Chord Inversions & Jumbled Triads

Music Theory Triad Chord Theory & Practice
16

‘Yep, but you’re not actually shuffling a heap of notes up an octave.”

On a keyboard I see a difference. If I play Cmaj (root) then F major FAC (root) I have to shift my hand 3 keys to the right or 4 to left. If I play the F major as CFA ( 2nd inversion) then no hand shift is required. You’re right though. It’s never a full octave shift. I don’t play keyboard so I have no idea if it’s a significant difference in workload.

What I’m seeing now is that CEG (root), EGC (1st inv) and GCE (2nd inv) are the only ways to construct the chord without skipping a chord note. To play any other combination (CGE, ECG, GEC) would require a skip. So there is a little more to inversions than note combinations than I thought. The order notes of the scale is a factor.

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17

Yep, its the defining factor. It all derives from the scale, with stacked thirds being the basic building blocks. This triad structure continues into bigger chords - 7,9,11,13 chords.

Cheers, Shane

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18

I understand that chords are built by stacking thirds. However the inversion EGC is a third followed by a fourth. If you look at the chords drawn in standard notation you can see that CEG looks like stacked 3rds. EGC in standard notation does not look like stack thirds. From the point of view of the bass note E, EGC is 1-b3-b6.

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19

@Matt125 you are over thinking this way to much. A chord containing the note E as the root and a b3 and b6 wouldn’t be a C major. If would be an Emb6 so no longer a chord inversion of a C major. Major Chord invertions are made up of a R 3 and 5 but not necessarily in that order. Minor chord invertions have a b3. That’s it no need to analyze any further.

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20

Hello @acbardawil and welcome to the community.

The means by which you consider the root, the 3rd and the 5th to have moved to new positions - thus creating a root or first or second inversion triad - is something you will superimpose yourself.
You describe thinking of all notes moving relative to each other.
I tend to think of just one of the notes hopping across the other two to take up a new position at the opposite end of the sequence.

Root inversion = 1, 3, 5
1st inversion = 3, 5, 1 (I think of the 1 as have hopped from first place to last place).
2nd inversion = 5, 1, 3 (I now think of 3 having hopped over 5 and 1 in a similar way).
But that is me. Your way of visualising and grasping the concept is good and equally valid.

Your next query:

Taking just the C major example - and leaving you to explore the others you give.

There are different types of triads - closed voice and open voiced.

Those you have learned about in this lesson are closed voice.
Root inversion = 1, 3, 5
First inversion = 3, 5, 1
Second inversion = 5, 1, 3

Those chord tones, those notes, all sit within the same octave span. On the guitar you can play them all on immediately adjacent strings. Their ‘sequence’ does not change even if the ordinal position does.

Open voiced triads takes the basic concept of a triad consisting of three notes which are found at intervals of thirds and allowing for them to not only be rearranged in different sequences but - of necessity - having them spill over a span of more than a single octave.

I have drawn up four diagrams to illustrate this.
Diagrams 1, 2 and 3 show the closed voice root, first and second inversions triads for C major. The notes all sit close together and exist within an octave span.
Diagram 4 shows the open voiced triad you discovered for C major in which the sequence has shifted. E precedes C which precedes G. This is only possible by having the notes span across more than an octave.

triads - closed open
triads - closed open856×677 87.6 KB

One more point. You may encounter the concept of spread triads. These, like closed voice triads, may maintain the same sequence of notes (either 1, 3, 5 or 3, 5, 1 or 5, 1, 3) but allow for them to span more than one octave. Or they may reorder the sequence entirely (exampeles could be 1, 5, 3 or 3, 1, 5 etc). These are easily played on a keyboard. Finding finger positions on a guitar is not so obvious. They do involve playing notes on strings that are not adjacent - and possibly some finger stretches too. Here is one example (there are many theoretically possible combinations).

triads - spread
triads - spread857×146 21.6 KB

I hope that helps.
Cheers :smiley:
| Richard_close2u | JustinGuitar Official Guide, Approved Teacher & Moderator

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21

It is not an inversion because it does not follow the sequence of stacked thirds that form the triad counting from the root.
It is still a triad but classified as an open voiced triad.

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22

The specific notes (call them scale degrees if it helps) are derived from the root major scale by stacking thirds. Having arrived at those three notes, any rearrangement by changing the sequence will seem to be shifting their intervals. And, laid out on a linear scale or around a note circle, it does. Your interval descriptors in the quoted text are correct. But the three scale degrees, when derived from the C major scale, spell a C major triad. Nothing else.

If those exact same three notes were being analysed from the framework of a different major scale (a different key signature if you will), that would be a wholly different story.

For example, those notes can all be found in the key of G.
G, A, B, C, D, E, F#.

In the key of G that would be an E minor b6 (no 5th).

That is a bit of a rabbit hole leading to nowhere really.
So come back up and think only of one key signature at a time from which you analyse its triads which are all built on stacked thirds.

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23

Thanks to everyone who has responded, in particular close2u who has gone above and beyond the call of duty, as usual. It has cleared up some questions I had with inversion nomenclature and construction. I am 100% aware of the rabbit hole associated with chords. I still have some questions but I can always start another thread one day to pursue that. Cheers.

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24

Wow! this is my first time in a Forum. It is great to see all of those answers, really helpful.
Thank you all for the help

Now I have a lot to digest

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25

Hi @all,
i’m a little confused.
Why is the basenote not written down?
So in the first question F D B = B dim and why not B/F dim?
In method 1, don’t we write the basenote with the chord or am I wrong?

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26

Hi @reneguitar ,

In this exercise, one should think about the root, 3rd and 5th - none of those are supposed to be omitted.

The notes in an Fdim triad would be: F, Ab (flat 3rd), Cb (flat 5th).

The 3 notes in the exercise are F, D and B. While B and Cb are enharmonic equivalents, Fdim doesn’t have the note D in it. So that is not a good solution.

These are jumbled triads precisely because the notes are not written in the order of ascending pitch. Going back to F, D and B, you could start by checking the related major triads:

B: B, D#, F#
D: D, F#, A
F: F, A, C

Let’s check them one by one.

B, D#, F# is a B major triad. B, D and F have the flat 3rd and flat 5th degrees, so it will be a Bdim triad.

D, F#, A is a D major triad. The example has the note B in it which cannot even be the sharp 5th, so this is not a good solution.

F, A, C is an F major triad. The example has the note D in it which cannot even be the sharp 5th, so this is not a good solution either.

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27

Hello @reneguitar and welcome to the community.
You’ve had a great explanation for @Jozsef.
Jumbled is the key … and you need to un-jumble, a piece of detective work, using intervals and triad formulae.

28

Hi @Jozsef and @Richard_close2u

I understand the formula triads and chords inversions and jumbled.
I thought this lesson was about 1st Inversion vs. 2 Inversion chords.
This with marking the 3rd or 5th note at the base of the chord and then writing it down using method 1 of “How to write inversions”.
So in the first example B with an F base note diminished, as B/F dim.
the second one in the example E C B is C with an E root-note major, as C/E maj and so on.
Probably I thought wrong but I really thought that was the intention of this lesson.
All my answers were right, but always with the root note written after the chord’s /

My mistake :upside_down_face:

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29

What does " the triads are built by stacking thirds together from the parent scale" mean? Not even sure what a third is. If I take the C scale, for example, and go 12 semi-tones, I get back to C. So starting at C and going 4 semitones, or one third, brings me to D#, and then to G. But D# is not part of the triad. I feel I understood what Jason explained but this discussion is only confusing me.

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30

It’s just every third note in each scale sequence.
Consider C scale. Notes are:
C D E F G A B C now let’s number them.
C1 D2 E3 F4 G5 A6 B7
Third note from Root C is E. Third note from E is G Third note from G is B
Chords are R, 3, 5, 7 etc ie. stacked thirds 1, 3, 5, 7 and so on.
C chord would be notes R35 so CEG

For D E F# G A B C#
D chord would be notes R35 so DEF#
D chord D F# A because D is the root note F # is the next third and A is the 5 note.

I like to recall the stacked 3rd aconymn:
Every Good Band Deserves Fans And Cash.

Every Good Band is E G# B
And Cash. Every… is A C# E and so on.

You still need to work out sharps on notes but that’s not too difficult if you remember my other favourite acronym Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle (order of Sharps. One # starting at F.

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31

D F A is Dm. When you stack 3rds from the parent scale the chord sequence is M m m M M m deminished .

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32

The diagram shows seven repeats of the C major scale, extended to two octaves, each having three notes shown in large, bold font. Those notes are chosen by starting at C and then counting along the scale in thirds (count one, miss one - every other note). The three notes respectively form the notes of the triads that can be derived from the C major scale.
Stacking thirds simply means - from any given start point - count one, miss one. The musical intervals this process selects are all thirds. Hence we call it stacking thirds.

Triads of C Major Scale
Triads of C Major Scale1695×494 144 KB

You have a misunderstanding here. The C major scale (all major scales) use seven notes following the formula Tone-Tone-Semitone-Tone-Tone-Tone-Semitone. They do not use all twelve notes from around the Note Circle. Your error has landed you on the incorrect notes for a C major triad.

Correction needed. The D major scale is:
D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#

I hope that helps.
Cheers :smiley:
| Richard | JustinGuitar Approved Teacher, Official Guide & Moderator

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33

Is the regular Open A chord a 2nd Inversion as it’s form from lowest to highest note is
E A C#?

Question - A Chord Inverson
Question - A Chord Inverson772×533 32.2 KB

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34

An open A chord uses 5 strings so the notes are A E A C# E so no it’s not a 2nd inversion. If you where to only strum the 3 fretted notes it would be a 2nd inversion. If you where to play the open E string it would be an A/E but could be considered the 2nd inversion.

All Major and minor chord are considered triads, chords containing 3 notes. Even the A Barre Chord is a triad because it uses only 3 notes over 6 strings A E A C# E A using the note A 3 times and the note E twice.

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35

Thanks!

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