Perfect 5Th In Bass Changing The Original Root?

[ansthenia]

Hello everyone, just a quick question about if chord inversions can change the root due to a perfect 5th in the bass.

 

I've read in quite a few books that a perfect 5th as the bottom two notes points so strongly towards the bass that it's undoubtedly the root. Does this apply to inverted tertian harmony or only ambiguous note collections? (the books only show examples where it isn't clearly an inversion of an obvious chord stacked in 3rds so I don't know if it applies or not) . For example does this Fmaj7 chord turn into a chord with A as the root if I change the notes like this or is it still an F chord?

 

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Thanks for your time

Edited January 28, 2015 by ansthenia

[KJthesleepdeprived]

That's super interesting. I don't know much more than basic theory and harmony but I'm pretty sure I'd read that as an A minor chord with a random 'F for Funzies' thrown in. But as far as harmonic analysis is concerned, I have no idea what that would be.

[pateceramics]

Huh… I don't know either, but maybe it would depend a bit on the context in which it is used.  If it's in the middle of a chord progression where your ear would expect an F chord, you'd hear it as F, if you'd expect A, you'd hear A?  The fact that you haven't seen any examples of this specific scenario may give you your answer…  Try playing some things out and see what your ear hears.  All of music theory is really just trying to find rules that our ears are already naturally operating by, right?

[JFTFT]

I think that inversion would just change the function of the chord, but not the quality of the chord itself. It could function as an A minor chord and maybe get substituted for one, but you'd still refer to it as F major.

[Frankie Detergnt]

i'm also curious about this. that second chord has the third and the fifth of both A and F. i would say A because 1. A is in the base, 2.A has it's fifth at an interval of a fifth which is has more value than the inverted version of F's fifth  (only a fourth). and 3. because the "outside of the triad" tone is a minor sixth in the case of A, which has more value than the major seventh (in the case of F). so i think its A.

but why isn't it clear?

the only problem is it's minor third. i had a topic asking if minor chords are just maj7 chords without the root. because the root between a tone and it's minor third is neither of them. it's actually a thrid down from the lowest tone (A-C has F as the root).

possibly this fenomena adds a big point in favour of the F choise, and it makes things unclear (practicaly creating a silent F below the low A).