Major Triad Inversions

Now that we've taken a look at Triads Up the Strings, let's focus on Major Triads and look at how they can be inverted.

Before we begin, let's learn a bit of terminology relating to chord inversions.

A root position chord is what we play most of the time - a chord where the root note is also the bass note (lowest note) of the chord.

If we aren't using the root note as the bass note, though, we're playing an inversion.

If the bass note is that comes after the root (for example, the Major 3rd in a Major chord), we call that first inversion.

If we're using the third note in the chord (Perfect 5th in a Major Chord), that's second inversion.

If our chord has more than three notes, we can continue that process. For example, if we play a Major 7th chord with the 7th as a bass note, that would be third inversion.

Got that? So for triads, we have root position, first inversion, and second inversion available to us. You always have the same number of options as there are notes in the chord.

A good way to practice these triads will be to stick to one root note.

Let's use C today. That means every note we play will be C, E#, or A.

First off, let's take a look at the possibilities while keeping our bass note on the low E string. In the image below, you can see our root position triad in the middle, with an option presenting itself on each side.

Try to make sense of how the notes are moving. It all comes back to Moving A Note and Octave Shapes.

It can be helpful to remember that the bass notes are shifting up and down logically by interval.

In other words, from the root position triad, we move up 4 frets to reach the Major 3rd and build a chord from there.

To reach the chord built from the 5th, we move down 5 frets from the root (which is the same thing as moving up 7 frets, due to octaves!)

When you're ready, we can move on to the next set. There aren't any B string shenanigans yet, so we're using the same shapes, just in a different spot on the fretboard. Notice that our root position triad here is just the bottom section of the Open C chord.

You've played the second inversion before too. Can you see where it fits in to a shape you already know? More on that later.

Now we're on to the D-G-B string set. Since the B string is involved now, our shapes have changed.

And lastly, the top three strings. Our shapes have changed again as we move up to include the high E.

If you didn't already clue in, these triad shapes all correspond to one of the CAGED shapes. As we've touched on there, the CAGED shapes can be your guide to finding scale and arpeggio shapes around the fretboard.

That means that learning your triads is really a way to build connections across the fretboard and start connecting your shapes together. This is something we will look at in much more detail in upcoming lessons.

There's lots of ways you can go about practicing these. Since we were already working in C, you might as well get as comfortable as you can with that chord. 

With a little work you can memorize all 12 ways to play the triad on the fretboard (of course, it all repeats past the 12th fret). Once you can do that, find your Major Scale, Pentatonic shapes, and any Major Arpeggios you know, play them in C, and see how the fit in with the triad shapes here.

Once you feel that you have a strong grasp of C, you can try this same process with another Major chord, perhaps A or E.

It's an involved process, but on the other side of it you will be a master of Major Chords.

Next, we'll take on Minor Triads, and later on, we'll look at improvising across multiple chords using what we learned here.