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#1
05-10-2014, 06:26 PM
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Smooth voice, or chord leading ... when, how, ??
I just read a chapter in my bathroom theory book ... ha ha ha ... best place to learn music theory.
... The chapter is on inversions. Chord inversions.. 1st, 2nd, 3rd .. blah .. C, E, G E, G, C blah blah and the use of smooth progressions... ... For you who are in the know ? Can you give me a practical example, or use... on // with // guitar. Tell me a bit about this ?? Thanks...
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Jasper "Thomas of NH" Guitar Playing, learning .. the acoustic guitar. Eastman E8D "the Fox" Taylor 414ce "Baby T" 
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#2
05-10-2014, 07:00 PM
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For a simple practical example you're probably familiar with, how about the opening riff of "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard"?
A - Bm - A - E (repeat) played: A - x x x 6 5 5 Bm - x x x 7 7 7 A - x x x 6 5 5 E - x x x 4 5 4 Note that from chord to chord each "voice" (the notes on each string) moves smoothly 1 or 2 (or 0) frets from note to note. If you want to put names to the chord voicings: A notes from low to high are C# - E - A = 3 5 R = 1st inversion Bm notes from low to high are D - F# - B = b3 - 5 - R = 1st inversion E notes from low to high are B - E - G# = 5 R 3 = 2nd inversion Last edited by walternewton; 05-10-2014 at 08:14 PM.
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#3
05-10-2014, 07:30 PM
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If you know where the notes are all over the fretboard and know how to spell the various chord types, you can easily make any chord anywhere on the fretboard in any inversion. When you can do that, you can then easily see how you can move each note of the current chord the least possible distance to each note of the new chord.
I don't mean that facetiously or in any negative manner at all. Really, this is what it is, and it is really a very simple concept once you have those two basics down. In my experience, the easiest way to learn all the notes on the fretboard is to do the following exercise every day... Pick a note anywhere on the fretboard at random. Look away from the fretboard and just plop a finger down somewhere, anywhere. Identify that note, and then proceed to find it along each string in succession, going from the nut at the 6th string up to the highest fret on the first string, and then retrace your steps going back down each string in succession, ending up at the lowest occurrence of that note on the 6th string. "Identify that note" is easy - if you know how to tune your guitar, you know what the open string notes are and also what the notes are at the 5th fret matching the next higher string, and that the notes at the 12th fret are an octave higher than the open string notes. You will also note that between the open string and the 12th fret octave, every note occurs exactly once. With that knowledge, you can count up or down in half steps from a known note to the one you are trying to identify. Every day, do this with just one note and over a period of a few weeks, you will have no trouble identifying any note anywhere on the fretboard. I have talked about this more than once here in the past. Most people ignore a post like this, thinking that this is too easy so there must be more to it. People seem to think you need a book or DVD to teach us how to do anything on the guitar, when in fact, we can do almost everything ourselves if we know a few SIMPLE facts such as those mentioned here for learning the notes and spelling chords. Here is a chord spelling chart: http://bradrosten.com/chord_spelling.html If people need to know how these are arrived at and how they related to the major scale, that too is VERY SIMPLE. People expound on theory sometimes, and make it far, far more complicated than it really needs to be to play songs. All you really need to know for quite a while (possibly ever) is the chromatic scale of all possible notes (all the notes between the open string and the 12th fret on any string), the template for the major scale and how to extract the needed notes for a given key from the chromatic scale using it, and then how to line up the chord spelling items in the chart I provided a link for. The web site in my signature provides all that very simply and for free. Tony
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“The guitar is a wonderful thing which is understood by few.” — Franz Schubert "Alexa, where's my stuff?" - Anxiously waiting...
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#4
05-11-2014, 04:48 AM
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Quote:
-2---0---0-- -3---2---0-- -2---2---1-- -0---2---2-- Look at the way the notes on each string move. They're either going up or down by one scale step, or staying the same. In inversion terms, the D and E shapes are in root position (we're ignoring the other 2 strings), while the A is 2nd inversion (5th on bottom). But you don't have to know any of that! The familiar cowboy shapes automatically give good voice-leading, simply because you're playing them all in the same position - as close to each other as they can get. You don't have to care which ones are inversions. If, OTOH, you were to play them all as (say) E-shape barres, on frets 10 (D), 5 (A) and 12 (E), then you'd be jumping up and down the neck, and it would not be smooth at all. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, the jumpy effect might be what you want. But it is important to understand the difference, and to choose accordingly. Where the choice of inversions can be important is where bass lines are concerned - where you want a smooth scale-wise bass run, instead of jumping around from root to root. Eg, this is a common one: Code:
C G/B Am C/G F C/E (etc) -0---3---0---0---1---0---------------- -1---0---1---1---1---1---------------- -0---0---2---0---2---0---------------- -2---0---2---2---3---2---------------- -3---2---0---3---3---3---------------- -------------3---1---0---------------- Code:
C Bdim Am G F Em -0-------0---3---1---0---------------- -1---3---1---0---1---0---------------- -0-------2---0---2---0---------------- -2---3---2---0---3---2---------------- -3---2---0---2---3---2---------------- -------------3---1---0---------------- It's still OK, however, because some of the voices still go up while others go down - again playing all the chords in the same position gives that effect. If we were to run all the chords down with the same voicing, it would be less interesting: Code:
C Bdim Am G F Em -------------------------------- -8---6---5---3---1---0---------------- -9---7---5---4---2---0---------------- -10--9---7---5---3---2----------------- -------------------------------- -------------------------------- But then we've had to force ourselves to construct triad shapes moving down the neck in order to get that (boring) effect! If we'd stuck with the open position chord shapes we know (maybe excepting that awkward Bdim, which would be easier as G7/B), then the changes would automatically have been better. IOW, as guitar players, we rarely need to think about inversions in order to get good voice-leading. We just need to use the common shapes, and try and stay in the same position. (This applies wherever we are on the neck: staying in the same position as much as possible - varying the shapes in order to do so - tends to make for good voice-leading, without needing to think about what inversions we're using. That's just labels.) Still, it's good to look at chord shapes in this way: to see each string as a "voice" (as if you have a 6-person choir under your fingers!), and think about where each note in each chord goes. (Sometimes playing the moves on each string to hear how they sound.) Technically - in harmony terms - voices will often cross strings: eg the descending bass line above, crossing from 5th to 6th string. But other than in bass lines, you rarely need to think about that. Inversions and chord voicing is much more important to piano players, because they are not tied to shapes in the way guitarists are. Because of our 6 strings, the EADGBE tuning, and finger stretch limitations, we have limited choice in how we can voice our chords, and most of the limitations actually put us in a good place. Because pianists have much more choice, they need to think about that choice more.
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"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen. Last edited by JonPR; 05-11-2014 at 04:55 AM.
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#5
05-11-2014, 05:34 AM
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JonPR nailed it very, very well. There is really not much more to say, since his description is quite complete. Learn the notes on the fretboard and how to spell chords, and Jon's application examples and off you go!
 Tony
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“The guitar is a wonderful thing which is understood by few.” — Franz Schubert "Alexa, where's my stuff?" - Anxiously waiting...
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#6
05-11-2014, 09:03 PM
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I believe the original post is referring to chord inversions within the context of the same chord voicings..
try this exercise, uses drop 2 chording moving thru all inversions up the neck on the top four strings. I have it notated and tabbed, straight forward, play it freely as a ballad. As you will see, very subtle changes using the same chords thru the entire progression, just inverting them as you move. A great approach to chordal harmony which is a really great way to move along your fretboard. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0O...it?usp=sharing Please note, I am using google drive which is free to down load if you do not have it Last edited by Dalegreen; 05-12-2014 at 07:05 AM.
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