Chord Inversions: Make Your Bass Line Interesting

If you play a bass instrument, you are more aware of the bass in music than someone who does not play the bass. More often than not, the bass is the second most important part of a musical texture, second only to the melody. Some would even argue that the bass is the most important part because it outlines the harmonic framework. In either case, a good bass line goes a long way in making a passage of music more interesting. Here’s a demonstration:

Chord Inversions

The first passage below is taken from a Beethoven piano sonata; the rhythm of the bass has been simplified for clarity. Also different from the original is that every chord is in root position, meaning the bass plays only the roots of the chords:

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Now listen to the excerpt again, this time as Beethoven harmonized it: using chord inversions:

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Do you notice how much more melodic and elegant the bass is in the second example? Instead of leaping from one chord root to another, it moves primarily by step through the use of chord inversions.

In the original, Beethoven uses broken octaves to provide rhythmic movement to the music. Here’s how Beethoven actually wrote the passage:

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I-V⁶-I Chord Progression

Just as secondary triads can substitute for primary triads, so can chord inversions. The I-V6-I progression is the I-V-I progression with the V6 chord acting as a chord substitution for the V chord in root position. In four voices, the doubling of the V6 chord will always adhere to the standard doubling procedures: double the root or fifth, not the third, to avoid a doubled leading tone. Due to the leading tone’s strong tendency to resolve to , it should never be doubled:

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I-I⁶-V-V⁶-I Chord Progression

In this progression, we extend or prolong the I-V-I progression by moving from the root of each chord to its first inversion. The bass of the final V6 chord leaps down a sixth giving the melody a nice balance in musical space. Take note of how the upper voice that has the third of the chord when it is in root position, moves away from the third (to the root or fifth of the chord) when the bass moves to the third, thus  avoiding doubling the third of the first inversion triad.

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Since the bass is moving by thirds, we can smooth out the bass melody by adding passing tones between each chord tone. Passing tones are one of many non-chord tones that most often fill in the space between two chord tones. In this case, the passing tones fill in the space between the root and the third, and the third and the fifth. Here, the bass moves up the entire scale. Remember, in the minor scale, we use the melodic minor form of the scale when ascending:

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You can download the progressions used for this lesson, written out in every major and minor key in pdf format on the Harmonic Progressions Page.

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Download a terrific performance of the Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 15, Op. 28, Second Movement,  used for this lesson: