Musical Grammar 2

The trouble with compiling chords in their most logical order is that it can result in poor lines. For example, the bottom note of each chord will probably be played by one instrument and those notes will sound as much like an individual line of music as they do the foundation of consecutive chords. Most lines contain more steps than jumps as the human ear simply seems to prefer that. But chord progressions rarely use stepwise movement. Composers therefore jumble the order and alter the spacing of the notes in a chord to achieve better lines. These jumbled chords are known as inversions.

While pupils can jumble the order of their own choices, it is a trickier matter to make sense of someone else’s encoded decisions – but there are two ways round this - one theoretical, the other aural.

Theoretical

Faced with the notes of a inverted triad, pupils have to reorder them until the format of note-space-note-space-note has been restored. This will only work one way and the first note in the series is the foundation of the chord and therefore gives it its name. For example, the notes A – C - - F need to be reordered F – A – C and the chord is therefore some kind of F chord.

Aural

Pupils play the chord over and over and using their ears decide which note is sufficiently strong and stable to form the root of the chord. For those readers who can’t imagine what this would be like, it might be helpful to picture someone with a blindfold and a bowl of coins. Using their hands they have to find the only 50p piece in the bowl. It doesn’t take long.