Intermediate
Intermediate
- Understand how to create drop 2 voicings.
- Learn to smoothly transition between chords.
- Create a larger vocabulary of chords to pick from.
Inversions are one of the fundamental fountains of knowledge when it comes to learning harmony. They increase your fretboard awareness, spice up your chord knowledge, and impress all your friends who are stuck trying to get their barre chords sounding great.
Except for sight reading, inversions have been the skill that breaks the most students in terms of frustration. However, they have also led to the "eureka" moments in their studies when the neck just opens up for them. Over the years I've adopted this system on mastering your inversions by learning the shapes and applying them to songs.
The Basics of a Drop 2 Chord
There are two main families of 7th chords: drop 2 and drop 3. With these two families you have access to a vast majority of the chords used by greats like Wes Montgomery or Joe Pass. The voicings are very versatile and will open up the entire geography of the fretboard. For our purposes, we will focus on drop 2, but the concept can also apply to drop 3.
Drop 2 chords cover the most range of the instrument without creating dissonances and provide a massive number of options. How one arrives at a drop 2 chord sounds mysterious, like a strange code. However, it's not that difficult. Let's start with a basic Cmaj7 chord in root position (C–E–G–B). Next, we take the second note from the top, which would be G, and drop it down an octave to create a new shape (Ex. 1).
Ex. 1
The new shape (G–C–E–B) is 2nd inversion Cmaj7 chord and likely doesn't look that unfamiliar. It's more open, stable, functional, and playable in any situation that a Cmaj7 chord could be played. Simple, right?
Next, we will want to extend this idea to the remaining inversions along the neck. In Ex. 2 I've written out the four drop 2 shapes for Cmaj7 along the top four strings.
Ex. 2
I use the term 1573 for a specific reason. This is a way to memorize and visualize the voicing on a deeper level so that you know the function of each voice rather than just internalizing a grip that you spew out. It allows you to alter your voicings to suit your personal tastes in terms of harmonic extension and character. Here are the formulas that correspond with each inversion of a Cmaj7 chord.
1573 C–G–B–E Root position
3715 E–B–C–G 1st inversion
5137 G–C–E–B 2nd inversion
7351 B–E–G–C 3rd inversion
Because of the nature of the drop 2 voicings, we are now offered a large library of new shapes. These exist on four adjacent strings. That gives us three different groups of voicings to learn: one based with the lowest note of the voicing on the 6th string, one on the 5th and one on the 4th. They all have different uses, but that is something we don't need to worry about just yet, we need to get these shapes in your hands and ears.
I've outlined the set of major 7 chords with the lowest note on the 4th string (Ex. 2). In Ex. 3 you can see the shapes based on the 6th string and Ex. 4 covers the 5th string.
Ex. 3
Ex. 4
Mastering all three groups of voicings gets you ready to play in real musical situations. Listening to the solo arrangements of players like Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery, you will discover much of their chord vocabulary is based off this group of voicings.
Now We Exercise
Memorizing the shapes of the chords is the first step to practical application. With four variations on each 1573 chord there is a lot of work to get to. One of the most practical ways is using these shapes to harmonize a major scale. Keeping everything diatonic (within a key) we end up with the following harmony:
Imaj7–IIm7–IIIm7–IVmaj7–V7–VIm7–VIIm7(b5)
Translate that to a key of your choice. Let's start with the key of F, which is a very common key in jazz repertoire, and covers a good range of the instrument.
We begin with the lowest possible root-position chord voicing on the top four strings, which in this key would be Em7b5 (Ex. 5). Naturally, we would move up the neck with each note going to the next scale tone.
Ex. 5
As with every exercise we want to transpose this into other keys. Once you can play this in F major, go to the next key and apply the same concepts. After you get a grasp on your root position chords, start applying inverted shapes right away (Ex. 6). In this exercise, we are working on 1st inversion chords starting with a C7 with an E in the bass.
Ex. 6
Continue this until you can get through all inversions in every key on each of the three string sets. Although these three exercises aren't expansive, they will give you plenty of material to practice. Remember, when you start to learn any new chord shape it takes a little time, but eventually it gets easier.
Playing these shapes across the string sets really opens things up. In Ex. 7 I apply these shapes across all three string sets.
Ex. 7
Now you could not play this entire passage on just the lowest string set, however you need to switch string groupings as you continue to progress. The choice as to when you change groups is yours, and you will want to be able to make this "swap" at any point in the progression instinctively.
In Ex. 8 I've given you one possible way to navigate through all four inversions across all three sting sets. This exercise is very useful in getting a strong start on the basic major scale shapes. Don't rush these; nothing will be internalized and memorized overnight. Remember, we have to not only learn the physical shape of the chords but get comfortable with the sounds that they create.
Ex. 8
Our next exercise will help visualize how each inversion works together going down the neck. In Ex. 9 we start with a higher voicing of Cmaj7 (in 10th position) and work our way down diatonically by keeping all common tones the same. For example, both Cmaj7 and Dm7 share a C, so that note stays while the upper notes move to the closest chord tones. We continue the pattern down the neck and across to the lower string sets.
Ex. 9
Take this process and apply it to all 12 keys to reinforce all of the inversions. Remember, you will be switching string groupings throughout this exercise, so find the best option for you.
Progressions
Practicing these basic exercises helps to get familiar with the shapes, but as you practice them you're going to want to use them over common progressions. Jazz standards move keys often, and in ways that are formulaic and predictable. I teach my students to learn these very common chord progressions in inversions as part of an etude. That way, they learn their inversions not only as a shape, but how they actually work in a tune.
The most common progression is the IIm7–V7– Imaj7. It's also the fundamental basic way of mastering inversions outside of just getting your fingers to make the shape. In Ex. 10 I've gone through a few examples in the key of G. Several of these will stretch out your fingers but after some diligent practice they will become more comfortable.
Ex. 10
Now, you have progressed through learning the basic shapes of the Drop 2 or the 1573 chords, let's unlock the last subject of this lesson, how to play them in song form. As I had mentioned earlier, standards seldom stay in a key for very long. There always seems to be a key change at the bridge, or even several key changes throughout a chorus. Here are a few really common shifts that happen in jazz tunes just to get the ball rolling. Learn these relationships, transpose them, and you're going to be way ahead of the curve.
Practice these studies with a metronome, go slowly, and internalize them. It may take a while for you to get everything nice and smooth. It's a long journey to really get some of this under your fingers and into your ears.
In Ex. 11 we start in the key of G and then play a progression in E minor, which is the relative minor of G. Break open your Real Book to nearly any page and you're likely to find this one.
Ex. 11
For Ex. 12, we start in F major before shifting to Bb major. This I–IV motion appears in countless tunes. Notice how moving across the string sets opens your ears to the relationship between the bass note and the melody. Many times those are the key notes when picking up chords by ear off a recording.
Ex. 12
Moving around by whole steps is another tried and true harmonic pattern. By now, I'm sure you're starting to recognize sounds and inversions and how they interact. In Ex. 13 I've written out a handful of ways to play through a IIm7–V7–Imaj7 in Bb and then move down a whole step to Ab.
Ex. 13
Finally, we get more adventurous with Ex. 14. Here we move from the tonic, in this case Eb, to a minor progression in the key of G, the 3 of the scale. Sounds like jazz to me, right?
Ex. 14
I get it. That's a lot of information. This is going to keep you busy for a while. But remember, you don't have to use all of these voicings. Find the ones you like, pick a tune, and get to work.
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Onstage, Tommy Emmanuel executes a move that is not from the playbook of his hero, Chet Atkins.
“My biggest decision every day on tour is, ‘What do I want to start with? How do I want to come out of the gate?’” Emmanuel explains to me over a video call. “A good opener has to have everything. It has to be full of surprise, it has to have lots of good ideas, lots of light and shade, and then, hit it again,” he says, illustrating each phrase with his hands and ending with a punch.“You lift off straightaway with the first song, you get airborne, you start reaching, and then it’s time to level out and take people on a journey.”
In May 2023, Emmanuel played two shows at the Sydney Opera House, the best performances from which have been combined on his new release, Live at the Sydney Opera House. The venue’s Concert Hall, which has a capacity of 2,679, is a familiar room for Emmanuel, but I think at this point in his career he wouldn’t bring a setlist if he was playing Wembley Stadium. On the recording, Emmanuel’s mind-blowingly dexterous chops, distinctive attack and flair, and knack for culturally resonant compositions are on full display. His opening song for the shows? An original, “Countrywide,” with a segue into Chet Atkins’ “El Vaquero.”
“When I was going to high school in the ’60s, I heard ‘El Vaquero’ on Chet Atkins’ record, [1964’s My Favorite Guitars],” Emmanuel shares. “And when I wrote ‘Countrywide’ in around ’76 or ’77, I suddenly realized, ‘Ah! It’s a bit like “El Vaquero!”’ So I then worked out ‘El Vaquero’ as a solo piece, because it wasn’t recorded like that [by Atkins originally].
“The co-writer of ‘El Vaquero’ is Wayne Moss, who’s a famous Nashville session guy who played ‘da da da’ [sings the guitar riff from Roy Orbison’s ‘Pretty Woman’]. And he played on a lot of Chet’s records as a rhythm guy. So once when I played ‘El Vaquero’ live, Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’” Emmanuel says, laughing.
Atkins is the reason Emmanuel got into performing. His mother had been teaching him rhythm guitar for a couple years when he heard Atkins on the radio and, at 6, was able to immediately mimic his fingerpicking technique. His father recognized Emmanuel’s prodigious talent and got him on the road that year, which kicked off his professional career. He says, “By the time I was 6, I was already sleep-deprived, working too hard, and being forced to be educated. Because all I was interested in was playing music.”
Emmanuel talks about Atkins as if the way he viewed him as a boy hasn’t changed. The title Atkins bestowed upon him, C.G.P. (Certified Guitar Player), appears on Emmanuel’s album covers, in his record label (C.G.P. Sounds), and is inlaid at the 12th fret on his Maton Custom Shop TE Personal signature acoustic. (Atkins named only five guitarists C.G.P.s. The others are John Knowles, Steve Wariner, Jerry Reed, and Atkins himself.) For Emmanuel, even today most roads lead to Atkins.
When I ask Emmanuel about his approach to arranging for solo acoustic guitar, he says, “It was really hit home for me by my hero, Chet Atkins, when I read an interview with him a long time ago and he said, ‘Make your arrangement interesting.’ And I thought, ‘Wow!’ Because I was so keen to be true to the composer and play the song as everyone knows it. But then again, I’m recreating it like everyone else has, and I might as well get in line with the rest of them and jump off the cliff into nowhere. So it struck me: ‘How can I make my arrangements interesting?’ Well, make them full of surprises.”
When Emmanuel was invited to contribute to 2015’s Burt Bacharach: This Guitar’s in Love with You, featuring acoustic-guitar tributes to Bacharach’s classic compositions by various artists, Emmanuel expresses that nobody wanted to take “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” due to its “syrupy” nature. But for Emmanuel, this presented an entertaining challenge.
He explains, “I thought, ‘Okay, how can I reboot “Close to You?’ So even the most jaded listener will say, ‘Holy fuck—I didn’t expect that! Wow, I really like that; that is a good melody!’ So I found a good key to play the song in, which allowed me to get some open notes that sustain while I move the chords. Then what I did is, in every phrase, I made the chord unresolve, then resolve.
Tommy Emmanuel's Gear
“I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head,” Emmanuel says. “So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever.”
Photo by Simone Cecchetti
Guitars
- Three Maton Custom Shop TE Personals, each with an AP5 PRO pickup system
Amps
- Udo Roesner Da Capo 75
Effects
- AER Pocket Tools preamp
Strings & Picks
- Martin TE Signature Phosphor Bronze (.012–.054)
- Martin SP strings
- Ernie Ball Paradigm strings
- D’Andrea Pro Plec 1.5 mm
- Dunlop medium thumbpicks
“And then to really put the nail in the coffin, at the end, ‘Close to you’ [sings melody]. I finished on a major 9 chord which had that note in it, but it wasn’t the key the song was in, which is a typical Stevie Wonder trick. All the tricks I know, the wonderful ideas that I’ve stolen, are from Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, James Taylor, Carole King, Neil Diamond. All of the people who wrote really incredibly great pop songs and R&B music—I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a -half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
I share with Emmanuel that the performances on Live at the Sydney Opera House, which include his popular “Beatles Medley,” reminded me of another possible arrangement trick. In Harpo Marx’s autobiography, Harpo Speaks, I preface, Marx writes of a lesson he learned as a performer—to “answer the audience’s questions.” (Emmanuel says he’s a big fan of the book and read it in the early ’70s.) That happened for me while listening to the medley, when, after sampling melodies from “She’s a Woman” and “Please Please Me,” Emmanuel suddenly lands on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
I say, “I’m waiting for something that hits more recognizably to me, and when ‘While My Guitar’ comes in, that’s like answering my question.”
“It’s also Paul and John, Paul and John, George,” Emmanuel replies. “You think, ‘That’s great, that’s great pop music,’ then, ‘Wow! Look at the depth of this.’”
Often Emmanuel’s flights on his acoustic guitar are seemingly superhuman—as well as supremely entertaining.
Photo by Ekaterina Gorbacheva
A trick I like to employ as a writer, I say to Emmanuel, is that when I’m describing something, I’ll provide the reader with just enough context so that they can complete the thought on their own.
“You can do that musically as well,” says Emmanuel. He explains how, in his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” he’ll play only the vocal melody. “When people are asking me at a workshop, ‘How come you don’t put chords behind that part?’ I say, ‘I’m drawing the melody and you’re putting in all the background in your head. I don’t need to tell you what the chords are. You already know what the chords are.’”
“Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’”
Another track featured on Live at the Sydney Opera House is a cover of Paul Simon’s “American Tune” (which Emmanuel then jumps into an adaptation of the Australian bush ballad, “Waltzing Matilda”). It’s been a while since I really spent time with There GoesRhymin’ Simon (on which “American Tune” was first released), and yet it sounded so familiar to me. A little digging revealed that its melody is based on the 17th-century Christian hymn, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” which was arranged and repurposed by Bach in a few of the composer’s works. The cross-chronological and genre-lackadaisical intersections that come up in popular music sometimes is fascinating.
“I think the principle right there,” Emmanuel muses, “is people like Bach and Beethoven and Mozart found the right language to touch the heart of a human being through their ears and through their senses ... that really did something to them deep in their soul. They found a way with the right chords and the right notes, somehow. It could be as primitive as that.
Tommy Emmanuel has been on the road as a performing guitarist for 64 years. Eat your heart out, Bob Dylan.
Photo by Jan Anderson
“It’s like when you’re a young composer and someone tells you, ‘Have a listen to Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind,”’ he continues. “‘Listen to how those notes work with those chords.’ And every time you hear it, you go, ‘Why does it touch me like that? Why do I feel this way when I hear those chords—those notes against those chords?’ I say, it’s just human nature. Then you wanna go, ‘How can I do that!’” he concludes with a grin.
“You draw from such a variety of genres in your arrangements,” I posit. “Do you try to lean into the side of converting those songs to solo acoustic guitar, or the side of bridging the genre’s culture to that of your audience?”
“I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a-half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
“If I was a method actor,” Emmanuel explains, “what I’m doing is—I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head. So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever. I always think it has to have that kind of orchestral, not grandeur, but … palette to it. Because of the influence of Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, and Elton John, especially—the piano guys—I try to use piano ideas, like putting the third in the low bass a lot, because guitar players don’t necessarily do that. And I try to always do something that makes what I do different.
“I want to be different and recognizable,” he continues. “I remember when people talked about how some players—you just hear one note and you go, ‘Oh, that’s Chet Atkins.’ And it hit me like a train, the reason why a guy like Hank Marvin, the lead guitar player from the Shadows.... I can tell you: He had a tone that I hear in other players now. Everyone copied him—they just don’t know it—including Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, all those people. I got him up to play with me a few times when he moved to Australia, and even playing acoustic, he still had that sound. I don’t know how he did it, but it was him. He invented himself.”
YouTube It
Emmanuel performs his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” illustrating how omitting a harmonic backdrop can have a more powerful effect, especially when playing such a well-known melody.
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