Chord Inversions & Slash Chords

Same chord, different floor

A chord is a stack of notes: C major is C–E–G. Nothing in that definition says C has to be on the bottom. Put the 3rd (E) lowest and you have 1st inversion; put the 5th (G) lowest and you have 2nd inversion. Add a 7th chord and you get a third option: the 7th in the bass, called 3rd inversion. The chord's name, its notes and its job in the key never change — only the floor it stands on.

Guitarists and songbooks write inversions as slash chords: the chord on the left, the bass note on the right. C/E is "C major over E." That's the entire notation — if the note after the slash belongs to the chord, you are looking at an inversion.

Why inversions exist: the walking bass

Chords move by leap — C to G is a jump of a fifth. Melodies move by step. Inversions let the bass line behave like a melody while the harmony still changes chord by chord. Three moves cover most of what you'll ever meet:

• The lift — G/B → C: the bass climbs a half step into home. That B is the leading tone doing its one job.
• The walk-up— C → C/E → F: the bass walks C–E–F by step instead of leaping C…F. You've heard this in a thousand songs.
• The descent— Am → Am/G → F: the bass slides down through the chord. (Am/G is secretly Am7 in 3rd inversion — the "Stairway" move.)

The grips every guitarist meets

You don't need dozens of shapes — a few open-position classics do most of the work: C/E (032010 with the low E ringing), G/B (x20033), C/G(332010, the "piano teacher's C"), D/F# (200232 — many players wrap the thumb over the top for the F#), and Am/G (3x2210). Each exists for a bass-line reason: D/F# almost always walks G → D/F# → Em, and C/G plants the 5th under the final chord like a drumroll.

The classical shorthand: 6 and 6/4

Long before slash chords, theorists numbered inversions by the intervals above the bass — figured bass. A triad in 1st inversion is 6, in 2nd inversion 6/4; seventh chords run 6/5, 4/3, 4/2. One of these earned a name you'll keep meeting: the cadential 6/4 — a tonic chord over the 5th of the key (C/G in C major) placed just before the final V–I. It works like a drumroll: the bass already stands on G while the C chord above it leans into the G chord that follows.

Each inversion has a character

Root position feels planted — that's why songs end there. With the 3rd in the bass the chord leans forward, perfect mid-phrase. With the 5th in the bass it floats, historically so unstable that classical composers only allowed it in a few controlled spots. And a 7th in the bass must fall: in G7/F the bass F slides down a half step to the E of C/E — tension resolving exactly where the ear expects.

One more secret: some chords are inversions in disguise. C6 and Am7 are the same four notes (C–E–G–A) — which name applies depends on which note the bass treats as the root. Jazz players swap these identities constantly.

Hear it, don't just read it

Inversions are a sound before they are a notation. The interactive chord tool has a dedicated inversions panel: pick any chord, tap which chord tone goes in the bass, and it names the slash chord, shows real playable grips with fingerings, plays root position and the inversion back-to-back, and demonstrates the lift, the walk-up, the descent and the cadential 6/4 in your key. Triad-sized inversion shapes across every string set live in the Triads trainer, and the theory behind the stack itself is in Triads explained.