Chord Inversions for Piano

by martha
(London,Catford Uk)

I was given chords by my piano teacher to practice at home and told to use chord inversion for the following chords

C7, C7, C7,Gm7 C7,

F7,F7,C7,Em7 A7

Dm7, G7, C7 A7,Cm7 G7

I had difficulty from the 7th bar above to invert the chords which is C7, Em7 A7,

Could someone state how I could invert these chords without stretching my hands too far on the piano.

Thanks
Awaiting your reply

ANSWER

Hi, Martha--

The general rule for using inversions is keep the common notes and find the closest place to play the other notes.

Example:

C7 to Em7 : C7=E G Bb C (the closest inversion from F7)

Keep the E and the G (thumb on E, 2nd finger on G)
Change the Bb to B (3rd finger) and play D with your 5th finger. (E G B D). Sometimes the closest inversion will be root position.

Then for A7: Keep the E and G, change the B to A (3rd finger) and change the D to C# (5th finger).

If you would like to know more about chord inversions, please visit Piano Chord Inversions

Lynne