I’m not going to lie: this exercise is difficult, and you’re really going to have to learn on your intervals and get familiar with these formulas inside and out to get any answers correct. You can’t simplify things to the point where you’re like “the major 7th 3rd inversion chord sounds happy”.

An inversion is when a note other than the root is the lowest note in the chord. I’d argue that what we’re really doing in this exercise is working out the “voicing” of a chord, but the word “inversion” seems to please the YouTube algorithm more, so here we are. Why do I consider these to be voicings, rather than inversions? Even if you’re playing E-G-B-C on the piano in the right hand, it’s not a Cmaj7th 1st inversion if the left-hand plays a low C, or if another instrument like the bass guitar jumps in and plays a C. The lowest note in the entire orchestration determines what inversion the listener will perceive. I’d also like to point out that I’m using entirely closed chord voicings, which means that the notes are close together and I’m not spreading them out across different octaves.

The only way I’m able to get some of these correct is to picture them on the piano. If you play an instrument that deals with one note at a time, like the trumpet, you will either have to learn these on the piano or practice your arpeggios to even have a chance at getting answers correct. You might wonder if this exercise is worthwhile if you’re not a pianist, and I would argue that it is. It’s not uncommon for instruments to play up and down these voicings, so if you can quickly recognize these voicings by ear you’ll be able to learn them much faster.

The first thing you need to do is determine whether or not you are hearing a major 7th, minor 7th, or dominant 7th chord. If you’re having a hard time with that, see the last two exercises in this series. I’m not including diminished chords here, because what inversion you’re hearing depends on the harmonic context of an actual song, so it’s not worth doing in an exercise like this.

Because I’m only doing 4 note voicings and I’m stacking the notes in order, you will not hear ANY minor 2nds or major 2nds for the root position chords. These root position chords will just be stacked thirds. Major 7th inversion voicings are the only ones here that will contain half steps, and both the minor 7th and dominant 7th inversions will contain a whole step somewhere. For 1st inversion, the step will be at the top, for 2nd inversion it will be in the middle, and for the 3rd inversion it will be between the first two notes.

Of course, if these truly are inversions, then you should listen closely to what the bottom note is. Practice humming the bottom note of the chord and ask yourself if it’s the root, 3rd, 5th, or 7th. The skill to pick out a single note from this texture takes a lot of work, but keep at it and you’ll continue to improve. If you think this is impossible, don’t worry because I believe the next exercise in this series gets quite a bit easier.

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