Chord inversions are an incredibly useful thing to get your head around as a guitarist. They make your playing more versatile as you master them as well as give you new ways to play chords you already know.
A big part of inversions is to help establish harmonisation with melodies as well as create some fluidity between chord changes and bass-lines. As a guitarist, they also establish the ability to play any given chord more or less at any point on the fretboard. Neat!
What are inversions?
In the most simple of terms, an inversion is a rearranging of the notes in a given chord so that the root note is changed to a note other than the usual root. For example, a C chord’s (CEG) root note is of course, C. If we changed the root note to an E (EGC) we get what’s called a first inversion. So with a triad, take the third or the fifth and put that at the bottom of your chord. This gives a little flavour and spiciness to your playing.
Additionally, think about the CAGED system and how it turned five chords into many just by where you played them on the neck. Inversions do a very similar thing, but take a part of each chord as well as reposition it.
Don’t think this just applies to triads though. You can work it with sevenths, sus chords and many other variants. Let’s look at a quick example for today’s lesson.
Inversions up high
For this post, we’ll focus on a 4 chord progression and you can play it in more than one way.
The chords we’ll use are;
- G minor
- D minor
- F major
- C major
And your first few shapes are as follows;
Variations on your favourite chords
The above slideshow shoes a simple chord progression that might sound quite nice played with open positions around frets 1 to 3. But when you moved them to the top end of the neck, the sound you get immediately conveys a much more melodic and progressive feel. These are great shapes and if you look closely, it’s easy to see what CAGED form they are derived from.
Now, let’s add the next four chords to this progression.
Yes, these chords are the same four, but they are positioned just a few frets up. This immediately gives them a different harmonic quality. Think about it as a backing singers hitting the same melody as the lead vocalist, but an octave up (or down) to give the main vocal a massive boost.
This group of inversions also uses something called voice leading. A technique that refers to the way in which individual voices (or notes) move from chord to chord. In the above example, each chord shares at least one note with the chord before it. Not just theoretically, but physically where it is played on the neck.
Artists to check out
There are a plethora of guitarists who deploy inversions to great affect. Some examples include, the aforementioned John Frusciante, Nile Rodgers and Jeff Buckley, to name a few.
Have a listen to songs such as Buckley’s version of Hallelujah, the outro riff from Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Apache Rose Peacock, or more or less any of Rodgers’ funk work. But why not start with Good Times by Chic. See if you can pick out any inversions from these.
Where can I find out more?
A great port of call for a long list of major and minor inversions running up the neck can be found at Berklee Online here. You can also of course book yourself in for a lesson with me! And I’ll be happy to help guide you along and help with implementing the inversions at your disposal. As well as show you great examples on artists to listen to who really knew how to make the most of inversions.