Inversions on the Guitar: Transform Your Playing!

1. Welcome!: Hi there, My name is Jacob Lam. I'm a musician, a songwriter, and a teacher. In this course, we're going to look at inversions on the guitar. Now, inversions are special kinds of chords where we play those same three notes that make up a chord in different places all over the neck of your guitar. This is going to unlock the fret board for us, where we can play chords from anywhere on the neck. You could play an, a chord down low, in the middle or up high, and that goes for any court. It's also going to help us transition from open chords to solos by giving us a really natural way to work our way around the neck. We're going to look at different string sets and the actual shapes, and then talk about how to apply them together. I'm really looking forward to starting. So let's move on to the next lesson and begin together. 2. What Are Inversions?: Before we jump into the shapes, here, we should learn a little more in depth about what inversions are and why they're important. So when we're playing a natural chord, we're borrowing notes out of a mode, e.g. let's look at C. We can lay out the musical letters from C to the next C up. And for the sake of learning, we will number them one through seven, back to the C above, which will be another one. Now, when we're playing a chord, we're playing the notes out of this group of notes, 13.5. It's the same thing if I was playing a G chord, we can lay out the notes here for a G major, and we'd be playing 13.5, will come back to our C chord. Something very important about chords is that the notes that we use to play them don't always have to be in order. That's what an inversion is where inverting or flipping some of these notes around. Now, we can take the bottom note and we can keep jumping it up an octave. Now, we can think about this kind of like leapfrog. I like to explain it as the bottom note, leapfrogging over the other two notes. So we'll take our C chord here and we know that it's 13.5, which in this case is C, E, and G. And if we play a C chord on our guitar, we see those three letters are present. We've got a, C, E, G, C, and G. So it's those three notes just in different orders. Now, we've got our three notes and since they're all in order right here on the screen, we're going to call that our root position. When the numbers are in order, we've got root position. Now, to get to our first inversion shape, we take our bottom note and we play that game of leapfrog by jumping it to the top. Now, three is at the bottom. We've got five in the middle and one on top. And let me just pause for a moment here. We are right now, just going over the theory of what these chords are. Because it's going to help us as we learn the shapes to actually memorize and visualize, we will go over the shapes and we will play them together. So this lesson may not be the most fun lesson we'll have together, but it is really important. So coming back to it, we'll take a look at these. We're leapfrogging our bottom note. So we've got 35.1, which in the case of a C chord is going to be E, G, and C. Now we flipped these notes once and so we're going to call that our first inversion shape. Now, if we run that again, it's the same exact thing. So we'll take our bottom note, will leap frog it to the top where five is now the root. And we've got one and then three. So we're hearing G, C, and E. We've now done this twice, so this will be our second inversion shape. You'll see if we do this one more time, we're back to our root position. Now, we can hear this on the guitar through this whole course. We're going to be working through sets of three strings. So we're going to learn major and minor inversions on strings 12.3, then major and minor inversions on strings 23.4. And finally on strings 34.5 and I safe. Finally, because the shapes for 34.5 are identical for the shapes on 45.6, which is fantastic because if we know one string set than we really know to strengthen. And we can hear this inversion idea happen on the guitar. When I'm holding my guitar, I could do a C chord from anywhere. Maybe I'll start it right here. That's my root position c. Now I could move that up and I could play, that's ie, C, and then one more time, That's G, C, and E. So we can play chords all over the neck of our guitar. Now, why is it important to know inversions on the guitar? Well, a few reasons. First of all, it's going to help us know the notes and shapes all over the neck so much better. If you're a little confused with the middle or high part of the neck of your guitar. This will help you play there with a lot more comfort and confidence. Also, it helps us transition from open chords to sell us. If I'm playing open chords down low on my guitar, then I need to shoot my hand up and play a quick solo. It's a huge jump from down here to up here. Something that these inversions can do is help us to work our way up the neck in a really natural way. Now all of a sudden, I'm back up here and I've kind of transitioned my way up all up the neck. 3. Sets Of Strings: Now, as I mentioned in the previous video, all of our shapes are going to be done on sets of three strings. And that's because all of these chords have three nodes, right? So if we're flipping these three notes, we need to find three notes on the neck of our guitar, and we'll do that on three different strings. So for the first set of strings, we're going to learn major and minor shapes. We've got major and minor. On the second set, Venn strings, 23.4, we've got major shapes and minor shapes. Then finally on the third and fourth set of three strings, we've got major shapes and minor shapes. We're also going to learn about transitioning from one string set to the next, which would sound something like this. And playing different shapes from the same fret. We're going to be blending in this course, learning the shapes and then learning some fun concepts and contexts between them. So we're not just going to grind through memorizing shapes and we're not just going to do lots of theory without much understanding of what we're playing. We're going to try to be well-rounded and get the best of both worlds. 4. First String Major Shapes: To start, let's learn our major shapes on the first string set. These are strings number one, number two, and number three. Now we've got three unique shapes. And remember these are all the same chord. As an example, we're going to start from a familiar cord. And so we're going to start from the D shape. We're going to start by building a D chord. So we lay out the notes and the D major scale. Now we see that we've got D, F sharp and a. Now let's look at our D chord here. What notes are we actually playing? Well, on these three strings were playing a, D and an F sharp. So when we play a D chord down here, this is actually a second inversion shape. Of course, when we're playing the full chord and a normal contexts, we've got the open fourth string as well, but we're staying on these three strings. So we've got second inversion d shape. Now to move it up, we're going to follow the patterns. So after a second inversion would be a root position. Our route shape we're going to take maybe the thickest string is the easiest one to count from, and we're going to count up 12345. That's our starting point for the next one. So there's unimportant note. No matter where we are on the neck, we're moving from a second inversion to a root position, removing our lowest note up by five frets, and that counts for everywhere. Just as an example, if I'm playing up here, I'm playing a second inversion shape and I want to jump it up to a root position, still going to move it up 12345 frets. So here on our D, We've got our second inversion. We've just moved up five frets. And now we're playing this shape right here. The frets in this example would be 775. But just use the frets we name to get the shape down because again, this shape is movable all over the neck. Now, finally, we're going to move our root position up to the first inversion. And this time we're going to take that lower note and move it up 1234 frets. So moving a root position to a first inversion, or moving it up by four frets, we're going to play. That would be 1,110.10. Now, if we did it again, we'd be at that D-shaped. We're familiar with just an octave above. Again, more important than the numbered frets we're playing, is the shape we're playing. And the reason is that every one of these shapes is movable. See I've got my D chord, but if I moved it up a bit, I'd have an E or F or G to same exact thing with this shape. I know that's a D, E and F, a g or this shape here, I've got a, D, E, F, and so on. So the really cool thing that we'll talk about more later is that we can transition between chords really, really easily from not moving our fingers. Very much. If I know that I've got a dean here. And then maybe different chord and different chord just by playing those three shapes from the same place. Well, we find that transitioning between chords becomes really quick and simple all over the neck. 5. First String Minor Shapes: Here's something really cool that makes memorizing these shapes so much easier. Theory always seems to make things easier. And there's one little rule. That means if you know the major shapes, you actually know the minor shapes too. You may know already, but when replaying major chords to minor chords, There's one little difference. It's the third of a chord. When you're changing major to minor, the three always goes down by a half-step. When you're changing minor to major, it's the same thing in reverse. Your three moves up by a half-step. So there are two ways we could do the minor shapes. For the first set of strings. We could either just memorize the shapes and practice them until we've got those down and that's fine. But I think an easier way to learn is to find our three or third in each of these shapes and just lower it by a half step. I'll show you what I mean. If I'm playing my d from a root position shapes, so that's kind of in the middle of the neck. It was this shape right here. Well, you and I know by now that root position means that our notes are in order 13.5. So my three is in the middle on the second string. Which means if I want to change this root position shape from major to minor, I just need to take that second string note and lower it by one fret, 7-6. Now I've got 13.5 as a minor shape. Now, each and every inversion shape moving up this set of strings, your three is going to be found on a different string, right, right here are three was in the middle. If we played our second inversion shape down here. But we've got a, D and F sharp. F sharp is R3. So I know I can make this shape minor by taking my third down by a friend. That's actually why this is a D minor chord that we may already be used to. We've got D and D minor, same exact thing when we're doing the inversions. D, D minor, D minor. Now, if you're following along, you may have picked up already. Our third down here was on the first string. Our third up here was on the second string. That means our third, when we come up to the first inversion, must be on the third string. And that is true. I've got my third, the F sharp, a and B. So if I want to make it minor, I lower my third string by half-step, and that actually gets all of my notes on the same exact fret. So the shapes again, we can compare here is major and minor. Now one more time, let me just play each position side-by-side, major to minor. Major to minor. And major to minor. 6. Second String Major Shapes: Now we're going to look at the second set of strings for the major shapes. And again, we're going to start with a familiar cord. We're going to start with an a chord. So I've got my a shape right here. When I think about my notes in an a chord, I've got a C-sharp and e. That's my 13.5. When I'm playing this shape, what do I have? I have E, I've got, and I've got C-sharp. So again, I'm sitting on a second inversion shape right here. Now the frets are exactly the same. To play my next shape, I'm going to take that lowest note and move it up by five frets, just like I did for the first string. Now from here I'm going to play this shape. That's 76.5, so you can get the shape down. This is my root position on the second set of strings. So I've got a C-sharp E. Now, if I want to find that first inversion shape, I'm going to go up by four frets again. So 1234. Then I've got, that's 119.10. So second inversion, root position, first inversion. Another way to think about these shapes, if you're comfortable with the notes on the fretboard already is just to think about, we're finding the next note up in the pattern e.g. I've got again, E, a, and C sharp. Well, if I'm leapfrogging these notes and a is in the middle, then I know the next notes I'm looking for are a, C-sharp and E. So if you're really comfortable with the notes on your fretboard, you could think about it that way. Then again, we'd be looking for C-sharp E and a. 7. Second String Minor Shapes: We're looking now at minor chords on the second set of strings. And we're going to do this the same way by focusing in on the third of each chord. So when I'm looking at my second inversion position, I know that my third is on the second string. It's the highest note I'm playing, right? I've got my fifth root and third. So to change this from major to minor, I'm going to move that third down by a half-step. And I've got my second inversion minor shape, again, looks exactly like an a minor because it is, we've got a Minor. Same thing from this root position 13.5. My three needs to move down by a half-step. So I'm in a bar that with the first finger. So I've got a and a minor in the middle of the fretboard. Move up four frets to that first inversion shape, where I've got my third fifth and reach. My third here, of course, is on the fourth string. So I'm gonna move it down one. So I've got my my a minor. So again, let's play through these shapes. We've got the major shapes. The minor shapes. Side-by-side, major second inversion. Second inversion. Major route position, minor root position, major first inversion. Minor first inversion. 8. Moving Between String Sets: Now that we know two sets of strings, we're going to pause right here and we're going to look at moving back and forth between string sets. You will find that especially when there's overlap, there is between the first set of strings and the second set of strings. There's going to be a lot of overlap with notes as well. See, I can play an, a chord from a root position, 13.5. Well, I've got two notes right here. And there's really only one major shape on the first set of strings that these two notes match up with. That's going to be that first inversion shape. So if I play that shape from where I'm already holding down, oh, I've got an, a chord on my first set of strings. Now isn't that interesting? It's the same thing going the other way. Maybe I want to play a D chord from right here. Awesome, second inversion d. Now again, I'm gonna look at the two notes that I have that overlap these sets of strings and I go, alright, there's really only one shape on the second set of strings that fits this. That's that first inversion shape. So if I play it there, I've got a D major on the second set of strings. Look at that a, again. You'll notice the notes are also in the same order as our first inversion, a right here. We've got 35353535. So when we're moving from the second set of strings, the first, we're also moving up by an inversion, and that's huge. So we've got our root and first inversion. Or if we're looking down here, second inversion, first inversion, we're always moving up or down an inversion from one string set to the next. That makes moving between chords really easy, both up and down the neck and also back and forth on the neck. This way. 9. Chord Practice: With that really important bit of knowledge down, Let's do a little bit of chord practice here. Now the best way to go is to pick a chord progression that doesn't seem too crazy. But then we're going to see the best way to reach it. And here's what I mean. Let's say we're going back-and-forth between a C chord and an F chord. Okay, that's not too hard. Let's start with our C chord. Now, we have two ways to do this. I could use the second set of strings and maybe I'll count up from the shape I know from a move that shape up by two frets and move it up by one more. That's a C chord right there. The other way I could do that is take maybe a D shape like this. I know that if I move two steps, two half-steps before D, it's gonna be a C. So I could also placed right there. So that's a C. A C. I'm gonna pick this one That's all on the same fret. Then the next thing I wanna do is find an F chord mount. Again, it's all about notes. So when I look at an F chord, I know that my notes are F, a, and C. So my goal is to find those on the neck, but not just anywhere on the neck. See the point of these inversions is to be able to play chords close, right? That's why I suppose I should say one of the points and it's a great way to practice. So let's see if we can find an F chord that's close. The C-shaped, we've already got, I know we've got a C right here. Now I can take my other shapes and kinda slide them around and count. Got a D. I could slide it up to an E and slide up to an F. Well, that seems pretty close and easy. I've got F. What if I could find a shape that's close on the second set of strings, c, I can practice by playing the different shapes I know around here. So I know I've got to see there. If I play this shape, maybe on a, alright. If I play this one here. Oh, hang on. Well that's an F chord, C to F. Another way I could get here is by playing that F shape first set of strings using the method we talked about in the previous video by using that overlap, those two overlapping notes. So I've got half their practice chord progressions by utilizing these shapes and finding shapes that are close together. In this video, I'm about to put up a screen with a few different chord progressions. I encourage you to take a few minutes, figure out shapes for each chord that are close to each other, and then practice moving back and forth to play these progressions with inversion shapes. 10. Third String Major Shapes: Let's take a look at the major shapes now for the third and the fourth string set, that's gonna be fourth, fifth, and sixth string, and also third, fourth, and fifth string. Mt. Remember the shapes for these two strings sets are exactly the same because the distance between the notes for each string is also the same. So if we know one, we know them both, which is fantastic. That's twice the work in one video. So let's learn the major shapes here. Now I'm gonna go ahead. I'm going to do this with, again, a comfortable cord. We already know. Maybe I'll use. Now, as you may have guessed, if you're paying attention, this is a second inversion shape. We've got our five, R1, which is E, and R three right here, which is a G sharp. I'm moving up by, You'll never guess it. Five frets again to find my root position. So 12345, I've got this little bit of a stretch shape. That's my room. My three, just G-sharp. And then my mean, which is fine. Now again, to find first inversion, we're moving up by four frets, 1234, playing this shape. That's my 35. Again, you can see a lot of overlap now with the second set of strings. If I'm playing root position here, we see I've got first inversion and second inversion, the first set of strings. So again, as we move up a set of strings, we're also moving up an inversion. Root. First. Second. We tried that from a different position rather than root. Let's use our first inversion here. We've got first, second, and root. We tried it for a second inversion. Well, we've got, let's do it from here with a different chord. We've got second root, first inversion. I personally really like this way of memorizing shapes because if you know one, then you can know the ones around it on the string set, right? If I'm playing a first inversion right here, and I know that this is F chord. Well then I can also know that this is second inversion, or F as a root position. 11. Third String Minor Shapes: Let's also take these third and fourth string set shapes for now, minor chords, right? And again, we just need to find the third of each chord and drop them by a half-step by now, I'm sure you're aware of how to do that. So we've got our major. Third is in the same place as it was for the other string sets. So I'm looking right here. I'm going to drop it down. When we're playing with something like this. We've got an open string now, it's also really helpful to see this shape in another position, right? Because we're going to need three fingers playing it anywhere else. So if I move it up by a fret, I've gotten this shape right here. Keep that knee. Move it up to here. Same place. This time, 13.5. My three is on that fourth string. So I'm going to move it down right there. Threats here we're talking about are 754. Then again, I'm going to move up to the same place. I've got 35.1 as a first inversion. So I'm gonna take that starting node and move it down by one. So I've got there. They're playing back and forth for you. There's major, second inversion, minor, major route position to minor and major first inversion. This idea of moving back and forth between the strings also counts, of course, for minor chord. So if I'm playing a minor root position, I can also play a minor first inversion and take it to a minor Inversion. 12. Final Project and Congratulations!: This lesson here is just going to be a little bit of practice. Now, we know these inversion shapes, major and minor, up and down the neck for different sets of strings. And my personal favorite part, also moving between sets of strings and changing what inversion we're playing. I've said it before. I think that's so cool. We're going to practice that in this lesson. Just like our previous chord practice video, I'm going to put some chord progressions on the screen. I'm going to leave it in your hands. Figure out, okay, so start with the first chord, find a position that you enjoy. It can be any position on any set of strings. And then the rest of the chords, fine shapes that are nearby that initial position that you found. And we're going to make that our final project. Once you've done that, I want you to film or do the audio for what you've created. Upload it to the project section or the project room, and I'm really looking forward to hearing it. Thank you so much for going through this course with me. I hope you found it really useful. If you've got any questions or any comments you can always reach out to me at Jacob at lamb lessons.com. Or if I'm more courses at lamb lessons.com, I'll see you in the next one.