So you remember we did all those drop two voicings on the top four strings.
Well, now we're going to take the same concept
and slide it over into the middle four strings.
And what happens is because of the tuning of the second and third string,
we're going to have a bunch of different shapes.
Wouldn't it be nice if the guitar was pitched all in fourths?
If it was, you could take all the shapes that you learned in the top four
strings, put them on the middle four strings,
put them on the bottom four strings, and you wouldn't have
to learn 59,000 different chord shapes.
Unfortunately, that's not the way the guitar works,
and so because of that different tuning of the second and third string,
we have to relearn a whole bunch of different shapes
on the middle four strings.
I've given it to you in the key of B flat, as opposed to the C
that you by now are used to hearing me do,
because b-flat now puts us in the first position on the guitar.
So let's start with b-flat seven, and the only reason
I start with dominant seven instead of major seven
is because we see dominant seven so much in so much music.
It's the most used chord of all, so you might as well
start with the most used chord and then work from there.
So here's b-flat dominant seven root position, third on top.
Ah-ha think about that for a moment.
When we did drop twos on the top four strings,
he was focusing on the top string.
And he didn't really mention the inversion.
Now he's saying root position.
Does that mean he's changed his mind?
Yes, he has.
He's now saying that since we are now closing in on the bass
register of the guitar, we do have to pay attention
to the bottom note of the chord as well as the top note of the chord.
So we have b-flat seven, root in the bass, third on top.
[PLAYING CHORD] First inversion, third in the bass, fifth on top.
[PLAYING CHORD] Fifth in the bass, flat seven on top.
[PLAYING CHORD] Third inversion, flat seven on the bass, root on top.
And then just like we've done before, you
go through the different inversions.
And if I go to major seven [PLAYING CHORD],,
minor seven [PLAYING CHORD],, minor seven flat five [PLAYING CHORD]..
And again, those four chord types before all the others,
because those are the chords that create the major diatonic chord sequence.
And you're just going to see them all the time.
I've got some great names for these chords.
You remember the sparkly chord?
It's here.
[PLAYING CHORD]
Here's major seven first inversion [PLAYING CHORD]..
There's that same half step in the middle,
but somehow this doesn't sound quite as sparkly as it did
when it was on the top four strings.
Remember this one?
[PLAYING CHORD] That one really rings.
This one has a ring, but because it's a little deeper sounding,
it doesn't have quite the same ring.
But it's still the sparkly chord.
And you notice that because of the tuning of the strings,
we have a little bit more of a stretch now.
[PLAYING CHORD] That's quite a stretch between these two fingers
but certainly doable.
Let's go to the next major seven chord, which is this one.
[PLAYING CHORD] If you play it with four fingers, [PLAYING CHORD]
that's what you get.
Now the gap between these two fingers if I keep doing this,
I'm eventually going to get tendinitis.
This is not a great gap to have between these two fingers.
So there are several solutions to this.
One is to play the four strings with three fingers.
Now to do this, you have to have the ability
to play two strings with one finger without blocking the next string.
Easier said than done.
The idea is to keep this finger upright so that it
doesn't block out that extra string.
You get your four notes, and you're not having that awkward stretch
that you had before.
And if you look at your finger once you've tried to do this,
you should see two string indentations on the tip of your finger.
It's using the fat part of your finger in between the two strings.
[PLAYING CHORD]
Then we get to the last major seven chord,
and do you recognize that this is [PLAYING CHORD] our bad chord
again, the root on top of the major seven.
Any time you have the root above the major seven by an octave,
you're going to have what's called a flat nine interval.
We had it on the top four strings.
We've got it now in the middle four strings.
It's not a great sound.
Occasionally, there might be a situation that you might use it.
Somebody might like it.
You might be looking for a particular dissonance.
But in general use, not a very usable chord.
What you can do, as we did before, is take this major seven
and lower it down a whole step.
And now we have b-flat major six instead of major seven,
a viable substitute for major seven.
You might also recognize that this is one of our infamous minor seven chords
that you've probably been playing since you were 12 years old.
So this is simply taking the major seven chord, lowering it the seventh down
a whole step to six.
We now have major six.
That's a substitute.
You can also, as we did on the top four strings, lower this note,
which happens to be the third down a whole step.
And now we have six nine, and what else do you notice?
There's our voicing in fourths again.
So when we play one of the substitutes for a major 7 with the root on top,
we're playing voicing in fourths.
Playing back down [PLAYING CHORD] the sparkly chord, [PLAYING CHORD]
and there's your standard major seventh chord.
With dominant seventh, I don't really have any great names
for any of these except for this one.
If you look carefully at the shape of this one,
it looks somewhat like a diamond.
This is one of the diamond chords.
There are actually two diamond cords, and we'll get into the other one later.
But this one is a dominant seventh chord with the root on top,
the flat seven is in the bass, third inversion.
And you look somewhat like an awkward diamond,
but certainly it does have the shape of a diamond here.
Minor seven, [PLAYING CHORD] here's one.
This is first inversion minor 7, and you look at this
and you could think about this one the same way as that major seven
we were talking about.
This is, kind of, a tendinitis chord too,
but there's no solution for this one other than to just play it.
But if you notice, there's something familiar about this chord.
Star Trek fans, this is the Mr. Spock chord,
the Vulcan greeting, live long and prosper.
[PLAYING CHORD] This is one of the only chords on the guitar where the gap is
between your second and third finger.
[PLAYING CHORD] And so if you remember this is minor seven, first inversion.
Then you've got the Mr. Spock chord.
If you want to call it the Star Trek chord or the Vulcan chord
or the live long and prosper chord, any of those will do for me.
I don't care.
Minor seven, second inversion.
This is a pretty easy one to play.
I don't have a particular name for this one
or the third inversion chord, [PLAYING CHORD] Star Trek.
Now we go to minor seven flat five, simply flat in the fifth.
You remember what we call this?
It's the box chord.
Minor seven, flat give root position is the box chord.
Here's first inversion, b-flat minor seven.
You might notice that the shape of this chord
is the same as the sparkly chord from the top four strings.
Aha, so as far as shapes go if you really
like that sparkly chord on the top four strings and you recognize the shape,
you bring it over and you've got an inversion of minor seven flat five.
[PLAYING CHORD] This one, here's b-flat minor seven.
Here's the fifth.
Flat the fifth, and we have now what I call the natural chord.
Take your hand off the guitar and hold it very loosely in front of you.
Put your hand back on that chord.
The four fingers of your hand are the shape of that chord.
See how easily that goes on there.
Minor seven flat five, nothing particularly
special about that shape, [PLAYING CHORD] natural,
[PLAYING CHORD] the shape of the sparkly chord, the box chord.
So that gives you some of the shapes of these.
Now that you are playing these as major sevens, dominant sevens, minor sevens,
and minor seven flat fives, I also want you
to think a little bit about the movement of these and the fact
that at some point we can connect these up with passing tones.
[PLAYING CHORD]
Don't worry too much about this right now,
because we will discuss this later.
But I want you to be aware that we are not just playing chords anymore.
We're now starting to think about playing chords
as melodic entities, thinking of them not just this way,
but now thinking of them this way as well.