 Hi guys, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music now Here's probably the most or top five most asked question I ever get as a teacher and YouTuber in the comments it is do we really need chord inversions? Why should we spend so much time learning them? Is it gonna help? Is it gonna enhance the sound and so on and so forth and will it work in the long run more importantly because it seems to be a Concept which students learn after perhaps a semester on the piano or after some time And I would imagine it's the same with guitar players and other instruments which play polyphonic music in the sense So on these instruments we we are given a shape we are given a specific shape on a guitar You'll have a default C major shape or a bar chord But then is it worth exploring different shapes of the same chord becomes a very important question So I'm gonna explain this from a piano perspective But I'm sure you'll understand and get the idea that it could apply to pretty much all the polyphonic instruments out there including Instruments which are not really instruments the digital world of Polyphonic synthesizers if you will so even when you're arranging or producing music or programming It is some people use that term you would need these concepts for sure in other words This whole video will be on the debate whether just the root position of a chord C major Is this enough for me to get started? Is it good enough? Do I need to invest the time and effort to then learn? The C major with with its inversions the first inversion and the second inversion is that of value? Is it important? Well, let's see in this lesson and before we get started It'll be nice if you can get my handwritten notes on patreon and you'll also get notation You'll also get MIDI tracks and backing tracks wherever applicable and there are lots of other perks as you become a patron You'll get to interact with me You'll get to do workshops and before we get started it'll be awesome If you can consider hitting that subscribe button and turning on the bell icon for regular notifications Let's get cracking so the first reason why you would need to use chord inversions and why you should start with chord Inversions as an absolute complete beginner to chords is so that you can make it easy for yourself Now isn't that important right now a lot of the times we are taught a C major chord in that Notated fashion. It's so easy to read doom doom doom. It's just linear line line line or space F FAC doom doom doom space space space, so it's visually easy But imagine if you have to shift from C major in the root position and then F major in its root position. You need your eyes for that for sure. Don't you think? Even I can't do it after so many years of playing so I would imagine that Choosing the more efficient inversion of F major Namely in this instance C F A or maybe even an F minor C E G C F A flat C E G and as you can see in this particular Lesson or demonstration I'm not even looking at the piano keyboard because I know my I know that I can trust the piano and my hands to get It right and to not make mistakes, you know So shifting becomes a lot easy on the piano if you know your inversions chord shifting And it's important to know that the ability of playing a chord on the piano If I were to tell you in your very first piano class play me F sharp minor You know if I didn't brand it as a tough chord or a difficult chord And I just said put one finger on this black note another finger on that white note and another finger on that black note You will play it but then the challenge is if I tell you play F sharp minor and then maybe play a C major You would know C major also perhaps in class number one C E G But this is the job the act of shifting is the actual problem or the actual Challenge when it comes to playing chords on not only the piano I would imagine most instruments you would be able to get a chord on even a guitar But or a banjo or ukulele or whatever But then are you confident to shift from that chord to the next chord in time in an real-world environment like a song with a singer with a drummer and a band on stage perhaps if That's a challenge. You definitely need to use inversion. So C E G will thus become F minor C F A flat and Similarly if you were to not start on the root position of C major Maybe start from the first inversion E G C you can still use the appropriate inversion or the most efficient inversion To go to the default F major and there are a lot of other advantages of doing this So I'm sure you'll agree with me that you might as well start learning chord inversions at the word go The the moment you do chords as a piano learner or if you are doing chords This is what you need to do You need to bring in the inversions and I have a few simple strategies First of all write down the triad in a neat round circle. So see E G And because of writing it in a neat round circle, you can extrapolate three shapes pretty easily in the closed shape As we call it or the piano inversions which are in the clockwise direction C E G or E G C or G C So you'll extrapolate three shapes and by the way if you go in the counterclockwise direction You're going to get well, we don't call them as piano inversions But they are very useful for music writing in general the spread shape So if you go in the reverse direction, you'll get C G E or E C G or G E C These are called as spread shapes which I'll come to shortly in the lesson So first and foremost shifting becomes very easy between chords and I've done a playlist on chord inversions So if you think about it from the word go if you take if you plant your hand in a certain position C major, okay, and now maybe close your eyes. Maybe I can do an F sharp minor F sharp major D7 E flat major 6th E minor F diminished Maybe F sharp augmented G minor just trying to randomize or jumble this E major E 7th C 7th F 7th B flat 7 flat 9 Maybe an E flat minor 7th Maybe an E minor 7th Maybe an E major or I repeated that fair enough F sharp minor A flat major D G You can even go around the circle of fifths perhaps with your eyes closed. That'll be a bit easier on the brain C F D flat E flat A flat D flat G flat or F sharp B E A D G C You can also do a circle of fifths in the clockwise direction C G D A E B F sharp D flat A flat E flat D flat F C And I don't think you can do this with your eyes closed if you were doing just the root positions of the chord, right? So we are made to believe I guess with two Rather or two or three rather wrong music education systems if you will one is Notation because when it looks good in notation, it's generally the root position So people teach that especially to kids when they start, you know, it just looks Root-like in nature, but it's a horrible way to start your chords because Generally speaking when you're learning a topic in life in general, I'm sure you might agree with me You can let me know in the comments the first Grasp of something you do in that subject is going to stick with you You know, if it's a language, it could be you know the important You know the pronouns or the nouns or the adjectives the important sentences, you know That will stick with you for I guess for life So you better have a good teacher or at least a good education system so bring in inversions right from the beginning and The other thing is these keyboards, which are sort of auto programmed to do cards if you play those cards in Inversions if you don't play them in the root position, they kind of give you wrong answers So to speak in this keyboard style of training or sometimes even in apps in recording apps So if if you buy if you're biased towards that then you're not really a keyboard or a piano player You're just a kind of a button pusher so to speak. So try to Try to kind of focus on it from a two-handed piano perspective where it's just white and black keys So definitely chord inversions will be useful at the very beginning Don't delay them in your education journey for later. Okay, there are some other reasons why chord inversions are useful If you were to play a chord with an inversion Let's say B flat major in its whatever inversion actually names are not even important. You just need to know the three shapes So if I play B flat major like this, you know For my year or for any human year the top note is generally going to ring The most it's going to be the most prominent or the most catchy for ourselves to a point that we can even sing it See Now I could sing the other notes F in the bottom or B flat in the Middle But it's this guy which seems to be sticking out a lot So because of inversions you can bring out the melody line very well in a in a song And it will also equip you as a solo piano player to make music with melody and harmony in one hand We've done a lot of videos on the same where I've used melodic arpeggios It's a very common technique which I use in music you can check out a video in the description But just just to show you I'm just gonna sing a tune See I found a chord and I've planted my pinky my higher finger highest finger on the Top note of that inversion and I'm telling myself. Hey, it's F major But with F on the top because that's the melody line and maybe And then B flat You Know so the topmost note will will will generally propel the melody line forward and you can put the pieces together Of the melody like a jigsaw puzzle so to speak by So I can play those notes and Then plant my hand On the new inversion of the target chord printed in your charts, whatever you read Maybe what's that that's your landing or the long one that's your D over B flat E flat major I Do this for the simplest of songs Pretty much anything in your actually you have one hand free on the piano You know so it is worthwhile learning chord inversions in the right hand to bring out the melody line We tend to have a biased approach towards playing the piano wherein chords are played in the left hand melody in the right hand That won't work in a band setting because this will make it very muddy For your guitar player and the other musicians, especially the bass instruments in the band So you'd rather make it a bit easy for everyone's ears cleaner Less muddy by playing chords on the top end and it'll be the icing on the cake if you can bring in the melody line On the top end so that's another reason you would definitely need to learn chord inversions So another reason would be a bit more from a musical composition perspective. That's the voicing So each voice you play in a given chord. So let's say C major in root position We'll have intervallic relationships between each of those notes. How many intervals are there? You might ask well There are actually three intervals for a three-note chord that might seem a bit obvious But trust me, it's not very obvious because for a two-note chord There you just have one interval for a four-note chord you have six intervals So we'll get to that maybe in another video. So if you take C major The intervals are C to E major third E to G minor third and C to G perfect fifth So our ear is processing all these three intervals together to get the sound now if you play an inversion It's a very different sounding Set of intervals, you know because it's E to G minor third first You have a perfect fourth by the way so the first inversion has a perfect fourth and You have this rather Serious minor sixth. So you have a minor third E to G Minus sixth at the extreme and a perfect fourth and the same story if you do a G C E again, it has a more different play. I would say this is a more grander inversion a grander sound while This is a more timid sound or a more Pensive sound even though a major chord as we learn in books is generally positive So you have a more assertive Textbook sound which you hear all the time This is a bit more pensive or a bit more introspective it's thinking while this is a lot more grander why the grand you might ask You have an interval G C which is a perfect fourth G E which is a very grand interval. That's a major sixth So very different intervallic relationships between the notes will happen And thus different voicing as we call it and where things get really interesting on the piano or as a composer in general On any instrument or even in a DAW software is when you adjust the voices to go beyond the octave So now if I take C major, I don't want to press the E here. I will Press it up the top Above the octave some musicians call this a tenth voicing And what's beautiful about it you can help the lower register a lot more harmonically Because if you played C major in the root position down below Absolute mud and chaos sometimes so It's a much better way to play C major Or maybe even C minor Okay Great for our pageos See there's a lot of pop songs out there which use this technique So you can open out the lower register in your productions in your compositions and arrangements by not being scared of Whether it will clash or anything see clashing is not a matter of clashing frequencies It's a matter of clashing intervals in my opinion and the lower you go The intervals are too close to each other in terms of yes pitch and frequency So they clash and you're not able to make out the intervals clearly like I said there are three intervals for a triad So for you to make them out better Spread them out more and they sound beautiful up top too Okay, so spread voicing versus closed voicing even with closed voicing as you saw you can generate different sonic textures Right, so I have a couple more reasons why you should use chord inversions And then to cap off the lecture we look at when you should not use chord inversions Let's look at actually you case studies where you should probably stick with root position So just stay tuned. So the other thing I would like to mention is voice leading the fact that it is easy to play It's easy to shift it also is easy to hear So that's the bonus you get on the piano, I guess see It's probably the only instrument we have in our musical family where what is easy to play is actually the best Sound sonically guitarists will get very annoyed when they understand this fact because usually on a guitar The best shapes you get are the most tricky to play if you ask me at least so on the piano C to F super easy you can play it with your eyes closed or with a blindfold if you enjoy that approach And look what's going on here Very smooth you can also hear every voice very smoothly and this is also what they call in music as voice leading So you can hear That's the lower voice and then As well as the higher voice In any inversion Now you put the common voice there So it becomes very orchestral you can literally assign each of these notes or voices To acquire or an orchestra or use different instruments and see how the textures come together Right and last but not least I'd like to look at a use case for chord inversions a very important use case using slash chords now Slash chords will drastically change the energy state of the chord in question. So if I take C major Generally speaking the base note would be C Like so, however, if I play C major with an E base Even though I have the root position going on here It doesn't sound very stable anymore. Does it? Reason being I would imagine that this is a completely different chord quality So knowledge of inversions can control the the mood or the the energy state of the chord I feel this is a tense chord It wants to resolve to F while C major with C base is just happy. It's at home sitting on a sofa Quite happy there, but C with E going to F C over E is highly unstable Once resolved similarly C over G C slash G as we call it C G Results to the dominant perhaps the G and then back to C because dominant wants to go to tonic So it's ironic that the tonic chord with a different base Results to the dominant and the dominant feels more at home, but then that wants to kind of Come back here. Similarly the tonic chord with a third base. I tend to call it one slash Number three normal three that helps me to remember because you have the third in the base and then I Don't know what the official Roman definition or Roman terminology for slash chords is so maybe you could leave out leave it in the comment If you've learned it a specific way, I'll be happy to see it But this is C slash E. I would call this one slash three Roman one slash normal three that results to F Again great voice leading but it's important to know that inversions help with Changing the energy state of chords, especially when you propel slash chords With a different base note in the lower register of your piano or any musical instrument in general In fact, this whole lesson doesn't pertain only to piano players You can probably try and check out these techniques with whatever Form of work in the music industry you do and let me know if it helped you I hope it did and these are just standard theoretical concepts now to conclude this lesson Is there going to be ever a case where we should say no bye-bye to chord inversions? I guess not after all this but maybe for a couple of things for example If you want to do some left-hand arpeggios And you want to hold on the root note with your pinky You're almost creating a very Rooted voice here. You're making this voice different than the remaining voices so in the case where Your hand is kind of divided into one part and part two where this is doing the job of a bass player The you will then need to think okay is the original chords as per the chord chart C major so you don't want to play that with a E bass because then the flavor will change the energy will change right so Especially in the left hand when you're doing arpeggios and when you have the ability to ring out one of the notes Prefer the roots Because that'll be as per the chart See that is an actual deliberate change because I wanted to play F slash a Now normal B flat major G major So in these cases you definitely need to consider not doing too many convenient inversions But focusing more on the actual sound that the bass register needs as per the chords printed in your progression Okay, the another reason would be when you're striding when you're kind of block moving away like for example This is a very standard pattern you hear in so many piano terms, right Now if you were to invert that It kind of makes that very it makes the non-root very important So I would say in cases where you're breaking up your chord in cases where you're Apeggiating the chord and creating a left-hand pattern with a very important root Probably play the chords as they are with the root position Instead of inversions but for the most part you have to know inversions as you journey forward as a pianist or as a Musician arranger songwriter whatever producer in general So hope you found the lesson useful if you did do leave us a comment hit the like button There's also a share button somewhere there and if you haven't subscribed yet It'll be awesome if you could hit that button nothing will happen to your computer try to hit it right now There's a bell as well and support us on patreon if that works for you. Cheers and catch you in the next video