Chord inversions

[Brad Kozak]

Ever wonder why a chord you play in one song sounds so good, but just doesn't work as well in another context? You know you're playing the right chord, but it just doesn't sound "right"? Sometimes all you need to do is to consider the voicing of the chord, but to do that, you need to understand how chords are built. We'll use the Key of G for our examples, but this works in EVERY major key.

To understand voicings, we have to start with how chords are built.

Let's take a G scale, and number the notes from 1 through 7:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1
G A B C D E F# G

In order to harmonize within the context of a diatonic scale, we need to figure out what chords can be made from a scale. Here's a guide to how chords are built on the root of a scale:

Major: 1 - 3 - 5
minor: 1 - b3 - 5
Augmented: 1 - 3 - #5
Diminished: 1 - b3 - b5

In the key of G, that means:

Major: G - B - D
minor: G - Bb - D
Augmented: G - B - D#
Diminished: G - Bb - Db

(Note: for some obscure reason, you always put the accidental symbol in FRONT of a note NUMBER, but BEHIND a note NAME.)

That's cool, and everything, but what does that mean for harmonizing?

Let's take a step back for a second. Take a look at a chromatic scale, on either a fretboard or a keyboard. When we build chords, the important thing to remember is the intervals between the notes. From the root (G) you go up four half-steps (or four frets) to the third (B) and three more half steps to the fifth (D). Those intervalic relationships work to build a major chord no matter what note you start with. Start with a Bb and go up four frets and then another three, and you'll have the notes in a Bb chord.

To follow that logic on out, take a look at this:

Major: 1 ( + four 1/2 steps) 3 (+ three 1/2 steps) 5
minor: 1 ( + three 1/2 steps) b3 ( + four 1/2 steps) 5
Augmented: 1 ( + four 1/2 steps) 3 ( + four 1/2 steps) #5
Diminished: 1 ( + three 1/2 steps) b3 ( + three 1/2 steps) b5

If you turn this around the other direction, you can see how we can figure out what kind of chords are made up by playing every-other-note in a diatonic scale:

G A B C D E F# G

G B D = MAJOR chord
A C E = minor chord
B D F# = minor chord
C E G = MAJOR chord
D F# A = MAJOR chord
E G B = minor chord
F# A C = diminished chord

Wow! Now we can see why the chords built on the root (I) the fourth (IV) and the fifth (V) are so important - and frequently used...it's because they are the ONLY MAJOR CHORDS YOU CAN MAKE FROM THE NOTES OF A DIATONIC SCALE. This is some useful information here. If you create an original melody (and the notes stay within the major, diatonic scale), one (or more) of the chords built from the notes of the scale will harmonize with the melody.

Think about that for a second. If you're in the Key of G Major, and your melody note is B, then you could use the G chord, the B minor chord, or the E minor chord, and it would harmonize without any dissonance.

Way cool.

Once you understand this, you can start to understand why some chords work with a melody - and why some don't.

My dad (who turned pro at the tender age of four, and was a Vaudeville star) used to tell me, "when you harmonize a song, there's a "chord," there's the "right chord," and there's the "best chord" to use. Anybody can fumble around long enough and figure out a chord that works. Knowing music theory makes you a better player - and arranger - because you will understand how chords work, and how to find the best chord.

In part two of this post, I'll cover inversions and voicings.

[Ernie Campbell]

I do not understand when I can use which chord.Can I use them in traditional bluegrass tunes?Say the band is on the chord of d major can I mix in some different chords to spice the song up and what chords could I use?I get bored just chopping in time,and am searching for a way to make some songs a little more interesting.Most of the time I just play with a singer and a guitar player.

[Jim Broyles]

Of course you can use alternate chords in traditional bluegrass, but you may get some funny looks if you do it. Traditional bluegrass is usually played by people who want to hear it a certain way, with the "boring" chops and plain old major, dominant 7th and minor chords. If you want to mix in a spicy sound to the D major you asked about, try adding the 6th, which would be a B note. If you play a D major and add in a B and a C, it will be a 13th, which is a cool substitute for a I chord. If your D major is a V chord, try adding a C and an E to it and make it a 9th chord. The numbers are simply which degree of the major scale it is. A D major scale is D-1 E-2 F#-3 G-4 A-5 B-6 C#-7. When a chord symbol is a plain old 7th - such as - D7, it means you flat the 7th half a step - a D7 has a C natural instead of a C#.

What Brad is saying is that if the band is playing a D major chord, and the melody note is, say, an F#, an F# minor and a B minor, both of which contain an F# note, will "go with" the melody without sounding "wrong." Now, it could still sound wrong if it is a familiar song and the change is too radical, but harmonically, it would fit.

There is way more to this than my short post here. A look into the basics of music theory would do you a world of good, if you want to learn a bunch of cool possibilities when it comes to playing music.