Inversions
Lesson 13 from: Music Theory for Electronic ProducersTomas George
Inversions
Lesson 13 from: Music Theory for Electronic ProducersTomas George
Lesson Info
13. Inversions
Lessons
Introduction
00:58 2Basic Music Theory Terms
08:07 3Keyboard Layout and Octaves
06:19 4Working out Major Scales
08:58 5Perfect 5ths
06:42 63rds - Part 1
08:05 73rds - Part 2
07:39 8Perfect 4ths
04:36Chords and Inversions - Part 1
10:05 10Chords and Inversions - Part 2
09:13 11Chord Progressions - Part 1
10:22 12Chord Progressions - Part 2
08:26 13Inversions
08:53 147th Chords
09:48 15Chord Extensions
08:09 16Suspended Chords
02:40 17The Circle of 5ths
04:30 18Minor Scales
08:09 19Chords in the Natural Minor scale
09:56 20Harmonic and Melodic Minor
09:30 21Write the Chords, then the Melody
09:03 22Write the Melody, then the Chords
18:01 23Arpeggios
08:00 24Writing Bass Parts
11:35 25Writing Bass Riffs and Adapting Melodies
14:10 26Song Analysis - Chords, Part 1
10:17 27Song Analysis - Chords, Part 2
05:58 28Song Analysis - Melody
08:55 29Song Analysis - Arrangement
07:30 30Song 2 Analysis - Arrangement
05:04 31Song 2 Analysis - Chords
08:55 32Song 2 Analysis - Melodies
06:34 33Song 3 Analysis - Chords
11:41 34Song 3 Analysis - Melodies and Arrangement
06:55 35Create a Song from a Drum Beat - Part 1
10:22 36Create a Song from a Drum Beat - Part 2
18:47 37Create a Song from a Drum Beat - Part 3
18:49 38Create a Song from a Drum Beat - Part 4
08:21 39Create a Song from a Chord Progression - Part 1
08:16 40Create a Song from a Chord Progression - Part 2
08:07 41Create a Song from a Melody - Part 1
07:27 42Create a Song from a Melody - Part 2
09:05 43Modes Intro
04:10 44Ionian
00:43 45Dorian
04:31 46Phrygian
02:09 47Lydian
01:35 48Mixolydian
02:13 49Aeolian
00:39 50Locrian
01:50 51Dorian Mode Example
09:12 52Pentatonic Scales
12:27Lesson Info
Inversions
Hello. In this lecture, we're going to be looking at inversions. So inversions is basically where we move certain notes of the chord up or down an octave. So they blend together with the chord next to them a bit nicer. So I wrote in this core progression in the previous lecture, which is one of the most common core progressions, 1564. So it's a major one, major five, minor six and major four. And you can hear it's quite jumpy, the cars jump up quite a lot. You can see all this space here and in versions, it's where we basically just move some of the notes around. So they fit together a lot nicer, but then it's a lot better and just sounds slicker and more professional really. So what we can just do is we've got this E here, you can just drop this down in an octave and we can do the same with the C# and now when we go between these chords, you can see instantly that it's just gonna lock in a lot better. And we've also got the a continually going through out. Can you hear it's a lot if w...
e go back, jumped up quite a lot. OK. And let's do the same here so we can keep that B there. Let's move this D down an octave and let's move this f sharp down octave. You can see it does still go up a bit, but it hasn't got that big jump. We could move that B down here as well if we wanted. So let's move the B down. See what that sounds like either of these work really? So we're gonna keep the G there and let's move the B and the D down. So inversions is basically just moving some of the notes up or down octave to lock in bit better. It's a really simple way of doing this. We can even write in base notes. Now, we could keep it as it was before. So we had the D, let's just put this down and then the second chord was a five. So in the key of D major, the fifth is an A, an A major so we can go back to the A OK? And then the next one was the six and in D major, the six is be Mara. So let's find a B on the base, gonna follow this pattern as well. So it locks in a bit better. OK? And then the last one was a four. So in D major, the fourth is G major. So let's put that as a G you can hear that still works fine. We've got the original base note, the original root note. So it's the bottom one of the cord. We get different names for the inversions as well. Like first inversion, second inversion. But I wouldn't really worry about that. It's more about just making it sound good and moving them up and down the octave. So it fits in s and it blends a lot more rather than being really jumpy. It gives us more options as well. You can see here the root now at the end is A B. So let's move this up to A B and just hear if this works, that works. We can even move it to this root note C shop and we get kind of a different sounding chord now. So it gives a lot more options. When we use inversions, we can really just change the base note. This is still an A major, but we're kind of doing an A and major first inversion because the C sharpest at the bottom rather than the A. So there's different ways we can actually make the chords sound and it gives us more options and color in our music. This is really great for baselines. Like I said earlier, you can change the baselines around or you can leave the baselines and reposition completely up to you. I'm just gonna put this back into reposition where it was before. So we had ad then we had an A and looking at this, got a B minor, then this one, we've got a G major. So once you get used to playing these chords and, and writing out chords, you can just instantly see that this is a G major, but it might take a while. I'd start off just working it out slowly. It's not really a race. It's more about getting your music to sound good rather than just trying to put as much music out as possible. Really? So let's just copy these over. Then I'm gonna actually put in the pad part. OK. So this is the pad part and there's a lot more sustain on this as well. So we can drag these out would sound good. You'll notice that this a actually, it's in both of these chords. So what we can do is just have this a going along all of them. This is something great in held chords or any simps that have a lot of sustain. So these don't actually have anything. So we can uh let's put these here, we can change this inversion as well. The inversions don't have to be the same for every instrument. So let's put this up to A B to drag this across. OK. Let's do the same. You notice there's a B here as well in both of these. So it has the same shared note so we can drag this across. This note's slightly different. This goes to a G. So let's get rid of this and this goes to ad so inversions allows us to find the chords that basically go more than one chord and just have this going across. Maybe not for stab sounds or piano sounds, cos you wanna reattach the sound, but for chords or pads, this can work great. So let's hear this in the mix as well. And that's just drag this to the right place. There we go. Let's hear this and let's trigger this. So just instantly created a song that links together and sounds a lot more professional than it did previously before. It was a bit too jumpy. It didn't really sound that fluid now, it links a lot better. It's great for pad sounds when you use inversions. So you can actually share the same note in one or more chords. So several of these chords could use a note. You could even use stuff like pedal notes, we just keep the continuing note going across and then other parts of the notes actually change. We'll look at this later on. That's a bit more complex. But really, you could, for example, move this d up here and have ad going all the way across and now we've got a different kind of cord going on, but then you will have to go back to this one and change the second one to ad let's hear this. We could even add a B at the top as well. But we're gonna continue looking at this kind of stuff, but this just gives you some options of what you can actually do with just holding these notes and changing these inversions around. I'd start off just keeping it really, really simple. And then later on, we'll actually go in and we'll make it a bit more complex and add some kind of color and more flavor to our cords. But for now, this is basically how you work out all the scales in our major scale. So all the different chords sorry in our major scale. So if you follow the steps, I've showed you in the last few lectures, you should know which chords you can put in. And now we've gone through some core progressions and also I've gone over some inversions. So you should start to be making some music that actually sounds in key and quite musical and could be used as a regular song. It doesn't sound to you all over the place, locks in a lot better. And when we continue through this course, we're going to be looking at some more complex harmony. So stuff like seventh chords, changing it around customizing your tracks a bit more and also melodies. So thank you for watching this lecture all about inversions. I hope you can use this to actually change some of your chords to make the flow a lot better and just sound a lot more professional.
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