Teaching chord inversions
Found in: Accompaniment
Sandy B., California
Some of my students want to play songs from simple fake books…usually Christian. Is it OK for me to teach them chord inversions? Also, they wanted to do Star Spangled Banner in G because it’s a better key for singing, but jumping around to play chords in the root position sounds clumsy. I was helping them invert some of the chords so the melody note was present on top and the chords were more under their hand. Is this a no no?
Jacqui G., Canada
I would wait. Build on the location of the root chords. I have shown my adult student a few chord inversions, but she has been with me for 3 years, has reached F4, and is starting to figure things out on her own. Re SSB: it is difficult to sing in any key! Students are already learning so many new ideas (split chords etc) without throwing inversions into the mix. Sometimes we just have to say no!
Jacqui G., Canada
A question for seasoned SM teachers: at what point in the streams are inverte chords introduced?
Rebecca G., Colorado
It’s a fair distance down the road in Accompaniment 2, which sometimes isn’t taught until after Jazz 1. The idea is to give students LOTS of experience with root position chords (even if they’re inconvenient sometimes) before adding in all of the information and processing involved in playing inversions.
Sandy B., California
Sometimes on the CCM songs (Contemporary Christian and also Pop songs) if chords are played in root position the kids feel that it doesn’t sound like the song they love.
Jacqui G., Canada
That’s true. I think it depends entirely on the student, and your gut feeling as to where they are with the basics, and whether throwing in the new version of the chord is going to confuse things too much.