chord tones here.

If you don't already have it, you must get the book "Standing in the Shadows of Motown"!

[Joebass]

12 hours ago, stewblack said:

Do you still refer to an E below the root note C as a third? 

Similarly once above the octave do notes (intervals? 🤷🏻‍♂️) automatically become 9, 10, 11 and so forth? 

Also, once again using key of C purely as an example, if the major 7th is flattened from E to E♭ is that referred to as a flattened 7th, a flat 7, or by some other term? 

Thank you. 

I think that you might be confusing intervals with scale degrees.

Intervals simply describe the distance between two notes whereas scale degrees are relative to the tonic (root) — an E in a C scale/chord will always be the 3rd degree but the distance between E - C (ascending) is a minor 6th.

A good trick for realising the inversion of an interval is to subtract the interval from 9, i.e. the inversion of a 6th is a 3rd, the inversion of a 7th is a 2nd etc. Also, a major interval will become minor once inverted and vice a versa (except for 4th's/5th's which are perfect).

Edited August 24, 2020 by Joebass

[Reggaebass]

13 hours ago, Reggaebass said:

I love these questions and I wish I knew more about it and had more time to study . 

the way I know it is , from C to E is a major third, and C to Eb is a minor third,    but isn’t the E below C a minor sixth 🤔

 

@Joebass out of interest was I right in what I thought 🙂

[stewblack]

I think I get it. I was definitely confused about the term interval. 

But my first question is answered. The E is always the 3rd regardless of whether it is high or lower than the root note. Thank you. 

(assuming the key is C) 

Edited August 25, 2020 by stewblack

[Stub Mandrel]

11 hours ago, Joebass said:

I think that you might be confusing intervals with scale degrees.

^^ This 🙂

[stewblack]

3 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

^^ This 🙂

I put 'intervals' in brackets with a question mark to indicate just this confusion. 

[Stub Mandrel]

Don't worry, I find this all confusing. There seem to be four things that all use similar nomenclature:

Intervals - the absolute distances between notes.

Scale degrees - defining notes by their relationship to the root of a scale.

Chord notes - similar to the above but using inversions so the 'major third' of a chord can be a 'minor sixth' below the root.

Chord relationships - I, II, III, IV etc. named for how their root note relates to the root of the scale that is the key of the piece.

 

Blaaargh....

[Higgie]

21 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

But in chords rules get bent because it doesn't make sense when the root note isn't the lowest note i.e. it's an inversion  (as far as I can tell). For me adding the low 'E' to a C chord  would be interpreted as doubling up the third with a low bass. I would write C(E) rather than Cm6 as that would be C-E-A♭ rather than E-C-E-G

You are correct. If the chord is still C, and the bass player is simply playing an E underneath it, then yes it would be C 1st Inversion, which you would see written as C/E (C over E). Cm6 is another chord entirely.

[Guest]

The rules don’t get bent at all. It’s just that, given a particular group of notes, you can describe them multiple ways. If you take any tritone interval, for example G and Db, these could be part of an Eb7 or (if you call Db but it’s enharmonic C#), A7. This concept forms the basis of tritone substitution, where, depending on context, you can reharmonise a 7 chord with the bass note shifted a tritone away. So a fairly prosaic Dm7 / G7 / Cmaj7 becomes a more interesting Dmin7 / Db7 / Cmaj7. 

Another example are the notes F A C D as a chord. Depending on the context, this could be an Fmaj6 chord or a Dmin7. At a push it could also be Amin11b13 or Csus add9(13) however, all I did was pick a note and express the remaining notes as intervals from that root. The beauty of this is that the same group of 2 or 3 notes can be kept the same across multiple chords.

Chords with a tone other than the root in the bass are simple inversions, so C/E or C/G. True slash chords generally contain a bass note not in the core chord and can be used to imply a much more sophisticated harmony, e.g. A7b9/C or C/Db.

After all that rambling and returning to the OP - yes, exactly. If your chord contains CEG it’s a C major chord. On a piano you’d choose either root position (CEG), 1st inversion (EGC) or 2nd inversion (GCE), all of which have a slightly different sound And a different note at the bottom, but all are C major.

Intervals larger than an octave (9th, 11th, 13th) are often called extensions and come into play when you want more of a complex flavour in a chord. They  don’t usually take the place of a regular R, 3rd, 5th, 7th in a 4-note chord. So a C9 is C E G Bb D and an Fmin11 is F Ab C Eb G Bb. In practice most piano and guitar players may omit the less essential tones to a) make the chord clearer and b) to make it easier to play!

[Stub Mandrel]

I have little pocket book of guitar chords by Ulf Goran Ahslund (anyone remember him?)

The best bit is on each of far too many chords it gives their (impossible) fingerings and inversions for guitar accompanied by a little dude with a 'smiley' face that reflects the character of the chord e.g. happy, melancholy, apprehensive, totally confused...

Edited August 26, 2020 by Stub Mandrel

[Horizontalste]

On 25/08/2020 at 15:34, Higgie said:

You are correct. If the chord is still C, and the bass player is simply playing an E underneath it, then yes it would be C 1st Inversion, which you would see written as C/E (C over E). Cm6 is another chord entirely.

What Higgie said, it all depends on what cord is being implied/played at the point the E is being played as to what function it serves & how to identify it.

If it's not the root it'll generally create some feeling of dissonance/tension within the harmony.

 

 

 

[leftybassman392]

Another point that might be worth making is that is that broadly speaking thirds, fifths and sevenths retain their identities over multiple octaves, whereas you need to add 7 for each extra octave for the other intervals.

So...

An octave plus a second is a ninth; an octave plus a third is a third (not a tenth); an octave plus a fourth is an eleventh; an octave plus a fifth is a fifth; an octave plus a sixth is a thirteenth, and an octave plus a seventh is a seventh.

You see lots of chords featuring 9ths, 11ths and 13ths in jazz. What you don't see in such chords are 10ths, 12ths and 14ths.

[Guest]

Well... the reason for this is that by and large chords are built in 3rds. So if you count from root you get Root/3/5/7/9/11/13 (15 would be two octaves). If you substitute notes for the chord steps (on a major scale) you get C/E/G/B/D/F/A. Rearrange in alphabetical order and it’s just a major scale. They’re the same notes, but the function is different depending on whether you’re talking about degrees in a scale or tones in a chord. As we tend to look at music from a harmony (or chordal) rather than a strictly interval Liv perspective, then D/F/A in the example above are thought of as 9th, 11th, 13th. This is usually to distinguish when a chord is using “extended” intervals. In terms of where they appear it makes no difference - you could voice a C13 chord with the 13th at the bottom and the root as the highest note - it’s the combination of notes in the chord that decides what it is, so C, E, Bb,A would be considered C13, however the notes are voiced. Some clusters of notes are less certain and could appear in several different chords, as I mentioned above.
Chords can have intervals of 2, 4, or 6 but these normally take the place of an existing chord tone within the octave, so Csus4 Or Csus2 replace the 3rd with the 4th, a chord with ‘add’ often implies that we omit the 3rd and a chord with a 6 (e.g. Cmaj6) would never also contain a 7th.