 Hi guys, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about a very common question which is asked either in YouTube comments or on our Patreon or very commonly in my classes at the school which we run regularly. A student always has this question, what is the difference between an inversion and a slash chord? Or people just don't understand inversions that well or the impact it has on music or people don't understand what to do with a slash chord when you see like a C slash E or G or something. So in this lesson, we are here to kind of demystify that if you will and just look at what, how we'll define both the terminologies, what is an inversion, what is a slash chord and all the bells and whistles. So get your piano out, you could get a book out if you wish and all of these notes are supplemented, my handwritten notes will be available on our Patreon page, you could consider downloading a copy and for those of you who consider like the $5 subscription, you're going to get this and pretty much everything we've done in the past and what we are going to continue to do in the future as well. So do consider becoming a member on Patreon, there are a lot more other perks you could check out on the platform as well and before we get cracking, it will be awesome if you could hit that subscribe button, hit the bell icon for regular notifications, we do release quite regular content as some of you already know. So do consider the bell and hitting that subscribe button now if possible. Okay, let's start. Now chord inversions are a very age old music theory concept, so just to define it briefly, you take a triad C major chord. Now the way we normally learn this chord is we take the root, then we populate the third, it will be a major third if it's a major chord, it will be a minor third if it's a minor chord and then most triads major minor will be then ending with a fifth at the top end. C E G or C E flat G that would be C minor. Now this is how we are taught the chord, it also looks nice in a notation environment, you know when you see the notes stack up C E G but in reality this is not the only way to play that chord, there are so many more ways to play then there are ways which make it easy on the hand, easy to play the chords in a progression as well as easy to compose and understand chord progressions, songwriting and music theory. So that's what we are going to try and brainstorm in this lesson. So if you take let's say the C major chord which is C E G, the first advice I would have for you is don't look at it in a line of notes, C E G, look at it in a circle. So C E G in a circle, so when you look at something in a circle you have different starting points, it's not like a line which can get a bit annoying at times because you have to then recycle it, it looks weird so I like the circle analogy. So if you look at the C major chord circularly, you will find that there are three starting points and if you count clockwise you can have C E G, if you count continue to count clockwise but decide that E is your starting pitch, you can then go E G C. So that's E G C, then if you start with G, you'll have G as your starting pitch and then you have G C E, so C E G, E G C, G C E, these become what we know as piano inversions or chord inversions. So this can be very useful. Now if you have another triad, let's say you have F major chord, so you have C E G, textbook C major, F major is F A C, textbook F major. Now to go from here to here it starts becoming very very annoying because you have to look at it for a start. So what do we do? We find an inversion from the first chord which takes us neatly to the second chord or if we commit to the first chord like that then we have to find the most efficient way to go to the next chord. So in the case of C E G going to F major you'd go F major, C major, F major, C major. Check that out. Okay now this is the standard way of using inversions or the standard way of actually playing chords. So most piano players you know just do this. You know I want to go C and then A flat and then F. See I'm not even needing my eyes to do this. It's just like playing the guitar. You have that C A G E D system on the guitar which can allow you to change chords quite smoothly especially those fancy bar chords at times. So you go piano inversions just to make things easy to shift. Okay so that is generally what chord inversions do traditionally for a piano player. It makes the idea of shifting from one chord to the other more smooth and also if you observe the connection between the notes we call this as voice leading. The notes lead into the next note very very smoothly. See you can literally sing the top note. Or you can sing the middle note movement. That's E going to F or you can sing the bottom note. C staying on C. This offers some really nice voice leading between the chords and so on. You can do it with any chords. That's a very nice smooth way to move your harmony. So that is in a nutshell inversion. You take the chord you take like a C major C E G you draw. You can have C E G E G C G C E. Another thing which is interesting piano inversions can also be looked at in three more ways. The textbook tells us there are only three generally but there are actually six. So for that you can have the spread chords which will basically be drawing C major in the neat round circle but not counting clockwise. You're counting counter the clock. So what was once C E G will now become C G E. Sounds beautiful when you play it lower and even lower. This is how I play chords in my left hand. Most people play chords in the left hand because if you play it as normal triads it's going to sound as annoying as that. So spread chords to make your triads sound beautiful and rich in the left hand or in any hand is also what I call as orchestral inversions because if you're composing harmony for an orchestra this is how you visualize your notes. You want them to be wider apart. At the same time lead well to the next chord. Get lost with the vocal line just using these inversions which are spread because at the end of the day the spread chords allow your brain or your ear to react to all the three notes of the chord as though they are almost melodic in nature rather than a stack of three notes which just plonks down like C major just whack down. So that is in a nutshell the difference between a piano inversion and what I call a spread triads or playing chords in a closed position or playing chords in an open position closed open okay or piano inversions or spread chords. So with a spread chord you're counting the circle counterclockwise. Now before I explore slash chords give you that depiction and then we are going to compare and contrast what is a chord inversion how do you use that versus a slash chord. I would encourage you also after the lesson to check out the description we have a lot of topics already covered on the subjects of chord inversions voice leading slash chords. So a lot of you may be asking these things in the comments before you do do consider heading over to the description and you have a nice plan after this lesson to perhaps study a few more topics of interest which could help you right. So let's now move forward to understanding slash chords after which we compare them with inversions. So a slash chord you need to tell yourself it's all about the base. So in a slash chord context you're going to have two ingredients you're going to have the triad which will be having its usual symbol example C major how does a person write it C capital C then you're going to have a slash a forward slash and then you will have a note. So it's a chord on the left of the slash and a note on the right of the slash. Now what is that note that is a base note. So it's not the high note it's the lowest note of that chord. So if you have a scenario where you have C slash C that is the usual way of playing C major chord like this. So hence we don't even need to bother writing C slash C. We can just write C C major but in the event that you're going to have another base note like an E showcasing in the bottom. You need to write C forward slash E. So if I sing it the right hand is going C E G while the left hand is holding the E not C. You also see the vibe change right. A slash chord has a rather unstable vibe. If you ask me a little bit of a tension in there right while a normal chord how you would play C major has a very stable sound again. C major and C slash and the way I'd like to look at slash chords is in two levels and a lot of this has been covered on our YouTube channel. You can just filter type slash chords or you could go to Netanyl school dot com the website and you can access these things in a in a very organized way. So first layer or level of slash chords would be to play a different note which is not which is part of the card but not the root of the card. So what are the two options I have for a C major. I could have C slash E or I could have C slash G. So these are your traditional slash chords C slash G or I could have C slash E and you have the normal one as well C slash C which is sounding very stable compared to the other two. The other level of slash chords would be a C major in the treble area with a note which is not even part of the triad in the left hand. For example, you have a D or you could have a A flat. So this ends up sounding very interesting because you're adding an extra note to the chord. It's no longer a triad. It's a ninth chord or eleventh chord or very modal chord which brings out the sound of a mode. In this case, it reminds me of a Lydian sound to be flat Lydian. So this can even give you the sound of a scale in that sense. So a slash chord is quite sophisticated. If you think about it at the word go at the bare minimum, it at least changes the natural stable resolved function of a normal triad. So C major, that's how you play it. So the point we need to make here is whether you play C major in any of the three piano inversions. C major, if we consider it to be happy and stable, you change the inversion. See, it's still happy and stable. You change the inversion to G C E. I think it's still happy and stable. But if you alter the bass, it's a complete shift. It's almost as though you can't call it C major anymore. You have to call it something else, which is why they say C slash E or C slash G. It's just that the symbol can be a bit daunting. So again, to revise, a slash chord has two parts, the thing to the left of the slash and the thing to the right of the slash. Left of the slash is the name of the chord C major. Could be C minor also. You write C M or the symbol of the chord and then slash base. What is the base? It could be C major with a G C major with E. Maybe C minor with an E flat. C minor with a G. I'll just fool around a bit. F with an A. That's F major in the right hand and in the left hand base. A flat major, A flat major with a C in the base. That's E flat slash C. That's major in the that's your chord with F sharp as its base. That's D minor with an F base. D minor that's D with an F base. That's A major with an E base with a D sharp base. B major with an F sharp base. B major with an A base. B major with a G base. And so on, you get the idea. So that's just a little bit of fun on slash chord. So I guess you've got some idea already by now in a nutshell chord inversions, the basic piano chord inversions don't really change the tonality or the vibe or the mood or the emotion the chord gives you. For major chord or a minor chord sounds like that. The inversion won't change a thing because chord inversions on a piano, you can anyway play them above middle C or in and around middle C. If you play them low, then it won't sound good in the first place. Then you have to play them with spread chords. So in the left hand, we generally play the root of the chord. In the slash chord, you're actually changing the root. So that creates a very different vibe because when we process a chord, when we hear a chord, it's, as I said earlier, all about that base. So it's no longer a C chord. It's more like an E chord, which we call C slash E. Because E governs the impact your year processes the data of the chord. When the year hears all this, the brain has to feel something and that response starts with the vibe from E. So that vibe comes to us and if not anything complex, we could at least argue that this feels like it's a bit more tense versus this is a lot more stable. And if you think about it, even if you take the two slash chords over C, if you take C over E and if you don't believe it's tense, here's a hint or here's a prompt to play F major after this. So you have C over E going to F. So and then if you take C over G, C over G going to G. So C slash E wants to go to F. C slash G goes to G. Practice that as a nice drill. Slash major. Slash major. So you could argue that a slash chord wants to resolve to something else rather than it being stable on its own. OK, guys. So in conclusion, I have a nice chart you could consider getting on our Patreon where we just look at the comparisons or the pros and cons, if you will, between the inversions and the slash chords. First of all, an inversion gives you the same vibe and the same emotion no matter what, while the slash chord, we change our vibe. This is piano inversions, while slash chords change the vibe. The second point is the chord function for an inversion, whatever be it, root inversion, first inversion or second inversion, the chord function remains the same. That means if C is the first chord of the C major scale, whichever inversion you play it in will remain as function one. If C is the fourth chord of which scale, C is the fourth chord of the G major scale, right? So it will still function as the four. C is the fifth chord of maybe what else, maybe the F major scale. So it will still remain as the five of the F major scale. So inversions don't change the function of the chord, but with slash chords, they definitely change the function like C over E is more like a three chord going to F. It's also like a dominant chord of the next resolving or the next landing. So the function on a slash chord or the scale degree appears to be very different in a slash chord. Now, another important difference is an inversion is usually played in the right hand on the piano with the left hand playing the chord roots, while the slash chords are generally played by altering the root of the chord in the left hand and playing whichever inversion you want in the right hand. You play first inversion as long as your base changes. It's a slash chord. And last but not least, an inversion gives you a very static sound, a very stable resolved sound for major or minor, while a slash chord seems to yearn for the next landing. It's almost like a bridge chord, you know, like this is how a normal triad will sound very static, stable, homely, while a slash chord has this push or a bridge like quality and wants to go somewhere else like a C over E wants to go to F or a C over G wants to go to G and then back home, maybe that's a nice thing to practice. I guess C slash E F C slash G G, which is the dominant of the home, which is C major. You can probably just do that as a package to conclude or culminate your learning. Right, guys. Thanks a ton for watching the video. Hope the video clarified a few of your doubts in the field of music theory and piano, piano organization of notes in general. And do stay, stay tuned to our channel for a lot more lessons. You can do that by hitting that subscribe button and hitting the bell icon for regular notifications on our Patreon page. There'll be all these supplementary notes which will help you learn the lesson better, so do consider being a member on our Patreon page. As always, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music and do consider visiting our website from time to time. We have regular courses there. You can learn classes with me in person or you can even look at our prerecorded video content, which is for members only. So cheers, catch you in the next one.