Understanding Chord Inversions | How To Practice and Use

[Music] what's up everyone we're going to talk about chord inversions on the guitar today well he actually could be an anything but I'm gonna just I'm gonna demonstrate them on the guitar good to see everyone I'm back from my Peter Frampton interview which was really really incredibly fun good to see everybody I want to jump right in it because this is kind of going to be a video about how to practice chord inversions I'm gonna talk about drop voicings some of you may know what those are some of you may not I have a video a long time ago I did on drop voicings but I didn't really demonstrate necessarily on the guitar I played a few of them on the piano but these are I'm gonna give you some strategies for how to practice these things and some of them or all of them can be found in the Beato book I have a section on chord and chord forms for the guitar and I have them for in every instrument but I actually have the chord grids on there which I can look at right here now the Beato book only comes in PDF form so but I'm going to talk about drop voicings out of that any of you that have it I'm gonna be a start in on page 103 actually I'm gonna start not even on that page I'm gonna start talking about triads to begin with but I'm going to show you how to practice these things like how do you how can you use them for songwriting use them in context of a of a tune how do you practice them how can you use them if you want to play jazz anything like that those of you that watch the Peter Frampton interview you see how important it is he talks about listening to jazz players and that's kind of how he developed a style that's that's one of the things I mean obviously listen to blues players but the reason he plays differently than everyone else is really the jazz influences and fascinating to hear that so let's talk about this so the first thing I would do I'm gonna move the camera down a little bit so you can see the guitar this is my Gibson here it's my Gibson country-and-western here so the first thing to do I'm going to do straight triads to begin with I'm gonna start with a G major triad here and the way that you should practice these instead of in you can practice them in what we call closed position or it where it would be 1 3 5 and then then it'd be 3 5 1 then it would be 5 1 3 okay so we can do that Thank You Felipe appreciate that ok but what I want to do is I want to practice them and spread voicings ok so we're gonna go 1 5 2 3 because the spread voicing is a drop voicing and I want to explain that a lot of people don't understand the spread triads or actually drop voicings ok if you take this chord here a G major chord here most of you may probably know what this is okay so I've got if you think of a G major chord here and I just take these notes from it alright a drop voicing can be made by taking the typically you drop one of the notes down this is gonna be I'm gonna drop the middle note here I'm gonna drop the second note from the top so drop two and I'll create my root position G spread triad ok so I took this I took the middle note the second note from the top that's what's why it's called drop two and I'm gonna move that down to this string down the active okay that's our drop voices work they're pretty simple ok okay now to get to the next inversion this is a first inversion G major chord in it's a drop voicing also but it's a spread triad okay so these are all that's root position first inversion second inversion so the first version means that the lowest note of it is the third of the chord so in the image in a G major chord the third is the note B and then in this one the lowest note is the fifth okay so here we got root position first inversion second inversion real position again okay then if you move up here you get first inversion because I have the third here this is the note B and then I get up to second version second version first version root position second version first inversion position I played this board as a in place of this and the reason I like to do this I like to use them this is this is how you practice them you practice them like this okay I'm going up one string then then I'm gonna go I'm gonna move across so I'm gonna go up the low string and then across now all these chord forms are in the Beato book oh by the way the be out a book discount code today is RB 13 this is 20% off my book or anything in my shop if you own my book you know I have coffee mugs with with chord diagrams on them and triad diagrams things like that I have t-shirts and I saw somebody mentioned that they had be out of book one just write to me a trick be out of one at gmail.com send me a send me an email about it and you you I'll send you a book too so okay so here I went up the low E string root position first inversion second inversion and then across now instead of going back the same way what I want to do is this kind of hard to press the strings down here because I'm in my hand is up against the is up against the body here so then I'm gonna come down this way okay so I'm coming down and the the high strings now okay and then I'm going to continue on this way after I did the okay so you go up the low strings come down [Music] and you come down the high strings that way you know where all these inversions are all over the neck the next thing to do would for you to do is to do your minor triads okay so I'm gonna do I'm gonna take my G minor chord here in second inversion so it's got the fifth root flat third gets the G money I take the middle note right which is the G the root and I bring it down the active I'll finger it so you can see so I've got root fifth my fingers kind of hiding there I'm playing this note here I'm playing it these three notes so root fifth flat third okay this is the first inversion chord okay [Music] then there's I'm on the inter strings right this would be a second version so yeah root you can bar it if you want first inversion second inversion okay then you can go up here to your root position again and so on and so forth you go you can go to your first inversion there and then and then you would come back down the same way you do the same process now all these are in the book all these chord shapes are in the book so I would do major minor diminished chords and then I would do a variation on the sevenths and what I mean by that is you guess some of you that we've watched me do some of these videos where I play some of these where I see these spread do these spread triad things you'll see I'll do progressions like you know okay so I'm doing a really simple progression and I did a first divert I did see minor spread try it then I did route this is a first inversion a flat chord right so I did C minor a flat major there's a a a root position on D diminished chord first and for first inversion G major so beat two five one then first inversion F major chord now you can oh you can go back over this re-watch this and slow it down okay that's the way to do it what's up Mike I see you there good to see you [Music] China guitar skeptic you guys should subscribe to my man's channel there if you haven't already okay so these are inverted I'm using inversions of these drop chords dropped or air spread triads and I'm putting them in progression so that would be if you're in the I'm gonna go a C minor to E flat major but in first inversion D diminished root position G major first inversion C mate C minor reposition F major first inversion but to b-flat major first inversion so [Music] [Laughter] [Music] that's where you get those kind of lines like that that back Ian kind of ideas like that okay so those are spread triads I'm practicing them within progressions you start with two five ones okay using inversions I can do my two chord like this here's my 2 chord here if I do my first inversion C minor chord then I'm going to go to a root position F major chord ok so that were your two chords what you want to do is you want to try and go to the closest inversion to the chord that you're to the next chord so I went from me a first inversion first emergency minor reposition F major then I'm gonna keep that F common tone and I'm gonna go to my B flat major so that would be a two five one I did you do it like that as well it's kind of a big stretch for a lot of people - one two five okay too five one okay now let's talk about extended chords seventh chords okay and drop voicings okay so there's tutors there are really four types of drop voicings you have your drop two voicings you have your drop three you have dropped two and four and drop three and four the most common ones are dropped two and drop three so I'll show you some dry I'll show you what they look like on the guitar something a lot of you're gonna already know these you probably didn't know they were dropped two or drop three okay alright so if you looked on for example page 102 of the Beato book you have your you start it starts with your drop voicing so pretty much have all of them in there okay so this would be a drop two voicing this shape right here this would be a C major seven I'm at the third fret you see right there that is the a root position C major seven now if I go to a first inversion this is a little tricky okay it goes like this it's kind of an Allan Holdsworth chord it's really if you played it here any of you that know that UK record uses that voicing a lot but here it is on the inner strings it's I don't have any problem grabbing it some of you may have a problem okay so root position first inversion [Music] second inversion right with a fifth is the lowest note fifth in the base and then and the seventh in the base okay so that those will be your inversions of a major seventh chord now these can actually go all on one string I'd have to do it and b-flat okay because I don't have enough room here but if I go like this that's root position first inversions here okay next inversion is going to be up here with the I'm sorry so this is your with the fifth in the base it's your second inversion so here's your first inversion the second inversion and then your third inversion is there that's was like a Holdsworth core - well it is it's that same chord like that but that's doing them all and the inter strings if you're an electric guitar it is just as easy to do this somebody just said please release this as a video so you can go back and watch this this is a video I'm doing that this is the video right here I'm just doing it live okay so the way that the Beato book works or the way that I put the voicings together in here for you to learn as I did in mind groupings of three strings or for three strings were try it's four strings for seventh chords okay for example this would be the drop to major seventh voicing here okay it's not necessarily that comment it's not like I grabbed that voicing you know see so some of these some of these voices you have to kind of decide whether they're too dark for you to use in the position that they're that they're in as you move it up by the time you get to the fifth fret that's a perfectly usable that sounds good there I think it starts to get a little bit muddy right there what's up Levi everybody mr. Levi clay you should subscribe to Levi's channel - I love Levi okay so that would be your drop two voicing for the low e-string now the best way to practice these though is to move between sets of strings okay so if I have that C major seven I'm gonna go here I'm gonna go here we go they're there and then I'm gonna go there okay so that would be that's about as many as I can fit in here okay start to almost sound like Joe past there if you take West Montgomery's playing for example he has about 25 chord forms and that's all he uses for all those chords souls everything these are also great to be used in comping so if I play a bossa nova and I want to start with a minor seven drop two chord that would be this shape if this is the main major seven there's your minor seven drop to shape right size D minor 7 [Music] I'm usually all drop two voicings there okay you can you go to you can start getting into you know other alterations of it [Music] if you want to start doing baselines where you're doing the roots to the fifths like I could do this [Music] so that would be that would be a bossa nova feel using drop voicings there I'm kind of cheating a little bit because I'm not using all drop toes using mostly drop too so those are your drop two voicings you go you take the minor voicings you do the same thing so I would take C minor okay I'm gonna turn the page here even I actually know these but I'm just going to turn the page to tell you what pages they're on the minor seventh is actually on it's a couple pages later it sits on 105 okay so this is your root position then you get your first in first inversion that's that can be a little tricky for some people it's kind of like these Holdsworth voicings thank you very much everybody Steven I really appreciate that some of these voicings like I did a video on an Allan Holdsworth a tune office at a background record called Looking Glass and it starts with some voices that are really hard to play starts with this voicing and these are these some of these will give you a problem I just wanted to bring it up okay and the reason that these are tricky are because there's a to fret spread you're skipping a fret between the second and third finger this is you can get tendinitis from doing this so you really have to be careful when you're doing it so that's that's kind of my disclaimer what just happened here there we go that's my disclaimer for that is to is to just be careful on that these are hard I mean you know I'm I'm used to these I'm used to these kind of voices but when I go to their first inversion minor seventh if I'm playing it it sounds very boring next so this Holdsworth chords right viado book code 25% off RB 13 13s my lucky number so that's your first convergence a root position the first inversion second inversion second version means that the fifth isn't is the lowest note in the bass okay and then and this would be your third inversion with E flat seven in the bass okay now you can do the same thing I can go root position first inversion and then I can decide to jump over cuz this voicing is the same is that voicing and I can go so I would like I would go like this [Music] root position first inversion second inversion third inversion okay I hope you guys can see all that now that's a great way to practice it to always practice thing things and rhythms like that right and then just practice it practice them like that and so that you can be able to go so you can go between the chords really quickly that's that's obviously a key element of that go through your major seventh your minor seventh your dominant seventh your minor seven flat five those are I have way more than that in the book but those are the ones that you really want to go through to know next I want to talk about drop three voicings okay so that was dropped too I want to see where drop three is drop three voicings are on page I think 121 in the book yeah 121 okay so if we take major seventh I do major sixth voice things I do minor 6 boy I think voicings thank you Mike appreciate that so this is the that so this is a trap three voicing many of you know this shape okay where you're skipping the a string this G would be a G major seventh chord right that's a G that's a drop three voice you remember this is a drop two major seven this is a trap three major seven okay I'll be C major seven drop three C major seven drop - okay so this is your this is your root position this is your first inversion okay now some of these if you know where your it's a beautiful sound there this is your second inversion okay so root position first inversion second inversion then we then we go to to the third inversion so I've got the seventh and the base and you see the triad right there I'm trying to see so you've got G major triad it's got the seventh and the base there okay does that make sense okay so root position first inversion second inversion and then I could go up here and do it like this it's hard to do that though that's why I played it here okay you always have to take into account where you are on the guitar as far as the weather things are easier to move across to the adjacent strings and play the same drop voicing but once again if you were to take what you want to do is you want to take these and you want to put these in progressions okay so typically when you're playing a tune if you're playing a jazz tune for example you would typically go between drop two and drop three voices or drop three and drop two voicings okay if I go something like this [Music] and did a very simplistic version of a seven I don't know if I'd play that a might but I'm going from a drop three voicing to a drop to voicing back to a drop three voicing the reason you do this is because you're going to be jumping all around if you don't it's it's these are just common it's common to alternate these okay so that you're not moving so that you're not moving around yes I can teach I saw this Theresa said can I teach this entire video on the piano I absolutely can and I'll put I'll have to do it though with my overhead camera looking down on it and I will teach the exact same video works exactly the same way - okay these are and you should really know them on guitar and on piano I think or you should at least know them on one chording instrument if you're a sax player I'd say you should probably learn in my piano you know if you don't play a cording instrument but that's where I would go is I would take these voicings and I would and I would and I would learn where they are you know if you got your this would be a root position major seventh chord if I make it a drop voicing let's say I I could drop the second boys from the top I can't really actually I can't play it from here I'd need two hands to dip but it'd be this that would be a drop two voicing for a C major seven chord okay Mathias thank you so much okay so practicing these let's talk a little bit more about practicing these so what you want to do is you want to get away from playing roots all the time in your chord voicings so I would say if I'm playing something like this let's say I got a 251 and G [Music] I'm gonna go up an inversion I might play [Music] now that's cool because that's not your typical voicing that would be the bridge to Joe beams toon way if okay instead of just going [Music] which I think much cooler going [Music] [Music] when out so right there I'm playing this tune wave and I'm doing all these different inversions doing drop voicings things like that I just saw D major D flat D major 7 and I did [Music] that's what I did okay so this is what is really great about inversions they make your songs more interesting they make your accompaniments more interesting they make everything more interesting that's why you want to do them if you're writing pop songs the matter what you're doing it's gonna make them better you know when I was interviewing Peter we you know unfortunately we didn't really get to this and I want to interview him again because he uses a lot of inversions in his songs he was talking about the tunes something's happening [Music] baby [Music] [Music] uses a root position then he goes up to a a first inversion her second person D chord then he goes to a first inversion emajor hard and then second inversion P major chord and back to a major which is really really cool right that's all inverted chords well you got one root position chord in the tonic he wrote that on piano and one of the things is when you write on piano you're gonna get those inversions okay and they that make your songs way more interesting I always use the two nanji-bhai the stones as a great example where's Keith Richards people think Oh Keith Richards the Keith Richards new inversions right [Music] right there there's your first inversion yz7 chord then he's using sus chords he's using cool you can play a G major on the resolution [Music] I know people are saying that the I see a comment about Frampton solo on Peter solo on something's happening yeah I love it [Music] that's one of the solos I just had to think of it that's they're amazing they're played up the octave and but they're so good and he's totally making all the changes on there that's that's one of my favorite solos but but those inversions are gonna make your songs way way more interesting what's up SB you know if you take a song like the church I'm transferring a name is son [Music] under the Milky Way [Music] right there uses that first inversion that would be a first inversion D set D 9 chord think of D 9 first inversion same thing with you know [Music] right there's the first inversion on baby I'm gonna leave your first inversion c7 a c-major chord [Music] [Laughter] [Music] there's your first inversion D major chord right then he goes to the first inversion d7 [Music] this is a first inversion D minor chord guys used to use inversions all the time they didn't know what they were they didn't necessarily think of that but you know stairway to heaven right here first inversion D major chord cuz he wants to keep keep that line cliche going on there those are those are how you do it is by not jumping around where you're just playing where you're not just jumping around the the your instrument those inversions can keep you playing can keep you in one relatively small area and make your voice leading really make sense so I did he flat B flat over D C minor F over a back to B flat so I'm stay in this area if I did I'll root position chord so I couldn't [Music] that was interesting is that I think all right so that's our that's a little lesson in chord inversions okay I don't talk enough about that I want to do a lesson a video on finger picking patterns which which which I'm gonna do one I'm not gonna do it now but you know probably like the three or four finger picking patterns that you need to know they're like alternating bass patterns things like that I think those are I want to do a video like that next week or something because that's one thing I always forget to talk about that I think is really important it's very important to be able to finger pick and play the guitar like that I was reminded of that from from Peter he has a song wind of change which is amazed he's got a couple really great acoustic songs and and back in the day everybody what's up trolls thank you sir so much appreciate that back in the day everybody knew picking patterns that was just kind of the you know people used them in songs and you became good at well there's there's two things there's finger picking and then there's flat flat picking obviously flat picking is picking with the pick you know you think of bluegrass but I'm thinking flat picking would be you know that would be that would be what I would call flatpicking making picking through cords so anyways Beato book RB 13 or anything in my store you can join the Beato club if you own the be out a book and you want to support the channel one of the reasons that I've been able to take these trips is because people from the Beato clubs that have been donating to my channel that's allowed me to make the difference up between all my unmonitored videos all the what makes the some great videos that really don't pay anything which is fine I mean I do them because they're important to that's an important part of the of learning songwriting production arranging things like that but that's why I've been able to go and meet with Peter and go to the NAMM show and go to the AES and all that we're going to go to get con I mean and I'm going to be going to the NAMM show thank you dog really appreciate that that's fantastic so I've got a new what makes us song great coming out probably tomorrow I'm doing Mastodon oh it's good so we're gonna change it up a little bit get a little rock out a little bit anyways leave your comments here give it a like subscribe if you don't if you haven't subscribed Beato book pdf version yes you can get a you can also get my my mugs they have all the formulas for all them for the major scale melodic minor scale harmonic minor scale harmonic major scale double harmonic major scale and all the Triads so when you're drinking your coffee in the morning before you go practice you can learn what all those things are thank you for watching and you guys the best

Channel: Rick Beato

Views: 85,466

Keywords: rick beato, guitar lesson, chord inversions, drop voicings, drop 2, drop 3, drop 2&4, drop 2&3, jazz chords, wes montgomery, joe pass, pat metheny, chord solos, music theory

Id: IkG7Ds7Vk_k

Length: 38min 24sec (2304 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 13 2018