Hey Friend,

Once you have a fundamental understanding of the major chord construction, minor chords are the next step. Just to refresh you,  a major chord has three notes from the major scale: the one, three and five notes.

If we're making a C major chord, we use notes in the major scale from the key of C major to construct the chord.

Take the one, three and five notes (C E G), combine them together and voila, C major chord. Also know that you can jumble these notes in any order and you still have a C chord, regardless of which note is first in the lineup.

The term for note order in a chord is "inversion," and while I doubt any guitar instructor brings this up in the beginning of a new guitarist's training, many of the beginner open chords we learn don't have the notes in order.

We've established that most basic chords have three notes. And when we look at the notes used in a chord, it's natural to read left to right and start with the root note (the one note). That's what I did with C major above. But many chords we regularly use don't have their notes ordered in that way.

Let's look at some examples.

First, I want to lay out exactly what each inversion looks like.

We start with the Root Inversion. This is the one I've been talking about with the notes ordered like they are in the scale: one, three and five. Both C and G major are Root inversion chords in the open position.

The next is called the First Inversion. Note order shifts to the right, so the first note you would encounter as you strum downward is the second note of the chord, which is the three note from the scale.

First inversion of a C major chord is like this: E, G, C, in that order. First inversion chords don't get talked about much.

The last inversion to look at is called a Second Inversion, and you guessed it, its note order is five, one, three. Again, looking at a C major chord, the second inversion is G, C, E.

I'd like to make a point here, and while I find it interesting, I don't want you to get hung up on what I'm about to say,

The majority of the chords we learn, especially as Rock players, are Second inversions.

It's okay, really, don't be afraid.

We can thank the basic chord shapes for giving us an easy way to remember chords rather than having to learn them by finding the notes on the fingerboard.

Here are a few open chords you've learned that are second inversions: E major, A major, D major, B major

This is the note order in an E major chord in the open position: B, E, G#

That's fifth string, second fret (B), fourth string second fret (E) and third string first fret (G#)

The key of E major's scale is E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#

See how that works?

The reason most basic chords are second inversions is due to how the guitar strings are tuned. Because of standard tuning, the notes just happen to fall in the right places to make second inversions work much of the time. Just so you know, major barre chords are second inversions as well.

Learn the Shapes

In the end it doesn't really matter if you know which inversion you're playing. Sure, you're definitely a lot more versatile if you can throw down any chord shape at will in any situation, but not knowing all the inversions on the fly won't hurt you.

Of course, as you get more comfortable playing, inversions can be a lot of fun, and they give you new opportunities to make up more interesting harmonies. 

From these basic inversions, we're going to talk about how to take a major chord and make it a minor chord with one simple change. More on that tomorrow.

Here's a question for you. Which inversion do you think power chords come from? 

Power chords give you a shortcut to learning barre chords, and using them allows you to play music now with only one chord shape. That way, you can simply move your hand without changing the chord fingering . Learn all about this fast shortcut to playing songs now in Easy Power Chords today.

Peace~

Dave