Jazz Rhythm part 2 - Inversions & 6th Chords
Most Jazz players are given a simple chord chart, and are expected to fill in how exactly to play it themselves. While you can just use the 7th chord shapes from part 1, using inversions of chords can be a way to fill out your chord progressions in a more interest fashion
What Are Inversions?
A chord inversion is when you play a chord where the root note is not the base note. These are notated with the chord name, then a slash and the base note. for example, E7/G# is an E dominant chord, but the bass note is a G#. With 7th chords, there are 3 possible inversions: inversions on the 3rd, the 5th, and the 7th.
Relation between 6ths & 7th inversions
the 3rd inversion of a 7th chord can also be written as the root version of a 6th chord. Let’s look at Am7 for example; the chord formula is A-C-E-G, or (1 - b3 - 5 - b7). the 1st inversion of this would be C-E-G-A, which could be thought of as Am7/C, or as C6(1 - 3 - 5 - 6). this also means that Am7 could be interpreted as C6/A. Here are the relations between all of the 6th and 7th chords:
- major 7th (1 - 3 - 5 - 7) == minor b6th (1 - b3 - 5 - b6)
- minor 7th(1 - b3 - 5 - b7) == major 6th ( 1 - 3 - 5 - 6)
- dominant 7th (1 - 3 - 5 - b7) == diminished b6th (1-b3-b5-b6)
- minor 7b5 ( 1 - b3 - b5 - b7) == minor 6th (1 - b3 - 5 - 6)
Chord Chart
here is handy chart of all the inversions and root shapes of the 7th chords:
click on the picture to see a full-size image
chart courtesy of guitarsphere.com
