(blues)
- Hey guys!
We're back with some more chord hacks for you.
In our last lesson,
we looked at what is a chord.
And now we're gonna take a look at what is an inversion.
So,
the world of chording is kind of magical
in that I thought there's probably
there's no end to the possibilities
in the ways that we can
color the sounds that we're making when we're playing them.
So, we've identified kind of our big chords.
The progression of chords
that sound really complimentary to each other.
And this lesson, we're going to build on that a little bit.
So, in order to build on that,
in order to add some interest to what we're playing,
we're gonna look at inversions.
So some of you will know what those are.
But for those of you that don't,
an inversion is simply
another ordering of the chord.
So it's playing the notes of the chord
but we're changing the order,
we're inverting them.
So what that looks like
is if we're playing a C chord
or we can also call it our one chord
because C is our home base right now.
We're gonna play C E and G.
Now, we don't have to play them in that order
for them to be considered a C chord.
We can take the C on the bottom
and we can put it on the top
and it's a little bit fancy maneuvering with the hands.
But what it looks like is this.
My thumb is going to take over
where my middle finger is.
And I'm gonna play the E next.
Then the G
and then the C.
So, we still have all three of the same notes.
But we're just playing them in a different order.
(chord)
so, what that does is it sounds a little bit different.
It voices things differently.
It highlights different
a different texture of the sound.
Or it highlights different harmonics in the sound.
So, I'm gonna show you the next inversion.
Because there's more.
We can reorder this again.
We're gonna put the E on top.
So our thumb is gonna take over where that finger was.
We're gonna place our third finger on C.
And our five, really nicely just kind of lands on the E.
This is what we call a second inversion.
And then if we shuffle them one more time
by putting a G on top,
we're gonna land right back in root position
where we started.
So,
this is a C chord,
we got one here.
We got so many places that we can play these chords.
So, what I'm gonna do for you is
I'm gonna play that one more time
just in nice succession
so you can see what's happening with my hand movements.
And you can practice this at home.
We can come back down the scale exactly the way
that we came up.
When I was taking piano lessons as a kid
it was hours of this stuff.
So,
you can start slow
and then you can build up in speed.
Might look complicated
but I promise, the more you do it,
the easier it becomes.
And then again, not forgetting our left hand.
It's gonna take a turn.
Back down we go.
So, there you have C chord inversions.
Now, this is something that can be done
on any chord that you play.
So if you were playing the five chord
or the G chord,
you got a root position.
You got the first inversion.
You got the second inversion.
You got your root position again.
Same thing goes for our minor sixth.
Same thing with our fourths.
And that kind of sounds fun when you put it all together.
And then we can land right back on our root position.
Or our home base of C.
And that is inversions in a nutshell.
So,
we can build from there.
So what gets me really excited about inversions
is that, they allow us to move between our chords
without having to dance our hands around so much.
So, we're used to going from our one chord here
to our five chord here
and we're traveling.
But, what we can do is
we can use these little chord inversions
or shortcuts,
hacks,
to move between our chords.
And it makes you feel super duper skilled and
it makes you look awesome.
So I'll show you how that happens.
We're gonna play C in its root position.
I love starting on root position
because I feel like
it kind of
it's easy to go hey root position.
I don't have to think about this.
So, our next chord in our chord progression is G.
It's the five.
And all I have to do to get to G
is remember that a G chord is built up of a G a B and a D.
And if I look,
this hand has already got a G.
So I'm not gonna move this finger.
I'm gonna use my two finger to switch out from my third.
I'm gonna play this D
and my thumb is just gonna step down.
And oh my gosh, I got a G chord.
So I've gone from my
root position C
to an inverted G chord without having to move my hand
at all.
So,
practice this
back and forth
a hundred times.
No, I'm just kidding.
But, you can practice it as much as you like
because this looks simple when I do it
but if you never played this way before.
It can be a complicated hand movement.
We're moving notes
plus we're changing fingering.
So,
take your time to get comfortable with this movement.
So I would like to note
that this is a movement
between a root position one chord
and an inverted five chord
and this is something you can take to
anyone to five chord transition anywhere on the keyboard.
So if I were to play an F chord
in its root position, the one
and I wanted to move to the five
which is F, G, A, B, C
same exact movement.
So really, what's happening is
we're just changing our shape.
Our shape is going from here,
to here.
So if you
are a really busy person and you don't get to practice
as much as you like,
when your sitting at your desk you can
place your hand
and just change those finger positions.
And this is a little exercise
a little trick that you can use
to develop some dexterity in your hands
when you're away from the piano.
So that is the movement between a one and a five.
To get to our next chord in the progression
which is the minor sixth,
we're gonna just simply pick our hand up
(swoop noise)
and move everybody over a step.
So, I'll show you again, I'll break it down.
So here's our
here's our one, our C chord.
Here's our five.
Now to play the minor sixth,
we need an A, a C and an E.
And we can find that.
Here's our C
here's our E
here's our A.
So all we had to do
is simply step everybody up one.
So we freeze our hand position
and we just move up a step.
So I'll show you here's our one,
here's our five
here's our minor sixth
now this next one, to get to the four is super easy.
We need an F
an A and a C.
And we've got the A and we got the C
so we're gonna swap it out
here for the F.
And now we're playing an inverted F chord.
So there are a few ways to look at this.
You can look at this by breaking down
the actual notes in each chord.
And thinking through
what notes do I need?
How do I need to move my hand
to most efficiently get there?
Some of you might like that approach.
You can think about it in terms of shape.
Here's the root position shape.
Here's a shape to get to the five.
Move the shape up.
Switch like this.
That's another way you can think about it.
So, for every person,
there's a different way of learning.
And it's gonna be up to you to explore
what works best for you.
You can write down the notes that your gonna be playing
on a piece of paper if you're a visual.
Or you can simply refer back to this video.
And get used to this progression.
So there you have it.
There are some chord hacks using inversions.
We've looked at what is a chord,
how to play a chord,
what is root position
and what inversions look like.
So now you get to explore, have fun,
practice playing your inversions.
And we'll see you next time
for a unit on what to do with our left hand
while chording.
(blues)