So, now, let's get into a little bit more detail about the drop
2 voicings in the top four strings.
The reason these are important as we discovered
was because the closed voicings that are so easy to understand theoretically,
don't work very well on the guitar.
So we open up the voicings and we get these more playable chord structures.
And, as is with the case with any four note chord, you have four inversions.
You have the root position, which is the root and the base.
First inversion, which has the third in the bass.
Second inversion has the fifth in the bass.
And the third version has the seventh in the bass.
But on the top four strings we are out of the bass register of the instrument.
And I'm not really that interested in what my lowest note is of the chord,
so, consequently, the lower note, which is the inversion name of these chords,
I'm not going to think about so much.
What I'm more interested in is what's the top node of this chord.
So if I go to my F7 drop 2 that we discovered in this previous topic--
[NOTE PLAYS]
--there's my F7.
This is actually a third inversion chord, but who cares.
[NOTES PLAYING]
That note is meaningless except for it's an integral part of the chord.
[NOTE PLAYS]
What's important is that the top node.
[NOTE PLAYS]
So, in this case, this is F7 with the root on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
The next inversion is F7 with the third on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
F7 with the fifth on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
F7 with the seventh on top.
[NOTES PLAYING]
There's your four inversions.
But this top node is important because if we're playing solo guitar, if we're
playing solo accompaniment, we're always aware of what that top note is
in relation to the melody.
And, as we start harmonizing melody notes later on,
we're going to see how important it is to know what that is on top.
That's the melody.
If I turn this into my different inversions of different chord
structures, now I've got major 7 with a raised 7.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Root on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Third on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Fifth on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Seventh on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Fifth.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Third.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Root.
We're going to come back to this chord a little bit later, because this
has an issue.
Minor 7.
[NOTE PLAYS]
This has a flat 3 and a flat 7.
It's just the bar with the root on top.
That's an easy one to play.
[NOTES PLAYING]
Flat 3 on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
5 on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Flat 7 on top.
[NOTES PLAYING]
And then if I go to minor 7 flat 5--
[NOTE PLAYS]
--in its key of F down here I've got to play an open string.
Now, ordinarily, I avoid that if I'm trying
to play some constant structures that make musical sense,
but this one, out of necessity, has to be there.
Because this is where that note would normally be.
[NOTES PLAYING]
Third on top, flat 3 on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Flat 5 on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Flat 7 on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Back to flat 5.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Flat 3.
[NOTE PLAYS]
And then the root on top.
Now, I chose those four chord structures to work on
because major 7, dominant 7, minor 7, minor 7 flat 5
are the four most important chord-- four note chord structures that exist.
Because those are the four chords that make up what
we know as the diatonic series of seventh chords.
If you go through the diatonic series, you
have one major 7, two minor 7, three minor 7,
four major 7, five dominant 7 six minor 7, and seven minor 7 flat 5.
If you think about those seven chords, they are made up of two major 7 chords.
They're made up of one dominant seventh chord,
one minor 7 flat 5 chord and three minor 7 chord shapes.
They're the chords you're going to see all the time in most music.
If you are going to add a fifth form to this,
you would be doing the diminished seventh chord and that,
in the case of F, I'm going to end up with two open strings here,
but that's just to get me started.
[NOTES PLAYING]
And then it moves flat 3, flat 5, double flat 7 and so forth and so on.
Now, what I'm doing here is taking these four inversion shapes.
And these have to be memorized.
As we've said before, there is a certain amount of memorization involved.
And from that memorization you're then going
to turn it into other chord structures.
So we take and find four of them and if we can recognize those four,
then anything can be found from those shapes.
So here's a-- for example--
[NOTE PLAYS]
--F7 with a third on top.
If I raise the third--
[NOTE PLAYS] --F7sus4.
[NOTE PLAYS]
If I lower the third, F minor 7.
Lower the fifth at the same time.
[NOTE PLAYS]
F minor 7 flat 5.
If I go back to my F7--
[NOTE PLAYS]
Here's the fifth raise the fifth.
[NOTE PLAYS]
F7 sharp 5.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Lower the fifth, F7 flat 5.
I think you get the idea.
So you can find every chord imaginable just by memorizing a few basic chord
shapes and then understanding the theory of chord spelling
to get you into those.
So back to the shapes again--
now, as I'm doing this one--
[NOTE PLAYS] --remember I said we're going to come back to this.
This is F major 7 with the root on top.
I'm going to change it a little bit, I'm going
to bring it up to G simply because I want you to think about something
that happens with my fingering in this.
This chord with the root on top and any major 7 chord that has the root on top
has a problem.
It's the top note--
[NOTE PLAYS]
--against the major 7 underneath it.
Some people like it, some people may like it for whatever reason.
It's not one of my favorite things to do.
And if I'm working with any singers, generally,
if they're singing this note, I'm not going to play this cord.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Because it's hidden a little bit in the rest of the chord,
but it does stand out and you can still hear that it's there.
So I've got to deal with this G major 7 chord.
One of the easiest solutions for this is to take the major 7,
lower it two frets, a whole step,
[NOTE PLAYS]
To major sixth.
[NOTES PLAYING]
Now, I have a G major sixth cord.
I still have a major quality cord.
I still have a four note cord voicing.
I've gotten rid of the offending interval.
That doesn't happen very often, but you certainly Need to be aware of it
when it happens.
[NOTES PLAYING] So there's your major 7 situation.
Now, if you're through these cord structures,
I like to give my cords names.
So, for example, if I'm playing minor 7--
[NOTE PLAYS]
--that's a bar.
I don't really need to know anything else about that.
That's pretty easy to see, and it's pretty easy to play,
and pretty easy to recognize and remember.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Root on top.
With the third on top, there's two ways that I can finger this.
[NOTE PLAYS]
There's F7-- F minor 7 with four fingers.
But if I could play this with three fingers like this,
now, I've got a finger available here that I
might want to play a passing note.
[NOTES PLAYING]
And that makes this a valuable tool.
Some people have some difficulty doing this.
I have a name for this chord.
This is called concave-convex, because this finger is going this way
and this finger is going this way at the same time, thus concave-convex.
F minor 7 the fifth on top--
[NOTE PLAYS]
--we call this zigzag.
Because if you play connect the dots with your fingers,
you can see there's a Z in there--
very easy to see the zigzag.
Let me go to one of my favorite chords here.
If you play F major 7, we already talked about this bad voicing,
how about this one?
[NOTE PLAYS]
With the third on top, this is one plus three.
Easy enough.
Let me skip the fifth on top and go to the seventh on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
This is three plus one, easily confused if you're not careful.
How about the one that we skipped over here, major 7 with the fifth on top?
[NOTE PLAYS]
This is one of my favorite chords of all time.
You hear that?
[NOTES PLAYING]
That's the same type of dissonance brought in together
that we were talking about over here.
[NOTES PLAYING]
But here it's not quite as offensive.
And if I put it in the middle of the chord voicing--
[NOTES PLAYING]
--it's actually quite beautiful.
It's quite a ringing chord.
[NOTE PLAYS]
I have a name for this one.
This is the sparkly chord.
[NOTES PLAYING]
It's really pretty, isn't?
So we just spent a lot of time talking about F7, F major 7, F minor 7,
F minor 7 flat 5.
Clearly, if you only do it in F, you've only learned one of 12 keys
and that can be an issue.
So here's a little puzzle that you can use that helps
you learn this in almost all 12 keys.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Here's F7 with the root on top-- just what we did here--
third on top, fifth on top, flat 7 on top.
Now that I've reached the top here, I take this exact voicing
and slide it down to first position.
[NOTE PLAYS]
And, now, I still have a flat 7 on top, but now it's not F7 any longer.
Now, I have A flat 7, G flat being the flat 7 of A flat 7.
So, now, I'm going to go through that same sequence of inversions
because, now, I've got 7 on top, root on top, third on top, fifth on top.
So seventh--
[NOTE PLAYS]
--A flat 7.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Root on top A flat 7.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Third on top A flat 7.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Fifth on top A flat 7.
Now that I've completed that sequence, take that shape exactly as
is, slide it down to first position.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Now, I've got C7 fifth on top.
And I'm going to go through the sequence from C.
[NOTE PLAYS]
C7 fifth on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Flat 7 on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Root on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Third on top.
Take that exact shape slide it down to the beginning.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Now, I've got the third on top E flat 7.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Fifth on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Flat 7 on top.
[NOTE PLAYS]
Root on top.
Take that shape and bring it down to first position.
[NOTE PLAYS]
And what happens?
We're back where we started.
But, in the process, we have, now, gone through four completely different
independent keys.
Now, if I'm just learning F7 like this and I bring it up a half step,
yes, I'm learning a different key, but it's
just-- you recognize it as F7 up a half step.
By doing this little puzzle, you actually
see the chords as independent entities in a key all by themselves.
Now, once I've done that from the first position F,
take it up a half step to F sharp seven, like we are already said,
but, now, you do the same thing from there.
[NOTES PLAYING]
Third on top, fifth on top, seventh on top.
Bring this down--
[NOTE PLAYS]
--to second position, because that's where we started the F sharp 7.
Now, we've got A7.
[NOTES PLAYING]
Seventh on top, root on top, third on top, fifth on top.
Take that shape and slide it down to second position.
[NOTE PLAYS]
I have C sharp or D flat 7.
[NOTES PLAYING]
Take that and slide it down.
[NOTE PLAYS]
That brings me to E7.
[NOTES PLAYING]
Slide that down.
[NOTE PLAYS]
And there's the F sharp 7 that I started with.
Do it again and from third position I've got G7.
[NOTES PLAYING]
B flat 7.
[NOTES PLAYING]
D7.
[NOTES PLAYING]
F7.
[NOTES PLAYING]
Brings me back the G7.
And this is a way that this little puzzle game that you can play
allows you to learn where very clearly the different keys of these drop 2
voicings happen.
And later on you can use these on other chord structures as well.