 This is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson, we are going to practice chord inversions on the piano, of course, a very important topic. We are going to do this in a very fun, interesting and musical way using nothing but the circle of fifths. A very important tool which all musicians need to learn, the circle of fifths. So essentially everything you plot out would be a fifth in the clockwise direction. C, G, D, A, E, B, F sharp, D flat, A flat, E flat, B flat, F, C in that direction and in the counter clockwise direction, those would be descending fifths or fourths if you think about it. C, F, B flat, E flat, A flat, D flat, G flat also known as F sharp, B, E, A, D, G, C. So the circle of fifths helps us with a lot of things. It helps us with scale detection, key signatures, coming up with chord progressions, understanding intervals. And we've packaged this in a YouTube playlist called Circle of Fifths. Pretty much everything you need to know about this amazing circle will be on our YouTube channel, on the playlist, do check out the playlist, they'll be helpful to learn topics like chord inversions, circle of fifths, hand independence, playing your favorite songs, we also do that from time to time and a lot more other chapters of music if you will. So we take the circle of fifths, we're going to build what's called as cadences. I'm going to explain cadences and we look at one cadence mainly for this lecture, that's the plagal cadence, which is a four to one motion, we'll take one root of interest and then look at a variety of rhythmic skills that you need to develop to not only improve your hand coordination and general rhythm awareness, but also to have some fun. Otherwise the chords and the chord progression you play will just be like a drill or an exercise, which might be a bit boring. So before we get started, it'll be awesome if you can consider hitting that subscribe button and turn on the bell icon for regular notifications and my handwritten notes along with staff notation, MIDI files, backing tracks for a lot of our YouTube lectures are available and waiting for you on our Patreon channel for just $5 a month. Let's get cracking. So I'm going to take B in the circle of fifths and for the initial part of the lecture, we'll assume that everything we are going to play are major chords. So B major, let's first get acquainted with B major. So if you look at the circle of fifths, B is somewhere, right? It's at five o'clock in the circle, if you think about it, C, G, D, A, E, B. So B is at five, plagal cadence would be approaching B. Now it approaches B from the one before it. So counterclockwise in the circle, counter means the other way, will be E, isn't it? E would be the neighbor of B. So you move counterclockwise from B and you get E and that's what we are going to practice initially. The first chord progression would be E going to B. E major going to B major and if you play B major here, the question now would be how do you play E major in the most efficient way? The circle of fifths, the neighbors of the circle of fifths would have at least one note in common. In fact, they will have one note in common. So if you take B major and then E major, what do E major and B major have in common? If you look at it, they have a B in common. So what do we do to this B? If B major chord was to be landed this way, B D sharp F sharp. So how would you play E major then? You would want to play E major retaining the position of the common note or notes in some cases. So what you could do is keep that B ringing down in the same position. We have three positions for a three-note chord. You'll have the low position, the middle position and the high position. So since the low position has a common note namely B, you keep that consistently down. Keep it there itself and move or jumble the other notes so that you get the E major chord. Also provides for much better voice leading. Things like these chords are meant to go with each other. So this is E major in what we call as the second inversion because the root is in the center. So you need to play the second inversion of E major and then resolve to the B major. One, two, three, four, change, two, three. What I'm currently doing, I'm doing it in both my hands, two, three, four, one, two, three, four count, two, three, four, two, three and whenever you get better with the drill you can do it one, two, two beats each which is what I would recommend. Two, this is the plagal cadence, three, four. So you're moving circle of fifths counter clock neighbor to the root. So that's E going to B and you have to practice it in the most efficient and the most pleasant sounding way from a chord voicing perspective wherein you find the common notes or note in this case you have B common. This is your target. This will be your first chord E major targeting to B major two, three, four, one, two, three. You're not so sure of doing it every two counts. You can do it every four counts, one, two, three, four, two, both hands, four, one, two or else you can do the roots of the chord in the left hand, root of E major is basically the name of the chord that's E, E in the bass, B, B in the bass, E is B, B in the bass, E, B or plate with both hands playing the chord holes or you can try different chord patterns in both hands. I'm doing like an arpeggio in the right hand and blocking in my left hand or maybe arpeggio in the left hand and block in the right hand something like this up to you whatever passes the time the best while you practice. So four, one, okay. Let's move forward and I'm going to give you some rhythmic variations but stay tuned. Now you're going to the root position of B via the second inversion of E major. Now let's do this considering that B is going to be my target in the first inversion now. So first inversion of B will have the root on the top and now you might need to ask yourself how do I go to this shape of B major? What's the most efficient way? The answer would be keep that B consistent. Remember the common notes do not change. It's still E major having B on top. Having B on top again E major. There we go. Two, three. Now it's just that the B is on top with the pinky finger and root position of E, plagal cadence down to B major in its first inversion. Practice this. You can sing along something, keep that going, it's still E to B. Change your rhythms as you like or just play the roots. We have one more option. You're ending with the first inversion of B major. What if we end up with the second inversion of B major which is F sharp, B D sharp. Now what's the most efficient way to do this? You have the B in the center sliding down to D sharp. I prefer this the most because it gives you that nice high melody line. It's also used at the end of a church hymn. It's called the Amen Cadence. The plagal cadence is very useful in a lot of genres, blues, gospel. You go keep your B consistent in the middle. Let's revise all the shapes again, E major in its second inversion resolving to B in the root. So one, two, three. I'm doing two counts each. One, two, moving on, resolving to the first inversion of B. Then resolving to the second inversion of B major, which is B in the middle. Ultimately B is common, isn't it? Now you could do this same exercise not with the plagal cadence but you can do this with what we call as the authentic cadence or the perfect cadence by going the other way in the circles. You're resolving counterclockwise by going, well, what is the other neighbor of B you ask yourself. So B, the counterclock neighbor was E. What is the clock neighbor of B? The clock neighbor, clockwise neighbor is F sharp, isn't it? So then F sharp will resolve to the B. I want to resolve to the root of B. So F sharp, B, F sharp, B, F sharp, B, F sharp, B, and then you jump your inversions and F sharp but in the next inversion and what's the common note between F sharp and B? It would be the fifth degree of B, which is F sharp. F sharp, F sharp, F sharp stuck in the bottom. But you get this nice melodic line on top and inside you get, you get that voice. And then F sharp register, always be one register, which is the same. Okay. Then this is the other shape higher notice. Remember, I'm still moving from five to one, which is the authentic cadence. Try to sing maybe the middle note, which is F sharp. And then C sharp, going to D sharp. Similarly, with the plagal that I taught you earlier, you're going E to B, right? So whichever version you go, let's say you take the higher one and the middle voice retains, what is this in all the three inversion possibilities? Okay. And now let's move forward to some rhythmic challenges. The first rhythmic challenge is not only piano. It's going to be piano with snapping. Now, before we get the snapping going, let's clear the way or let's clear out the twos and the fours because I want you to snap at two and four. So let's make an interesting rhythm for the hands. And the rhythm is one and two and three and four. And so instead of doing one and two and three and four, and which is on the downbeats, three and four and one and two. Instead of that, we go one and two and three and four and one and two and three. So the target chord or the second chord will land at the end of the two. And of the two in simple words means in between B two and three at the 50 percent mark of the B two. So one and two and three and four and two and two. So do this with all the shapes and two and three and four and one and two. And then we jump to the next inversion. Three and four and one and two and three and four. One and two and three. And then the last one and two and three and four and one and two. Three and come back down. And this noise which I'm making is kind of like the snare drum noise. And that's what I want you to do with the snaps and four and identify the two and the four and two and three and four and one and two by probably saying it a bit louder one and two and three and four and one and two. Slightly tricky when you're playing the piano and doing this, but you have to practice and one and two and that's the first challenge. One and two and three and four and one and two. And now we snap at those one and two and three and four and one and two, three and four. Now, this is rather weird because we don't play piano by lifting our hands off the off the board, but it's a it's a good challenge to stay in time and also to recover your chord, a good way to know chord inversions. As I tell students is to play them without the eyes. So one way is, you know, don't look and you just get your chords like most guitar players, a lot of guitar players play chords without really looking. So same thing on the piano, but to take this to the next level. Remove your hand and and do a snap. You're not just doing that. You're snapping at the at the beach. That's your challenge. And you have to recover at the end. And if you wish, you can use your pedal without the pedal. It sounds quite nice. With the pedal, you can hold down till the next chord hit. So two and three and four and press and you're lifting before the next chord. You don't want to do one and two and three and then the two chord sounds will clutter into each other. That's the job. Practice that and then do it on all the other inverse. The next one and keep shifting and have some fun if you can by singing. Sing anything you want, really. There's a lot going on. The foot's on the pedal. You're singing, changing the inversions and snapping alongside all this. So this is a good chord inversions exercise because you're practicing a very important cadence, a plagal cadence and the authentic cadence, which is a five to one or arguably music's most popular, time-tested chord progressions. They've used in modern day music and they've been used since the time of Bach and the classical era. So moving forward, we can also try and get a little bit of melody into the party. So let's try and figure something out. Now, you're doing E to the B, maybe we can bring in a tune like La la la la la let's get that done. Let's try now. The beauty here is you're doing you're kind of in this shape. So this shape inspires us to make a melody, which is because these are the close by notes, right? But what happens when we go here? Quite like that. You know or you can experiment as long as you are on the maybe the key of B which has five sharps so that could be something like 1, 2, 7, 1 or but now I changed my inversion because I wanted the G or the 3 to come so as you can see you can get a bit carried away with this environment I would encourage you to practice it creatively as creatively as possible maybe or I like that in the vicinity of the chord you float around a melodic line let's see what happens in this already I'm thinking that sounds more like the chariots of fire theme right anyway so with this whole ecosystem you can get a lot of melody going but remember the chord should be at that offbeat or that eighth note movement you can even if you want to simplify the melody maybe you can play something like this let's go back to the original shape and get maybe just that two notes or that works and sing as you play otherwise you'll be lost because the piano is now taking up or tackling chords and melodies you don't want the melody line to be lost best way to track it is with your voice because your voice is a monophonic instrument it's just going to do one note at a time and then jump up that's quite nice just because of the shape and then you go that's quite nice or there are a lot of permutations because that passing note or those other notes which are not part of the chord are part of the scale so then the scale will give you a lot of possibilities as long as you're within that that physical shape or that physical hand hold within the hand hold you can move wherever you need to go following that rhythm pattern right so before we conclude this lesson we've been playing two chords in the circle of fifths via a plagal for the most part I did teach you authentic as well what's wrong if we do three chords and the same circle of fifths should hold good if it's pulling or magnetically locking from e to b why can't it continue to lock from something to e and then e to the b what is that something the the neighbor of e counterclockwise would be a right so you can now do a e b there we go a e b and the roots would be a e b a e b but the inversions are very efficient there to prove that it's efficient it's almost melody like in nature see that's literally the top note of the piano I'm not making that note up I'm just singing you the top note of the piano and with the voice of melodically you can create some melodic movement maybe that's the other shape if I want to end this way on b I'll have to do a like that a will have a common note with e what is that e e and then e will have a common note with b which is b so maybe let's experiment with this shape of a which is a root and ends with a second inversion of b maybe combine them for your information if you add a e b they are part of the b mixolydian scale they're not part of the b major which is that they're part of the b mixolydian which is has that a which is a flat seven there so that would be the seven flat of the b major scale e would be the four major of the b major scale and b would be the one major so the mixolydian mode will give you that automatic plagal movement which is two plagal cadences now if you want to study the theory of all this we've linked up a set of cadences lessons you can check some of them out to study these cadences in detail and also we've explored the mixolydian mode a lot on our channel and I also compose a lot on the mixolydian I love the scale probably way more than even the major scale so you can check out some of my compositions which are available on our riffs website those are the daily pieces we release every other day so do check them out now we've done three cards I don't want to stop there leave the lesson a little bit unfinished what about four cards so with three cards what you do is one two and three and four and one and two and so if you're practicing three chords one challenge which you might face would be the duration it will end up or it might end up naturally being a three bar chord progression three bar chord progressions are a bit rare mostly it'll be two bars or four bars even numbers so if you plate one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four you know and two and three and four and one and two and three you know you're ending halfway even if you put the cards within the bar so what do you do maybe repeat one and two and three and four and repeat the e and then move in that works pretty well I think one and two and three and four or you can repeat the previous card and two and three and four and two and three a repeated than two or elongated or you can do one and two and three and four and one and two and three you know stuff like that but I prefer a e e be continue the snapping a e snap e snap be snap a snap e snap e snap be and you may find that oh one and two and and then you can't get the actual chord that's the point of it otherwise it won't be an exercise it's supposed to help you get the chord immediately bang e a pretty fast you need to be pretty fast at finding the chords and plonking them down on the keys so I don't want to end the video with just three chord progressions let's do one more again the circle of ifs will be the supporter of this concept now you can keep doing the plagal movement you can even explore all the 12 chords in the circle and finally land with our target chord B but we just end with four cards for now so what is four o'clock now backwards we did a e b what's before a that'll be D no so D a e b so that's D a D in its root position a with its first e with its second and back to be in its root so D and then the next deep repeat so on and so forth and practice for your inversions and in this lesson there are two things we didn't dive into so much so to speak we didn't do the authentic movement that's also a lot of fun the fives going to once and one more thing we didn't do would be exploration of the triad in specific do you want to do major chords all the time or maybe you want to flip this whole process around and do minor chords the plagal for minor works really well you can do minor minor or you can even do you can do major minor it's still a 4 to 1 isn't it that's Dorian very well so your mode or your scale will be built just using this model movement or these two cards that's minor versus Dorian so Lydian with a flat six for a while until you get acquainted with major to major just do that until you got it on all the inversion just remember you can do major major minor minor major and major and minor each of those will translate into different modes right guys hope you found the lesson useful don't forget to get yourself the handwritten notes on our patreon page and a lot more that will support our channel as well and if you haven't already do consider hitting that subscribe button hit the bell icon for regular notifications and do leave us a comment with suggestions that you might have and share the video with your friends family that'll be awesome and also if you'd like to learn structured courses at Nathaniel School of Music we have guitar classes drums vocals and obviously piano you can learn these as online courses from any part of the world or you can even consider offline in our two Bangalore centers head over to NathanielSchool.com and you can speak or reach out to one of our course advisors there cheers and catch you in the next one