If you've ever been reading a chord chart and seen a chord like G/F#, this lesson will explain what the heck to play. Like seventh chords, inversions can give your music some awesome variety so you can get away from standard progressions and play something more interesting.
Let's take C major. The notes are C E G. Usually, a bass player or guitar plays C (also called the root note) as the lowest note. If you play a C chord on your guitar, the bottom note you play is C. The same goes for all your "basic" guitar chords.
But if you change the lowest note to another note in the chord, you get an "inversion". So if you played a C major like this...
...you would have a G in the bass. I'm not changing chords here! All I'm doing is putting a G in the bass, a note that's already in the chord. The notes are all still C, E, or G.
You write that chord like this: C/G. The left letter is the chord you play, and the right letter is the note in the bass - the lowest note. If you're a bass player, you play the G.
You can make inversions out of any chord. You can also put "random" other notes in the bass. Try playing a C/F or something wacky like that. See what sounds good. You might hear some interesting sounds. Keep in mind that inversions of a chord only include notes that are IN the chord. If it's another note, I just call it a fraction chord.
It's ok to not play the original bass note when you play fraction chords, because you don't want your bass to get too "muddy" with competing low notes.
Here's a brief synopsis of one major and minor chord with their inversions:
Two Inverted Chords
One use of fraction chords is "walk-downs" and "walk-ups". These are used ALL the time in many styles. They make the transitions between chords more graceful. They can be simple one-extra-note ones, but some can have more notes involved. On your guitar, play G and then Em - a standard chord change. To make it more interesting, play this:
That G/F# is used a lot in music to transition from Em to G or the other way around. But played by itself, it sounds pretty bad. Usually these kinds of chords are just used to transition. Click here for a chart of commonly-used walk-down/up chords from guitarist Paul Baloche.
SO many songs use this technique. Just a few that pop into my head are "Piano Man" by Billy Joel, "When a Man Loves a Woman" by Percy Sledge, "Holy Diver" by Killswitch Engage, "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd, "Tonight, Tonight" by Smashing Pumpkins, "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding, "Name" by the Goo Goo Dolls, "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix, "Stairway to Heaven", and I could go on and on. Those were just a few I found in my music library.
A pedal tone is a sustained note usually in the bass. Think of a bassist playing the same note "Doot doot doot doot" while the guitar changes chords above it. Here's my example:
D Pedal with Chord Changes
Writing out what I was playing here might look something like this:
D A/D G/D Em/D etc...
Here's a neat exerpt from Wikipedia on the subject with some examples of bands/artists that use them (it says pedal "points", same thing):
Rock guitarists have used pedal points in their solos, especially neoclassical guitarists such as Yngwie Malmsteen. Other rock guitarists that use pedal points in solos are Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, John Petrucci, Jason Becker, Paul Gilbert, John Sykes and Vinnie Moore. Pedal points can be heard on records such as Vinnie Moore's "Time Odyssey" and "Mind's Eye"'; Yngwie Malmsteen's "Rising Force"; Jason Becker's "Perpetual Burn"; and Richie Kotzen's "Fever Dream". Thrash metal in particular makes abundant use a muted low E string (or lower, if other tunings are used) as a pedal point. Examples of thrash metal bands that make use of a muted low E string pedal point include: Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax.
The idea didn't originate with these guys; pedal tones have been used for hundreds of years by composers like Sibelius and Brahams, and by jazz composers like Duke Ellington.
Here's an exerpt of a song that uses a pedal in the chorus. Listen to the bass - he stays on the same note pretty much the whole song while the keyboard changes chords:
Fly Like An Eagle - Steve Miller Band
Those are the most common uses of these chords, but feel free to experiment with some funky fraction chords and integrate them into your progressions. Learn to hear how a chord sounds if a note other than the root is in the bass. This will help with figuring out songs and chords on your own.
Do NOT step on your bass player's toes! If you are playing with a bassist, it's a good idea not to play ANY bass notes (or just roots) and let him be creative in the low end. Let him handle all walkdowns, walkups, pedals, and fraction chords. He will appreciate it and the music will sound better.
