chordless

From chord +‎ -less.

chordless (not comparable)

1. (graph theory) Lacking chords.
2. (music) Not playing chords; silent or playing one note at a time.
   • 2008, Reginald Menville, Douglas Menville, Ancient Hauntings, page 119:

     But a profound melancholy had taken possession of Franz, the two hardly exchanged a word, the violin hung mute, chordless, full of dust, in its habitual place .

   • 2013, Henry T. Sampson, Blacks in Blackface: A Sourcebook on Early Black Musical Shows, page 285:

     It is a chordless affair, because it is out of commission .

3. (music) Without chords; involving one note at a time or dissonant combinations.
   • 2007, Jason Murk, Tokharian Tales, page 96:

     A boat slowly drifts under the bridge and out to sea, and someone inside it plays an untuned piano with a slow chordless melody.

   • 2009, Waldo E. Martin, No Coward Soldiers: Black Cultural Politics in Postwar America, page 62:

     Earlier work like the atonal music of pianist Sun Ra and bassist Charles Mingus as well as the chordless music of Coleman and Taylor foreshadowed free jazz.

   • 2014, Nick Finzer, Get Ahead!, page 81:

     Nick's current projects include his sextet feature music from "Exposition", a chordless trio that performs regularly at Bar Next Door, a two-trombone duo with fellow Juilliard alumnus Joe McDonough, and freelancing with various ensembles and shows around the city.

4. (figurative) Without synergy or harmonious combinations; One thing at a time.
   • 1908, Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts:

     Why the All-mover, Why the All-prover Ever urges on and measure out the chordless chime of things.

   • 2020, Gregory Tate, Nineteenth-Century Poetry and the Physical Sciences:

     Hardy, though, considers it incapable of resolution: for him, nature as defined by physical science is simultaneously rhythmic and chordless, measurable and inexact, deterministic and unknowable.