How to Invert ANY Voicing on the Guitar

In this lesson Jake Reichbart demonstrates in the clearest of terms how to invert ANY voicing on the guitar. And why do we use the words "any voicing" rather than "any chord"? Because not any group of notes necessarily spell a chord. A stack of fourths E, A, D and G, for example, played against a C might reasonably be called a C 6/9. But the same exact group of notes can also be played against an F creating an F Major 13, or a G 6/9, or an A7 SUS... Similarly the notes E, Bb, D# and G against a C indeed sound like a C7#9 but can also sound like many other chords if related to different roots.

Nevertheless, the precise system demonstrated in this lesson applies to any group of notes, and the lesson progressively moves from the simplest closed voicing triads to open voicing triads to 4 note "drop" chords, on to quartal voicings and beyond.

Why invert chords at all?

1. If you found a group of notes (i.e. a voicing) that sound good against a chord symbol you read in a chart and were told you could quadruple your options to express the same notes, every time offering a differently nuanced version, and also making it so you didn't have to play the same voicing over and over, wouldn't you jump at the opportunity?

2. Inversions offer you the opportunity to rotate all the notes in the chord at the top of the voicing, a must have skill if you attempt any chord melodies at all