Inversions
Mar 21st, 2008 by admin
Honestly, you don’t have to know about inversions to play a song. However, being familiar with the different inversions of a chord will be extremely useful for your hand’s movement, from one chord to another.
There are 3 different inversions for a chord. These are called the root position, the 1st inversion and the 2nd inversion.
The root position of a C chord is when the “doe”, “me”, and “so” of the C chords are in this order: the “doe” note (1) followed by the “me” note (3) and followed by the “so” note, i.e., 1-3-5 (doe-me-so)
Figures 1: C in the root position
The 1st inversion of a C chord is when the chord is formed with the 3 notes in this order: the “me” note (3) followed by the “so” note (5) and followed by the “doe” (1) note, i.e., 3-5-1 (me-so-doe)
Figure 2: C in the 1st inversion
The 2nd inversion of a Chord is when the chord is formed with the 3 notes in this order: the “so” note (5) followed by the “doe” note (1) and followed by the “me” (3) note, i.e., 5-1-3 (so-doe-me)
Figure 3: C in the 2nd inversion
Similarly the 3 inversions for an F chord would look like the following:
Figure 4: F in the root position
Figure 5: F in the 1st inversion
Figure 6: F in the 2nd inversion
Imagine playing a song with the following series of chords: C – F – C – G – C
It would be rather awkward to move your right hand from the root position of the C chord to that of an F chord, for instance. I would play the series like this:
C in the root position…
…followed by F in the 2nd inversion (so that I wouldn’t have to move my thumb)…
… then back to C in it’s root position (again without having to move my thumb)…
… then the G chord in the 1st inversion (so that I wouldn’t have to move my little finger)…
… then return to C again in it’s root position without moving the little finger…
I hope this explains what inversions are and their usefulness. Now, since most songs can be played with the 3 basic chords in a key: I, IV and V chords, you should try to be familiar with the different inversions of these 3 chords. They will be tremendously helpful in playing many other chords within the same key.
[...] of course, it’s up to you which of the above inversions you prefer depending on which one of them you find easier for you to [...]
[...] V in its 2nd inversion, i.e,. the so-doe-me (5-1-3) position. As I’ve talked about in the “Inversion” post, this is entirely a personal preference. My reason for using those inversions is purely to [...]
[...] and D (the “so” note), i.e., the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the G major scale. No matter what inversion we may be playing, be it the root position (i.e., 1-3-5), the 1st inversion (i.e., 3-5-1), or the [...]
[...] make it easier to change chords, without having to move my right hand too much. See my “Inversions” post if you need help in understanding [...]
Can you please do a tutorial for ” My Grown up Christmas List.”
I will try, caro. Thanks for your suggestion!