H i I'm Scott Houston do you like the way those chords sounded? those were called
slash chords and I get a lot of questions from students about how to
interpret a slash chord that's what I'm going to teach you in this short video
okay let me tell you quickly about a special chord symbol called a slash
chord alright it's a question that I get quite a lot from students they come
across this chord symbol that looks kind of odd and they're not sure how to
interpret it but it's a pretty simple concept there's just a few different
ways you can kind of tackle it so let's dig right in now first of all let's take
a look at what slash chords look like you'll see here that you know they can
something like a G over A or that I say G over A it says G slash A right there's
something to the left of the slash and something to the right of the slash
it'll say G slash A or maybe you know B flat major 7 slash C something like
that or or maybe even a C minor slash E flat now those might look kind of
complicated but it's really not that tough but before I get into it I need to
really cover something called the root of a chord and most of you probably know
that but if not it's a super simple concept so let me show you something
alright when we're talking about you know chords
and chord symbols typically the root of the chord is just the lowest note of the
chord so if you're just playing a C chord for example right something like
that well it's a C chord and that's a C major chord
whatever the letter name of the chord is in this case it's a C that's the root well it's
not only the root but it's kind of assumed that that's the the bass note if
you will so you know the root of a C chord what's the root of an F chord an F
what's the root of a D minor seven chord D right it's that lowest note alright now
that's kind of critical because when you're looking at chord symbols
typically you come across a F seven and you'll play an F seven chord but it's
kind of expected that the F which is the root of that chord is going to be the
lowest note that you hear it's gonna be the bass note if you will so however
you're gonna play the chord you need to hear a F on the bottom well here's the
scoop what a slash chord does is override that default root and it will
potentially give you a new root to play on a chord okay so here's how you
interpret it okay whatever is to the left of the slash
okay the left of the slash that's the cord you're supposed to play so if it
says F you play an F major chord if it says you know a flat minor 7 you play an
A flat minor 7 chord but whatever's to the right of the slash is the single
note that will never have anything but a single letter name there because that's
the single note that needs to be the root of that chord now it's gonna be the
note that you have to hear on the bottom right there giving you a new bass note
that is not the root okay so let me show you a couple first let's do for example
here a G slash A so what that means is you're going to play a G chord but the A
which is not part of that chord an A note is not part of that chord right but
because that A is to the right of that slash that's a note that you have to
hear in the bass so it's going to sound like that all right
so typically if you just had a G or a G major chord you would just play the
chord or you'd play the G in the bass but since it says G slash a you play an
A in the bass instead
now let's do another one say you have let's do one B-flat major 7 / C now I
actually think when you read a slash chord it's a little bit simpler to think of it
and that's, I caught myself saying it at the very beginning of this video I
think of it like like a fraction almost if you tilt it a little instead of
saying B-flat / Z I think of it a B-flat / V and that mentally helps me because
that means it's the chord over a different bass note right so back to
this we're gonna try to do a B-flat major 7 / C or / C so you'd play a
B-flat major 7 chord that's that chord right and instead of normally the B-flat
being the root you have to play a C so there you have it there's a B-flat major 7
/ C okay now right now I'm sure a lot of you are saying a lot of my students in
particular are saying Scott what if you're having to play the whole chord with your
left hand well this is just one of those situations where it gets a little bit
tougher and you need to in some way get that that new bass note the new root
played so I would probably in this case reach down play a C and I'm maybe an
octave of a C down here you're gonna reach down and then maybe hold it with
your pedal I've got my pedal held down right and then come back up and play it
just somehow or
maybe you could play an inversion somehow I don't want to get too lost
doing that but somehow you've got to get to whatever's to the right of the slash
played as the lowest note you hear okay so I don't want to get too tied up in
that now let's do another one maybe you could even do a how about a F / A
well an F / A means play an F chord right but the A has to be the lowest
note you hear well this is one where the actual whether the note they're giving
you is the new bass note it's actually a note that's in the chord right so that
would be an F / A and if that's the case it's really just an inversion
if you want to think of it that way you could feasibly play that by just putting
the F on top that could be an F / A too but again typically you think of it
as a bass note that you're wanting to hear all right so why do they even do
slash chords right now there's some theory reasons behind it I mean some
kind of chord theory stuff but in real practical terms it's the way a
composer can tell you in chord symbol note symbology right as opposed to
literally writing everything out like traditional classical notation when
you're reading chord changes it's the way that you are told to play a
particular bassline like sometimes in a tune the bass line is just so critical a
particular bass line is really part of the song as opposed to just following
along all the roots the bass line really does something different so say if
you're you know say I'm gonna play say the chord changes are F and then F / E
right then f / D, F / C right something like that where you just
have to hear this that's just such a big part of the tune
the tune wouldn't be the tune without it well that's how they'll tell
you that they'll write it as an F then an F / E, F / D, F / C something like that
so that's where that usually comes in all right so that's really the summary I
gave you a few kind of oddball you know details on it but the big picture to not
get lost to summarise is whenever you come across a slash chord symbol
whatever's to the left of the slash is the chord that you play and whatever's
to the right of the slash is the single note you need to hear in the bass if you
remember nothing else that'll help you out and get you through that anytime in
the future so I hope that helps and as always have fun playing piano