Chord Inversions

What is an inverted chord?

An inverted chord is a chord where the notes have changed order, and the root note is no longer in the bass.

This will work with any chord but for this example I will use a major C chord.

Note that in each inversion, the bottom note moves up an octave so that the 3rd of the chord previously becomes the bass note.

Inversions can be useful when you have a bass line with 2 of the same notes but you want to harmonise differently over the top of it to embellish a chord progression.

For example, if you have a bass line of C, E, D, D, C: