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In this week's lesson,
we're really keying in on inversions.
As a visual aid here, I have some enlarged playing cards here,
and I think it's helpful to visualize what it is that we're trying to play.
This helps gets us away from just thinking about grips on the guitar
and thinking more about what the notes are.
If you know what the notes are,
then you can alter them in musical ways that might help you to get through
to a very strong musical idea that you wouldn't have found otherwise.
To me, the route is like the ace,
the third is like the three,
and the five is the fifth of the chord,
and that's what we're talking about say with a C major triad.
Now you can have these in inversions.
When we're talking about inversions,
again I'm going to show this to you on the neck when I'm keeping
track of the top note or the bottom note.
You invert a chord by taking the top note and moving it down
or taking the bottom note and moving it up.
We're going to be talking about taking a C major triad in route position,
there's route three, five there,
and I'm going to take the route and move it to the top of the chord,
the third and move that to the top of the chord,
and the fifth moving that to the top of the chord.
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This is like ace, 3, 5,
[MUSIC]
This is C, E, G.
Now I'm going to take the route and move it to the top of the chord [MUSIC],
and that leaves three and five [MUSIC] will going to be right here.
So this is 3-5 route.
The next inversion would be 5, 3, 1.
[MUSIC]
So we have routes 3, 5.
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3, 5, 1
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5, 1, 3
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This, of course, works for minor as well or any of the triad qualities.
There are some Etudes here that are written out,
let me demonstrate the concept.
Well, I'm going not through the full circle of force
but four keys to get a good start on.
I do it in C, F, B flat, and E flat.
This is a typical way that I practice working on chords of any quality.
I think of the lowest place that I can play the chord without any open strings,
and then take it to the highest place.
Right now, I'm just going to do all the inversions of the triad
for the key of C.
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F, the lowest place that that goes with no strings is the
one with the third in the bass [MUSIC],
and the key of B flat,
the lowest place that one will go is a route position B flat.
[MUSIC]
Then E flat, the lowest place that will go is on the third fret [MUSIC].
So again, C [MUSIC].
That's the first chord and [MUSIC],
then F with the third in the bass.
[MUSIC]
B flat with the route in the bass,
similar to the C that we started with.
[MUSIC]
E flat, this is one that has the fifth in the bass [MUSIC].
Let's have the metronome.
I'll bring it in.
Three, four [MUSIC], fifth in the bass [MUSIC] ,
third in the bass [MUSIC] ,
route [MUSIC], F major first inversion [MUSIC],
second inversion [MUSIC], route [MUSIC].
B flat with route [MUSIC],
third [MUSIC],
E flat with the fifth [MUSIC],
route [MUSIC],
third [MUSIC], route [MUSIC].
That's the way the first Etude goes.
The second one is similar, and then we're doing the key of G [MUSIC],
D [MUSIC], A here [MUSIC], and E here [MUSIC].
To play the game correctly,
you find the lowest place that the chord works without any open strings.
Three, four, G [MUSIC] in route position with third in place [MUSIC],
fifth [MUSIC], third [MUSIC], route [MUSIC].
Now, G [MUSIC], with the fifth in the bass,
now route [MUSIC] , A here [MUSIC].
E up here [MUSIC] with the fifth in the bass now [MUSIC] ,
the route [MUSIC], and then resolving it to C [MUSIC].
So being able to invert the chords up the fretboard,
thinking about from low to high from the first fret to the 12th fret that's
going up the fretboard as opposed to across the fretboard.
Different teachers around the world see it in different ways,
but I think we're pretty consistent at Berklee with making this up and this across.
Practice the triads up the fretboard
to have a way to ascend the neck in a musical way.
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