What does tonic, subdominant, and dominant traids have to do with I IV and V?

Question

I was asked to draw the tonic, subdominant, and dominant triads in root position.Underneath the space given to draw it,it says e minor: i iv and V. What do I do?

Answer 1

i (roman numeral 1) is the symbol for the tonic triad, iv (roman numeral 4) means subdominant triad. and V is the roman numeral 5, and refers to the dominant triad. For triads in root position, the bottom note is the corresponding scale degree - so for tonic (scale degree 1, or in other words, the 1st note of the e minor scale), the bottom note will be an E since you're in e minor. the other 2 notes, you just stack them up on top of the bottom note, each a 3rd higher than the note below it. So you get EGB from bottom up. Use the same method for the subdominant (4th scale degree) and dominant (5th scale degree) triads. Don't get confused by capital and small roman numerals (i.e. i and I, iv and IV) - they simply indicate the nature of the triad. For minor-sounding triads, it will be small numerals, for major triads, it will be in caps. And since you're told to draw a major dominant triad (from the big V used), you will need to sharpen the middle note of the triad - which is actually the 7th scale degree (the leading-tone: it's always sharpened in minors for music theory and traditional harmonic progressions).

Answer 2

I second musicyh's response.