Inversions

Most of the chords you hear in popular music are in root position, meaning that the root tone of the chord is also the lowest tone in the chord. When a note other than the root appears in the lowest position ("bass position") the chord is called an inverted chord.

If you take a typical C Major chord (chord tones C, E, G) and raise the root tone C up an octave, your lowest tone becomes E, and the chord is said to be in first inversion, because the 3rd of the chord (E) is in the bass position. Inverted chords are often written with a slash "/" followed by the name of the tone that is in the bass.

Using our previous example, we would call this first inversion chord C/E. This simply indicates that it is a C Major chord with E as the lowest tone. In the same way, if the 5th of the chord appears in the bass position, the chord is said to be in second inversion. So a C Major chord in second inversion would have G as its lowest tone, and we would notate the chord as C/G.

In the intermediate and advanced levels of Tone Trees and Chord Locks, you will work with all kinds of inversions. With Tone Trees, you will also learn to visualize the shapes of different inverted chords on piano or guitar.

Tone Trees

Can you quickly find the roots of the chords you hear? This game will train your ear to hear chord tones - the individual pitches that make up a particular chord. In addition, you'll learn to identify the position of each tone in the chord and also how to visualize the chord shapes on a piano or guitar.

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Chord Locks

The process of figuring out a chord by ear is can be a bit like opening a combination lock - you need to determine a few different things such as the chord's function (is it the I, IV, V or some other chord), its quality and type (major, minor, seventh, etc.), and its inversion (which tone is in the bass). Put these all together and see if you can unlock the chords!

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Speed Chords

In order to figure out the chords to a song by ear, you must be able to determine the quality of each chord - whether it is major, minor, dominant seventh, etc. You will probably have to spend some time on this at first, but with practice the process will become easy and automatic.

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