How To Play The Nearest Chord Inversions In a Chord Progression…
How To Play The Nearest Chord Inversions In a Chord Progression
Good morning, this is Duane. Today I’d like to talk about moving to the closest inversions – the nearest chord inversions in a chord progression. We’ve learned all kinds of chords major, minor, diminished, augmented and so on, but it’s important to learn inversions for a couple reasons.
One, it makes you, give you more variety in your playing. In other words, that’s the C chord that’s the first inversion of the C chord, that’s the second inversion of the C chord. Same of course in the right hand, okay?
You can play a lot smoother if instead of jumping from the root of a chord to a root of another chord to the root of another chord is moving more smoothly by moving to the closest inversion. For example, if I move from C to F maybe the smoothest move would be to keep the C, because that’s part of the F chord, and just move the two top notes up. That’s a lot smoother than (plays the chords).
If I move to G, what would be the closest inversion? Probably that (plays chord) probably move the two bottom notes down and keeping the G. (Plays the chords)
If I was moving to D, what would the closest inversion be? It might be this (plays chords) or that might be close enough to just move to the root position. If I was moving to D 7th though I’d go like this (plays chords). That’s real smooth if you have a 7th in it because you can keep that C.
Anytime you can sustain one note, a note that in both the first chord and the second chord, do that whenever you can do that. (Plays chords) see I’m moving from C to F there, but I’m keeping the C. I’m moving from C to B flat what would I do? Instead of going (plays chords) it’s smoother to do that. The same with A flat or G flat. Go to the closest inversion whatever that is.
When I’m playing voicings like this, like if I’m playing the Blues, (plays chords) if when I move to G I’ll go like this (plays chords). You see how much closer that is? Move that chord to that chord. If I was moving to F I’d probably go like that. Let me just play a little bit.
[Plays the piano 00:02:40 — 00:02:53]
See how, see the F 7th?
[Plays the piano 00:02:56 — 00:03:03]
Sorry, hard to follow that because I’m swinging down to a low noted, but the point is I’m just moving like that from the C chord I’m playing C 6th 9th, but to play F 7th I’m just moving to that because with a low, I need to play a lot F 2, but that provides a smooth move. Sometimes I go like that (plays chords).
All I’m doing there is moving up the half a step, another half a step would do that. Let me do that.
[Plays the piano 00:03:39 — 00:03:46]
My point is move to the, two points learn all the inversions of the chords you play and then try to move to the closest inversion of the next chord. It’ll make your playing smoother.
If you grew up playing organ, people that grew up playing organ understand this because on the organ as soon as you let the keys up there’s no sustain pedal the sound goes away. They have to create. I once did a recording of a lesson that I called “How to be a real creep” and it talked about creeping like that from chord to chord. That was for the organ, but it applies for piano too to some extent.
(On screen: Free Email Newsletter on “Piano Chords & Chord Progressions” at www.PlayPiano.com)
That’s a little tip for today. Hope that helps a bit and if you enjoy this kind of thing come on over to Play Piano and sign up for our free newsletter. We send it out most every day and it’s loaded with stuff like this, so if you like it come on over. Thanks, bye.