dissecting music

Inversions in the Circle of 4

The following methods are ment to build upon the previous material about seventh chord inversions and their goal is the aquisition of freedom in movement and a thorough understanding of the fretboard in the paradigm of circle of 4 progressions (which are very common). If you’re not familiar with the term circle of 4, check out the first part of this article for a thorough explanation.

It will take time to master all of this and it is of utmost importance to not let yourself be discouraged midway and then stop and let the acquired material go into decomposition and eventually waste. One way to prevent this from happening is by starting to apply what you have learned as soon as it gets useful. So make sure to take a look at this page to learn how seventh chord inversions can be put into use immediately. If you manage to do this, then it is totally fine to stop midway. Some of those steps, especially the later ones, are real bitches and there is no point to work through them if they arent of use in your current state of knowledge and skill. So just take what is useful to you right now and make some awesome music with it. That is my opinion.

Step 1:
Begin by going up the 4 inversions from, let’s say, F as far as the fretboard allows, then go down all the way to the nut and then up again until you reach the root position of the next chord in the circle of 4. This will make sure that you land on any of the inversions in both ascending and descending motion. If you are close to the nut and a note of the chord would be an open note, don’t refrain from playing it. It’s good for your brain and sounds nice.

I would suggest settling for the 15th fret as an upper limit for Acoustic guitar for now, as it becomes less accessible the higher you go and the shapes will repeat themselves after 12 frets anyways. For the electric guitar I would advise an upper limit of 17 or 19 for chords, as those frets are accessible due to the cutaway on most electric guitars. But this and the following routines are merely for understanding and internalizing inversions and for this purpose 15 frets are sufficient on any guitar as long as you remember the repeating nature of our 12-Tone system. In terms of the angle of the left hand on higher frets – there are bypasses for this problem of mechanical nature, as we heard in the previous article.

Step 2:
A next step could be starting the inversion series from either the root or the 2nd Inversion (5th in Base), depending on where you are on the fretboard, narrowing the area you play up and down a bit.

The goal is to start in any of the inversions and play all 4 of them up and then, one fourth above (or one fifth below – same thing), all 4 of them down, starting from the nearest inversion that allows doing them all in the successing direction. In order to get there faster you should practice this routine (Link to Constant Modulations in the circle of 4) in combination.

Step 3:
Once this has been accomplished, it is time to do this with the other sets. Once again you can either figure out the notes with an absolute or a relative method. A third method would be to copy the chord shapes of the first set and applying the knowledge about the guitars tuning onto them (also relative). Any interval on the B or high E string has to be shifted one semitone up in relation to the shape of the first set.

Step 4:
If you have internalized Step 2 and 3, it is time to gain access to other tetrads. The great thing about knowing the dominant chord over all the neck is, that you can create three other seventh chords by changing one note only. Flatten the Third and you have a Minor Tetrad, raise the Seventh – Boom – Major Tetrad. By Flattening the Fifth of the Minor Tetrad you get a Half-Diminished Tetrad. By raising the Tonic by a half step you get a Diminished Tetrad, not in the same key, however – still immensely useful, especially if you like Dominant b9 chords. There are more tetrads, but those are the most useful ones for now. When it comes to deciding what to learn, once those basics have been internalized, I would suggest going for whatever sounds or feels best to you. The only way to develop an own style of playing is to explore your own taste of music. The valuation of sounds based on personal preference is the only path to uniqueness in style. Everything after step 4 is icing on the cake. The most important stuff has been covered.

Step 5:
The remaining tetrads are manyfold. There is the Minor/Major Tetrad, which you can get by either flattening the third of a Major Tetrad or raising the seventh of a Minor Tetrad. The Major Augmented Tetrad can be obtained by raising the fifth of a Major Tetrad. It is important to notice, that in jazz the term augmented is usually used for another chord, the synthetic Dominant Augmented Tetrad. I use the term synthetic, because it can’t be obtained by a stacking of major and minor thirds like the others. So whenever the term augmented is used for a chord in jazz, a dominant chord with a raised fifth is ment. The chord corresponding to the Lydian Augmented Scale however, is the first one I wrote about, the one with a major seventh. Further “artificial” tetrads are the Suspended Fourth Tetrad and the Suspended Second Tetrad. You get them by taking a Dominant or a Minor Seventh Chord and replacing the Third with either a perfect fourth or a major second. The replacing notes take the place of the suspended third, usually only temporarily, before resolving in either a minor or major third. But the chord may also remain unresolved in order to uphold some tension. These are rather exotic concepts to study in depth, but you might just find your personal sound by exploring those realms a bit. I personally love the Inversions of Suspended Fourth Tetrads.

Practice every one of those steps for as long as you need to, in order to feel comfortable with it, before moving on to the next one. Depending on how fast you learn and how experienced a player you are, it may take you half an hour or a couple of days for each step. Dont be afraid of moving on to the next one though – every exercise is based on the previous ones and you will notice fast if you arent ready yet. As everything you have learned is incorporated into each next step, you don’t ever have to return to Step 1 except because of a sudden outburst of nostalgia. You should however always return to the full voicing once in a while if you happen to use the Simplified Tetrad Inversions a lot. These are just some general guidelines – keep them in mind and find out what works best for you personally.