As guitar players, we need to take a flexible approach to how we voice our chords. Not to suggest that there’s anything wrong with open-position ‘cowboy’ chords, but we have the practical consideration of six strings and five fingers, as opposed to the 88 keys and 10 fingers available to a keyboard player…
Of course, preference does come into this at some stage. It’s just that this tends to be secondary in the face of finding a suitable chord voicing for a given song.
That’s where this article comes in. The below examples are all based around a C chord, but they show how we can juggle the voicing to have different notes on the top – or bottom, as none of these examples take the conventional approach of having the root down there.
This has a sound of its own, as well as opening up the higher strings for embellishments, whether that be chord extensions or licks, in the way Jimi did. More details below!
Example 1. C/E
This C/E chord has the 3rd (E) on the bottom and the C major triad (G-C-E) on the fourth, third and second strings respectively. But if you look at the chord box, you’ll see that there’s a G added at the 8th fret of the second string. Feel free to hammer on/pull off like Curtis Mayfield, or try hammering on some of the other strings.
Example 2. C9/E
This C9/E is perfect for Stormy Monday-style blues playing, though in that song the bass does play the root underneath – sometimes it’s about reaching the higher notes/extensions, rather than shifting the root for its own sake. This can be used anywhere there is a dominant 7th voicing for some added finesse.
Example 3. C/G
Shifting back to the regular C major triad, here is a C/G chord. In this case, the G (5th) at the bottom seems to have a profound effect, giving the chord quite a grandiose sound. Be sure to mute the fifth string.
Eric Clapton used to play the 5th on the bottom of his powerchords with Cream, knowing that Jack Bruce would underpin it with the root on the bass.
Example 4. C/Bb
Taking the same triad and putting the dominant 7th (Bb) on the bottom gives a very different effect from a regular C major chord.
This works particularly well resolving to an Am7 (see Example 5), or an F/A chord. Classical types would likely call this a ‘third inversion’, but it’s more helpful for us guitarists to look at this as a C/Bb.
Example 5. Am7
So good we’ve named it twice: this can be viewed as a C/A chord, but it makes more sense to call it an Am7. The C major triad is identical to Am7 in this context, with the A on the bottom. So I guess there are some root notes in here after all!
- This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.
