Steve Adelson taught me this exercise to help me recognize triad inversions.
Finger a Dm triad in root position on the melody side. Drop the root note one note (either a semitone or a tone depending on where you're at in the scale) leaving the other two notes unchanged, keeping fingers in place wherever possible. This yields an F triad in 2nd inversion. Drop the "F" one note to "E" which yields an Am triad in 1st inversion. Drop the "A" one note to "G" which yields a "C" triad in Root position.
If you continue this, you will rotate through all the diatonic chords in the key of C major by 3rds (Dm-F-Am-C-Em-G-Bº-Dm). If you continue, the next "cycle" will change the inversions, i.e. Dm starts out in Root position, but the second time you come to Dm it will be in 2nd inversion.
As you do this you will notice certain patterns emerge. The inversions cycle in a repeating pattern: R-2nd-1st. The root note of each triad cycles from the lowest to the middle to the highest note and back to the lowest.
But the really interesting patterns are the visual patterns of the note placements. The chart below summarizes all of this and shows a diagram of how the RH notes appear on the melody side of the Stick in a standard (ascending 4ths) tuning. Root position triads all look similar, varying depending on whether the triad is major or minor. The same is true for the 1st and 2nd inversions. Diminished triads have their own unique fingering patterns for the root and inverted forms.
Hope some find this useful.
Edit to add: As Steve points out below, the diagrams are showing the Stick horizontally - as it appears when you're playing it – low notes to the left, high notes to the right, String 1 at the top, String 5 or 6 at the bottom. Hopefully this isn't confusing. If it is, let me know and I'll re-do the diagrams showing the Stick fretboard vertically.
Attachment: Stick Chord RH Inversions.pdf |
