Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Well both 6th string root E shape and 5th string root A shape start with scale degrees 1 5 1. Moreover the degrees on 65432 strings in E shape are the same degrees as strings 54321 in A shape namely 1 5 1 3 5 and look different only because of the B string. That is E, A and D shape (bottom notes are 1 5 1 3 in all cases) are almost the same thing as are G and C (bottom 5 notes are 1 3 5 1 3).

I don't think that the barre chords are inversion all by themselves but there are inversions/triads inside them. Remember a triad would have a R 3 5. For example if you take c major in open position. There is the 2nd inversion at 332xxx and then there is a root inversion next at x320xx and then you'd have xx201 as 1st inversion and finally you'd end up at xxx010 as the final 2nd inversion of that particular position but the pattern holds. I'm not sure if this helps you are not. Tomo will correct us if we erred.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on triads.

I recommend to think and listen as intervals, inversions.

This way you will have more harmony skills as pianist! No shapes! More freedom!

I still think chord forms and individual inversions.

1) Root as 6th string.
a) Lower part as G form
b) Higher part as E form

2) Root as 5th string
a) Lower part as C form
b) Hight part as A form

Those forms are very useful.
Then you can work around D form.

Thank you.

Tomo

So when we play full 6th string and 5 string barre chords ( e , an and c shape barre chords ) and the full 4 string d shape barre chord.

Are all of these full barre chords all considered root position chords ????

I know they all begin with the root , but each chord is voiced differently , so are they considered inversions or just root position chords but with different voicing ?

Yea they are all root position but the order of notes are different, some are drop two, some are close positions ( no skipping notes). Basically they are all root position yeah. As long as a chord has the notes that are in the chord, and the bass note on the bottom its root note it is a root position chord. Inversions are when the notes in the chord stay the same but the order changes (tomo has lessons on different chord inversions) and that’s a bit different from the caged system as all of the chords in it are root position. Also don’t get stuck in caged shapes just look at it from triads.

Thank you for sharing!

Tomo