It’s time to delve into the world of triads over bass notes, allowing us to use the mighty triad in a new way. We also have a section devoted to seventh-chord inversions, so you’ll now be able to see a huge number of voicings, generated by the same four notes we’ve been using up to now.
Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- play four-voice chords made up of a triad with a different note in the bass
- use some of these new chords, playing along with recordings by Herbie Hancock and Al Green
- invert drop-2 and drop-3 chords to expand your options for chordal playing
"Triads over bass notes" refers to four-voice chords made up of a triad with a different note in the bass. It's a fast way to notate relatively complex sounds simply. It's also an excellent way for guitarists to imply complex sounds with very few notes.
The triad can be major, minor, augmented, or diminished. For this topic, we are going to restrict our discussion to two major triad-over-bass-note chords, represented by B/C and G/C.
B/C can be seen as an incomplete C9sus4 chord (the fifth is omitted).
Note
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C
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B
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D
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F
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Function
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Root
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7
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9
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4 (or 11)
|
G/C can be seen as an incomplete Cmaj7(add 9). The third is not specified, but the use of this chord is most frequently as a major sound.
Note
|
C
|
G
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B
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D
|
Function
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Root
|
5
|
Major 7
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9
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Song 1: "Maiden Voyage" by Herbie Hancock
“Maiden Voyage” by Herbie Hancock is a good tune to practice in order to get used to playing triads over bass notes—and, it’s a beautiful piece of music. The repeating rhythmic pattern is also a major component of this work.
Song 2: "Tired of Being Alone"
Having begun the course with major triads found in Motown examples, I thought it would be nice to end the Great Performance series with a relatively complex example, summing up a lot of what we’ve been working on since then. Al Green is a great performer whose singing style is unique in contemporary music. The rhythm section’s performance is flawless. Please work to play the voicings as notated, paying particular attention to the occurrence of a triad over bass note, the F/G chord.
Work on chordal inversions pays off in a couple of ways. With control of inversions, a guitarist has many more options for chordal playing, featuring smoother voice leading. The resultant understanding of the fretboard will inform your choices for improvisation and compositional choices.
Let’s run through some of the chord qualities and follow it up with some drill and practice. Although the assignment for the lesson only involves root-position and first-inversion chords, it’s well worth your time to examine the possibilities offered in this section.
Beginning with a drop-2 voicing for C7 on , notice that the root moves to the 3rd, 5th moves to 7th, and 3rd moves to 5th. Each voice moves to the next chord tone. The resultant voicing may be tough for you to reach, however. Considering the wide stretch in the first-inversion chord, you may wish to play the alternate voicing, a C9/E voicing (an Emin7(5) shape).
Inverting Drop-2 and Drop-3 (Page 2)
When you reach an inversion that is physically difficult to play, use the rules for voice substitution summarized here.
This chord tone may be replaced by ...
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... this tension
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Root
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9th (or 2nd)
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3
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11th / 11th (or 4th / 4th)
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5
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13th (or 6th)
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So, in this case, the choice is: stretch your fingers or stretch your mind! It’s even better to be able to play it either way, so keep working on it.
Here are all four inversions of C7 in drop-2 configuration on :
Inverting Drop-2 and Drop-3 (Page 3)
Starting from the higher part of the neck, here are all four inversions of C7 in drop-2 configuration on :
ow, the drop-3 shapes for C7, starting with (again, note the substitution of the Emin7(5) for C7/E):
Here are the drop-3 shapes for C7, as found on (no difficult stretches here):
Inversions of G7, Gmin7, GMaj7
Now that we know about C7, let’s get some experience with some other chord qualities, this time with G as the root of each of the chords. Before we get into an etude to practice this concept, let’s look at root position and first inversion. Simple alteration of the 3rd or the 7th yields the various chord qualities.
