A very important part of learning to play groovy, chord-based piano is mastering chord inversions. A chord inversion is basically when you change the order of the notes that make up the chord—the way you stack the notes.
A chord with three notes (a triad ) has a total of three inversions. A chord with four notes has four inversions, and so on. The more notes you have in a chord, the more ways you can mix them up.
In this article, we will focus on the basic concept of chord inversions for three-note chords. In a triad, any of the three notes can be at the bottom, in the middle, or at the top of the chord.
What Are Chord Inversions Used For?
If you are wondering why you should spend time learning to invert chords, here are the main reasons why this technique is essential for your piano playing.
1. Faster and Smoother Playing
One of the main reasons you should use chord inversions is to make your chord changes both faster and more cohesive. If you only use root position chords, your hand spends a lot of time moving up and down the piano when changing chords.
A root chord, or “root position,” is your basic chord with the root note at the bottom. The root note is the note that gives the chord its name (for example, the root note of a G major chord is G).
In a three-note chord, the inversions are:
- Root position: Root note at the bottom.
- 1st inversion: Root note at the top.
- 2nd inversion: Root note in the middle.
Let’s look at a simple chord progression: C – F – G – C.
If you play this progression with only root chords, your hand has to jump around significantly. Your thumb starts on C, then your whole hand moves up to F, then up to G, and finally all the way back down to C. This takes time and creates small interruptions in your playing.
Furthermore, the human ear interprets the top note of a chord as a melody note. When you jump between root chords, the top note jumps around too, making your playing sound choppy.
Using chord inversions solves both problems. If you play the same progression using inversions, your hand barely has to move:
- C (Root position): C – E – G
- F (2nd inversion): C – F – A
- G (1st inversion): B – D – G
- C (Root position): C – E – G
The distance your hand needs to move is minimized, allowing you to transition between chords with much greater speed and fewer interruptions. Your playing will sound much more fluid.
2. Playing Melody Lines With Chords
As mentioned earlier, the human ear will always hear the highest note on the piano more clearly than the rest of the notes. This means the top note you play in any chord is perceived as part of a melody line.
This simple fact is what allows us to play chords and melody lines at the same time. If you want to master this skill, you must become good at inverting chords. You need to be able to choose the chord inversions that keep the melody line at the top of the chords at all times.
This is a more advanced skill. It requires you to know the melody, the chord progression, when the chords change relative to the melody, and which inversions to choose. If you are just starting out, this might seem overwhelming. That is completely okay.
The best approach is to first concentrate on learning a lot of piano chords, and then spend time learning chord inversions. Once you have a reasonable grasp of those two things, you can take the next step and add melody lines to the top of your chords.
If you want to learn more about playing piano with chords and inversions, check out our free webinar. Click here to join the free webinar.
