I completely agree! His video explaining why there are 12 notes and how that creates intervals in standard Western music was an epiphany and made me understand what was previously confusing. th-cam.com/video/lvmzgVtZtUQ/w-d-xo.html
The keyboard appearing on the screen makes your videos absolutely perfect, even better understandable than before. It really is a highly appreciated new feature. Thanks a lot David!
I did my GCSEs last year. I ended up doing my music exam at home. I did music production and produces a creative song in FL studio. Is your more theory based?
One of my favourite inversions: the first chord in ‘Aint no mountain enough’ i just thought of it and came on immediately in your video. Coincidence! Minds thinking alike!
What makes that chord is the half diminished chord that follows, because there's only one note different. The inversion just lines things up nice to establish the downward motion.
I've always heard you talk about Radiohead for years and now I've been dragged into the world of Kid A and it feels so depressing and just perfect. It speaks to me. How To Disappear Completely, beautiful song. When he harmonises with the melody literal heaven.
There are very few TH-cam channels that I watch all of their content. And click as soon as I can. You’re one of them. You’ve improved my musical life. And I’m thankful. You’re killing it David. Great content. Strong.💪🎸👍🥃
Outstanding video. Helps me to realize the color added to a song by merely performing an inversion. Helps me to realize why listening to Brian Wilson's compositions can be so emotional.
I won’t lie, your channel has made understanding music concepts so much easier, I’ve always been really good at understanding time signatures and writing with them, but chord theory used to be completely alien to me until I started watching your channel. now I’m actively seeking out new musical concepts to learn and apply to my own music because I can actually comprehend and digest them because of your videos.
As a pianist, I read the title and thought "All of them". 🙂🎵 Voice leading is useful in many ways, and naturally results in inversions. For example to go from F major in root position to A minor, you can move just one finger from F to E if you play the A minor in 2nd inversion (Am/E).
I never knew that made such a big difference, i usually play a chord with whatever the triad notes are. i didnt care for what the bass was, just used what sounded the best/easiest to play. Great video as always
Adam Neely once said that he love the bass because of the "brute force" of it, because you can invert or generate another lot of chords and armony, even if the whole band is playing D, you with a F# can change it all.
A superb introductory explanation! I love watching your videos that cover more advanced topics too, but this is MY level. Thanks, David! 😃 So many other things I've seen make so much more sense now.
Your videos are awesome David. I always look forward to them and learn a lot. I love the fact that you’re always using real world examples of these ideas in practice.
Even if you play root position chords on piano or guitar, if the bass player is having fun using the 3rd or 5th instead of the root, or making melody lines (like Paul McCartney for example), then you end up with inversions. As Sting said: "as a bass player, you decide what the chord is".
Exactly, or if you play in a full band setup. The guitar player play the G major chord. Which contains the G, B and D notes. Then the bass player play the E note. Both of them creates a new chord the E minor 7 chord. Which contains the E, G, B, D notes. And if you have a Piano/Keyboard player. He will play the E note on his left hand and G major chord on his right hand.
I love Sir Elton John's use of inversions in Your Song. They add a level of beauty and sophistication the the harmonic color. Basically all of Billy Joel's music is the same
Great video! I agree that figured bass is confusing and messy. Here's how I personally write inversions and other slash chords using roman numerals. Take Bob Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate": C - - - Em/B - - - C/B♭ - - - F/A - - - Fm/A♭ - - - C/G - F - C - G - C - - - (Each dash is one additional beat.) In roman numerals: I - - - iii/5 - - - I/m7 - - - IV/3 - - - iv/3 - - - I/5 - IV - I - V - I - - - The bass note is always relative to the chord root, not the tonic. Thus a 1st inversion is always /3, a 2nd inversion is always /5, etc. Note that "3" refers to A in the F chord, but to A♭ in the Fm chord, because "3" refers to whatever the chord's 3rd is. If you wanted to do something weird like F/A♭ or Fm/A, that would be IV/m3 or iv/M3. In other words, to add a bass note that's not in the chord, just write the interval from the root to the bass note. Thus the C/B♭ chord becomes I/m7. (But C7/B♭ would become I7/7.)
I really hope you’re getting good pay from those ads because. Your vids are top notch. Your level of care really shows. It’s pretty impossible to find other creators that break down theory to the point that anyone can understand the why of it all, and still maintain a solid conversation. You talk like we’re the new guy in the studio who just needs some help 😂. So many other times i watch other theory vids, they get stuck on the monotonous parts of theory and I find myself just waiting for them to get to the parts i’m not sure about. Bottom line, you should be charging us for these vids (please don’t)
thanks to you i’m finally understanding about chord progressions and modes. i can’t thank you enough. you’re really the best teacher out there. cheers! 🎶🎶🎶
Thanks David for giving me ptsd from my days in AP Music Theory, when you started talking about the figured bass all the bad memories of using it came back 😂, I just graduated high school and we did a lot of figured bass and even my teacher thought it was stupidly complicated/unnecessary 😂
Interestingly I learned inverted chords (specifically second-inversion ones) before even the root position ones as the first chart I learned chords off of had them in second-inversion. As such it is one of my favorite musical concepts and I've begun to realize that just like the examples you've used in this video, inverted chords tend to resolve rather than be resolved to, almost in my mind having some semblance of instability. I-4 tends to resolve to IV (as the third in the bass leads up to the fourth) and I-6-4 tends to resolve to V (as the root of the V is already there in the bass). Notable examples of inversion heavy songs I can think of include "These Dreams" by Heart which has a chorus of almost all inverted chords along with "Baby Hold On" by Eddie Money which uses a combination of I-6-4 and augmented chords. These both have chord progressions I would describe as unstable.
5:46 Bbmin7b5 is bii dim The key is A, Bb is the flat 2. Bm6 is the ii-6, think you just had a typo on the flat 2 (#1) diminished. Awesome video, I love these kinds of videos a lot. The examples make retention easier. Thank you.
A fantastic italian song full of inversions is Paolo Conte's "gli impermeabili". Actually the tune you composed at the end sort of reminded me of it. I really reccomend it for the English listeners ;)
Talk about timing. Coincidentally, I was just watching your video on augmented chords and you brought up how they’re the only form of chords that can’t be inverted. After you said that, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Now here we are.
Interesting. I always thought of some of those inversions as just walking the bass line up or down to the next chord but now I see that there is some music theory behind it.
I've personally found with my own song writing that inversions really add some great colour to a song, and believe it or not, they really suit alternative rock and power chords
I use actual numbers in place of Roman numerals. It's easy to read 1/3 because it's same format as C/E. I denote major, minor, 7th (etc.) with standard notation after that. Every time I hand out a chart like this people understand it right away.
When I started to hear "in the KFC" instead of "in the key of C", I finally realized, that the TH-cam is holding me tight for too long 😄. This comment is intended to support you. Anyway, thank you for your channel, you really helped me a lot in understanding of music theory!
Great lesson I know Elton John uses a lot of slash chords to create diffrent emotion and really helps with voice leading. Sus chords and clusters also create incredible about of emotion as well because they help extend chords and melodies also . Ty
Makes them even easier to play on guitar than regular power chords. Richie Blackmore loved them (though I believe he talked about them as parallel 4ths, but same diff -- a 4th is an inverted 5th) as evidenced by songs like "Smoke on the Water" and "Burn". Page used them in Zep's version of "In My Time of Dying". An easy way to make great-sounding riffs.
The thing with figured bass is that there are numbers that are let out to write it faster. Maybe because they were obvious at the time. For example first inversion is 6-3, but people let out the number 3, it's like writing "n't" instead of "not". Those two numbers represent the intervals between the bass and the next note of the chord, hence 6-3 in a C chord is a third from E ( the bass) to G, and a 6th from E to C. That's why 6-4 doesn't get rid of the 4, as in this kind of chord with 3 notes, its the only inversion with a 4th from bass to the other note of the chord. In the C chord, that will be the interval from G (in the bass) to C. With 7th chords things get complicated, as there are more intervals... time to count and figure what is the number they let out this time...
Probably the biggest reason you'll find inverted chords in popular music is because that is how both ascending and descending chromatic bass lines are created. Elton John, Brian Wilson, and Elliott Smith were all very adept at this. And also, of course, the Beatles.
Great video! Two songs with inversions I dig. Pre-chorus to Peace Love and Understanding - third chord being G7 third inversion (the bass playing the F). Pre-chorus to the Kinks’ Better Things - I don’t know what they all are, but they’re cool.
David Bennett Piano, the man who makes music theory seem easy, understandable and the only person who has made it make sense to me
Thank you Mike!!
100% agree!
I'm Brazilian, and my English is not so good, but he can make me understand everything without subs
yep, totally agree
I completely agree! His video explaining why there are 12 notes and how that creates intervals in standard Western music was an epiphany and made me understand what was previously confusing.
th-cam.com/video/lvmzgVtZtUQ/w-d-xo.html
The outro piece is amazing. I love that you always do one of these
Same inversions as Take It Easy On Me by Little River Band! Nice!
Totally! The 4 4m 1/3 add9 is the best
Brian Wilson’s “God Only Knows” is a brilliant example. I can’t even conceive how he came up with those inversions. Incredible ear.
Wow that song at the end was really beautiful!
Thanks!!
The keyboard appearing on the screen makes your videos absolutely perfect, even better understandable than before. It really is a highly appreciated new feature. Thanks a lot David!
You are helping me SO much to get through my GCSEs. Especially during the analysis of songs!!! ❤️❤️👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
Great!!
@@DavidBennettPiano 😇😇
I did my GCSEs last year. I ended up doing my music exam at home. I did music production and produces a creative song in FL studio. Is your more theory based?
@@DeKevers that’s amazing! i’m learning FL Studio on mobile but their orchestral samples are 💀🥴 but it’s so good to use
@@kay-412 fl has been my favourite DAW for the past 3 years because of how intuitive and immersive it is
One of my favourite inversions: the first chord in ‘Aint no mountain enough’ i just thought of it and came on immediately in your video. Coincidence! Minds thinking alike!
Good choice!
What makes that chord is the half diminished chord that follows, because there's only one note different. The inversion just lines things up nice to establish the downward motion.
I've always heard you talk about Radiohead for years and now I've been dragged into the world of Kid A and it feels so depressing and just perfect. It speaks to me. How To Disappear Completely, beautiful song. When he harmonises with the melody literal heaven.
David Bennet, is truly the teacher I wish I’d had when I was young. I always enjoy his examples and narratives.
There are very few TH-cam channels that I watch all of their content.
And click as soon as I can.
You’re one of them.
You’ve improved my musical life.
And I’m thankful.
You’re killing it David.
Great content.
Strong.💪🎸👍🥃
Outstanding video. Helps me to realize the color added to a song by merely performing an inversion. Helps me to realize why listening to Brian Wilson's compositions can be so emotional.
Thank you!
Thank you!
The song you wrote as an example is stunningly beautiful!
Brian May often used D/A on guitar -it's formed a big part of the Queen guitar sound!
I won’t lie, your channel has made understanding music concepts so much easier, I’ve always been really good at understanding time signatures and writing with them, but chord theory used to be completely alien to me until I started watching your channel. now I’m actively seeking out new musical concepts to learn and apply to my own music because I can actually comprehend and digest them because of your videos.
Use Somebody was the song that taught me inversions, although I didn't know until now it was in inversion; I just knew it had a slash chord
As a pianist, I read the title and thought "All of them". 🙂🎵 Voice leading is useful in many ways, and naturally results in inversions. For example to go from F major in root position to A minor, you can move just one finger from F to E if you play the A minor in 2nd inversion (Am/E).
The instrumental section of Layla by Derek and the Dominos is one of my favorite examples of inversions
Ooh that song at the end is gorgeous! 💓
Thank you David and please compose some more. You have a great talent there.
I never knew that made such a big difference, i usually play a chord with whatever the triad notes are. i didnt care for what the bass was, just used what sounded the best/easiest to play. Great video as always
The bit at the end is a beautiful piece of music
You are really hitting your stride, just putting out so many awesome videos so frequently! Thank you David!
One of your best, and there are no bummers in your library of videos thanks to your skill at teaching and hard work.
Thanks David. You've explained thinks that have been bugging me for ages in such an easy to understand way.
Great!
Wow, Your composition in the end was really impressive! I didn't know that you're SUCH a great composer. Thanks vor the Video!
Beautiful progression at the end. Voice leading and color. Cool post, and informative
Love the piece at the end David. Super work. Thanks again for all.
I love this chord series!
Adam Neely once said that he love the bass because of the "brute force" of it, because you can invert or generate another lot of chords and armony, even if the whole band is playing D, you with a F# can change it all.
Also why Sting likes it
You with a D# could change it even more.
glad you included the Beach Boys. Brian is the inversion king.
A superb introductory explanation! I love watching your videos that cover more advanced topics too, but this is MY level. Thanks, David! 😃 So many other things I've seen make so much more sense now.
Great 😊
Wonderful segment, David. You filled in a number of blanks for me in a clear and concise manner. Well done, as always!
Great!!
Such a beautiful melody of yours at the end!
Your videos are awesome David. I always look forward to them and learn a lot. I love the fact that you’re always using real world examples of these ideas in practice.
Inversions are a favorite trick of mine to use in songwriting, a relatively simple yet effective way of making basic chords sound more interesting
Very sweet and pretty melody you composed at the end. I really, really liked it a lot.
Very, very beautiful composition.
Even if you play root position chords on piano or guitar, if the bass player is having fun using the 3rd or 5th instead of the root, or making melody lines (like Paul McCartney for example), then you end up with inversions. As Sting said: "as a bass player, you decide what the chord is".
Exactly, or if you play in a full band setup. The guitar player play the G major chord. Which contains the G, B and D notes. Then the bass player play the E note. Both of them creates a new chord the E minor 7 chord. Which contains the E, G, B, D notes. And if you have a Piano/Keyboard player. He will play the E note on his left hand and G major chord on his right hand.
Love your videos, been watching for a while, and theyre getting better! Thanks for doing what you do David!
Thank you!!
Adam Neely laid into figured bass two weeks ago in his “Can I pass AP” piece - its time on earth must soon be up if you two are combining forces.
I love Sir Elton John's use of inversions in Your Song. They add a level of beauty and sophistication the the harmonic color. Basically all of Billy Joel's music is the same
Yes I was playing that song a few months ago and noticed it as well.
Great video! I agree that figured bass is confusing and messy. Here's how I personally write inversions and other slash chords using roman numerals. Take Bob Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate":
C - - - Em/B - - - C/B♭ - - - F/A - - - Fm/A♭ - - - C/G - F - C - G - C - - -
(Each dash is one additional beat.) In roman numerals:
I - - - iii/5 - - - I/m7 - - - IV/3 - - - iv/3 - - - I/5 - IV - I - V - I - - -
The bass note is always relative to the chord root, not the tonic. Thus a 1st inversion is always /3, a 2nd inversion is always /5, etc. Note that "3" refers to A in the F chord, but to A♭ in the Fm chord, because "3" refers to whatever the chord's 3rd is. If you wanted to do something weird like F/A♭ or Fm/A, that would be IV/m3 or iv/M3. In other words, to add a bass note that's not in the chord, just write the interval from the root to the bass note. Thus the C/B♭ chord becomes I/m7. (But C7/B♭ would become I7/7.)
Best music theory channel on TH-cam!
Wow!!! Thanks a brilliant chord progression!!! I always learn a lot from you!!! Keep up the good and generous work you share.
I love your channel. You make music theory digestible, education and most importantly fun!
I really hope you’re getting good pay from those ads because. Your vids are top notch. Your level of care really shows. It’s pretty impossible to find other creators that break down theory to the point that anyone can understand the why of it all, and still maintain a solid conversation. You talk like we’re the new guy in the studio who just needs some help 😂. So many other times i watch other theory vids, they get stuck on the monotonous parts of theory and I find myself just waiting for them to get to the parts i’m not sure about.
Bottom line, you should be charging us for these vids (please don’t)
Beautiful piece of music you have there at the end
I've learnt so much theory in such a few days because of you. Thank You.
thanks to you i’m finally understanding about chord progressions and modes. i can’t thank you enough. you’re really the best teacher out there. cheers! 🎶🎶🎶
Thanks David for giving me ptsd from my days in AP Music Theory, when you started talking about the figured bass all the bad memories of using it came back 😂, I just graduated high school and we did a lot of figured bass and even my teacher thought it was stupidly complicated/unnecessary 😂
Another good show and a nice song at the end to boot. Keep it up and have a nice day.
Thanks, will do!
Loved your piece at the end!
Interestingly I learned inverted chords (specifically second-inversion ones) before even the root position ones as the first chart I learned chords off of had them in second-inversion. As such it is one of my favorite musical concepts and I've begun to realize that just like the examples you've used in this video, inverted chords tend to resolve rather than be resolved to, almost in my mind having some semblance of instability. I-4 tends to resolve to IV (as the third in the bass leads up to the fourth) and I-6-4 tends to resolve to V (as the root of the V is already there in the bass).
Notable examples of inversion heavy songs I can think of include "These Dreams" by Heart which has a chorus of almost all inverted chords along with "Baby Hold On" by Eddie Money which uses a combination of I-6-4 and augmented chords. These both have chord progressions I would describe as unstable.
Your outro composition has always been a pleasure to listen to. But, I think this one is the best yet! Great video.
Another one of your best episodes.
10:33 Dammit, you forced me to stand up and salute! 😛
I love the way that Queen's "You're My Best Friend" ends on a first inversion, at least to my ears. It's the only example I can think of!
Your composition is beautiful, thanks for sharing
I absolutely enjoy your videos, thank you!!!
These outro pieces are god-tier
Excellent video, thank you, David.
5:46 Bbmin7b5 is bii dim
The key is A, Bb is the flat 2. Bm6 is the ii-6, think you just had a typo on the flat 2 (#1) diminished.
Awesome video, I love these kinds of videos a lot. The examples make retention easier. Thank you.
A fantastic italian song full of inversions is Paolo Conte's "gli impermeabili". Actually the tune you composed at the end sort of reminded me of it. I really reccomend it for the English listeners ;)
I liked your inversions piece at the end, those last 3 chords were very pretty. Keep it up
Talk about timing.
Coincidentally, I was just watching your video on augmented chords and you brought up how they’re the only form of chords that can’t be inverted. After you said that, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Now here we are.
Outstanding video! I must try using this ASAP
Interesting. I always thought of some of those inversions as just walking the bass line up or down to the next chord but now I see that there is some music theory behind it.
Well these inversions ARE the "next chord." That's a distinction here.
Really interesting post, thanks. Great outro music as well
Excellent video. Clear and informative. Keep up the great work!
I've personally found with my own song writing that inversions really add some great colour to a song, and believe it or not, they really suit alternative rock and power chords
I thought power chords were just two-note intervals (usually fifths), how do you do an inversion with that?
Your piece is just beautiful. Love it.
thanks David!
lovely piece at the end!
Thanks for this!
Thanks for watching!
Hey David, 6:48 why is the bIII (Eb) in Something from the Beatles?
Where is the logic behind that chord?
If my professors had been more like you, David; my college experience would have been soooooooo much better.
God only knows what invertions I play by time I splatter the chord tones all over the neck, good vid thanks.
Wonderful video! I'm so glad I found your channel!
Amazing explanation tank-you!
Thanks, really appreciated!
Beautiful outro piece
Thank you so much!!
wonderful
This was extremely intrresting, even more than usually, if possible! ☺️
Great vidéo, as always! Thx
Well done 💙
Cheers!
I use actual numbers in place of Roman numerals. It's easy to read 1/3 because it's same format as C/E. I denote major, minor, 7th (etc.) with standard notation after that. Every time I hand out a chart like this people understand it right away.
Geez that outro piece was perfect David
When I started to hear "in the KFC" instead of "in the key of C", I finally realized, that the TH-cam is holding me tight for too long 😄.
This comment is intended to support you. Anyway, thank you for your channel, you really helped me a lot in understanding of music theory!
Always informative, thank you.
what a fantastic lesson
Great lesson I know Elton John uses a lot of slash chords to create diffrent emotion and really helps with voice leading. Sus chords and clusters also create incredible about of emotion as well because they help extend chords and melodies also . Ty
Yes! Also, sometimes these inversions create a momentary pedal point effect in the bass.
Inverting powerchords is a fun little trick, too
Song 2 by blur is the first that comes to mind
Agreed!
Yeah, I saw that in Paul David's recent video 😀😀
Makes them even easier to play on guitar than regular power chords. Richie Blackmore loved them (though I believe he talked about them as parallel 4ths, but same diff -- a 4th is an inverted 5th) as evidenced by songs like "Smoke on the Water" and "Burn". Page used them in Zep's version of "In My Time of Dying". An easy way to make great-sounding riffs.
Nicely done
Thanks David!! Beautiful piece of music at the end! Bet that wasn't composed in 5 minutes!
The thing with figured bass is that there are numbers that are let out to write it faster. Maybe because they were obvious at the time. For example first inversion is 6-3, but people let out the number 3, it's like writing "n't" instead of "not". Those two numbers represent the intervals between the bass and the next note of the chord, hence 6-3 in a C chord is a third from E ( the bass) to G, and a 6th from E to C. That's why 6-4 doesn't get rid of the 4, as in this kind of chord with 3 notes, its the only inversion with a 4th from bass to the other note of the chord. In the C chord, that will be the interval from G (in the bass) to C. With 7th chords things get complicated, as there are more intervals... time to count and figure what is the number they let out this time...
Damn, I think that could be my favourite of your example compositions.
Thank you!
Thanks for everything learning theory has help me a lot
Probably the biggest reason you'll find inverted chords in popular music is because that is how both ascending and descending chromatic bass lines are created. Elton John, Brian Wilson, and Elliott Smith were all very adept at this. And also, of course, the Beatles.
Great video!
Two songs with inversions I dig.
Pre-chorus to Peace Love and Understanding - third chord being G7 third inversion (the bass playing the F).
Pre-chorus to the Kinks’ Better Things - I don’t know what they all are, but they’re cool.