Maj7 Drop 2 Third Finger Barre

[Bop Head]

I have no idea if the following will be useful to anyone. But it's how I understand it, so here goes.

Any rearrangement of the order of pitches from close-spaced root position (e.g., F A C E) in a chord is an inversion.

The traditional (my term) inversions are:
If the root is in the bass, it's a "root position" voicing.
If the 3rd is in the bass, it's a "first inversion".
If the 5th is in the bass, it's a "second inversion".
If the 7th is in the bass, it's a "third inversion".
The order of the pitches above the bass note is not relevant to the inversion name.

So if you start with a close-voiced Fmaj7 chord in root position and apply the "traditional" inversions to it, you get:
root position: F A C E
1st inversion: A C E F
2nd inversion: C E F A
3rd inversion: E F A C

If you apply the drop-2 process (it's a process, not really a result) to the traditional inversions you get:
F A C E => [drop-2] => C F A E
A C E F => [drop-2] => E A C F
C E F A => [drop-2] => F C E F
E F A C => [drop-2] => A E F C

If you apply the drop-3 process to the traditional inversions you get:
F A C E => [drop-3] => A F C E
A C E F => [drop-3] => C A E F
C E F A => [drop-3] => E C F A
E F A C => [drop-3] => F E A C

If you apply the drop-2&3 process to the traditional inversions you get:
F A C E => [drop-2&3] => A C F E
A C E F => [drop-2&3] => C E A F
C E F A => [drop-2&3] => E F C A
E F A C => [drop-2&3] => F A E C


If you apply the drop-2&4 process to the traditional inversions you get:
F A C E => [drop-2&4] => F C A E
A C E F => [drop-2&4] => A E C F
C E F A => [drop-2&4] => C F E A
E F A C => [drop-2&4] => E A F C

If you turn the traditional inversions upside-down you get:
F A C E => [upside-down] => E C A F
A C E F => [upside-down] => F E C A
C E F A => [upside-down] => A F E C
E F A C => [upside-down] =>C A F E



These pitch orders (all the pitch orders derived above) are all unique:
A C E F – these six are all 1^st inversions
A C F E
A E C F
A E F C
A F C E
A F E C


C A E F – these six are all 2^nd inversions
C A F E
C E A F
C E F A
C F A E
C F E A


E A C F – these six are all 3^rd inversions
E A F C
E C A F
E C F A
E F A C
E F C A


F A C E – these six are all root position
F A E C
F C A E
F C E F
F E A C
F E C A

These 24 pitch orders comprise the complete set of permutations of four pitches taken four at a time for an Fmaj7 chord. There aren’t any others. It’s possible to vary the voicings somewhat by which strings you use to play the pitches, and by how many unplayed strings are interspersed with played strings, but the pitches will be in one of the orders listed above.

Many (not all) of these pitch orders can be played more-or-less easily on the guitar. The voicings derived from drop-2 and drop-3 processes are particularly straightforward to finger on guitar.

Generally I find it useful to work out things systematically like that but I find it more useful and descriptive if you abstract the notes to degrees, so root position would be

1 3 5 7 (tonic - third - fifth - seventh)

whereby 7 can also exchanged for a sixth (in other words 7 reads "seventh or sixth").

It is like learning chord changes as chord names opposed to learning them as Roman numerals which the mind associates with certain sequences of sounds and which make it much easier to transpose a tune.

[dconeill]

Generally I find it useful to work out things systematically like that but I find it more useful and descriptive if you abstract the notes to degrees, so root position would be

1 3 5 7 (tonic - third - fifth - seventh)

whereby 7 can also exchanged for a sixth (in other words 7 reads "seventh or sixth").

It is like learning chord changes as chord names opposed to learning them as Roman numerals which the mind associates with certain sequences of sounds and which make it much easier to transpose a tune.

In my study of this I worked everything out in chord factors 1 3 5 7, and I agree with you about that. I cast it as FACE because this thread appeared to be centered on that chord.

[wolflen]

This is systematic chord inversions and their 24 permutations

This is a Ben Monder approach to chord studies..He absorbed this from Ted Greens Chord Chemistry..which he said was a "bible"

(Ted did study with George Van Epps)

If in integrating this basic knowledge in all keys and the chords within them .. many of the mysteries of harmonic movement on the guitar
will be revealed.

[Christian Miller]

Ben Monder lists all the permutations but doesn’t call them drops.

I’ve come around to the drop nomenclature. It’s good to practice building chords down from the melody as well as up from the bass and that’s what drops are about. Select a melody/soprano note, choose a chord root and quality that fits and construct different voicings downwards. Which will in this case also be different inversions.

As I understand it it’s the way horns used to organise voicings in section even without a chart.


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[supersoul]

If you apply the drop-2 process (it's a process, not really a result) to the traditional inversions you get:
F A C E => [drop-2] => C F A E
A C E F => [drop-2] => E A C F
C E F A => [drop-2] => F C E F
E F A C => [drop-2] => A E F C

Just for my poor brain, is this a typo? Should it be F C E A?

This description does a very good job, btw. It makes sense as I read it. I have imagine the notes as on a keyboard. But I still don't have it internalized to the point of where I can say, "oh, that's drop 2 2nd inversion."

That said, I don't think this way. I dare say that I know all of the resulting voicings, but I didn't arrive at them by thinking of a drop. If I had to guess, it's just by understanding the layout of the guitar and finding voicings that work, moving notes to different octaves, etc. It's nice/interesting to know that there is actually a system.

[pamosmusic]

In my study of this I worked everything out in chord factors 1 3 5 7, and I agree with you about that. I cast it as FACE because this thread appeared to be centered on that chord.

I like the way you said that drop 2 is a process, not a result. That’s a good way to put it.

[ecline]

while the neck angle looks OK in that it's pointing upwards sufficiently, it also seems to be pointing away from your left shoulder meaning that you have to extend your arm forwards in the lower positions. That can't help.
And are you certain that ring doesn't handicap you(r playing) in any way?

Neck is for sure pointing away from me somewhat. When seated I've found that's one of the few positions with this big bodied archtop that I can 1) have a raised neck angle, 2) reach all the lower frets, and 3) not tilt the whole instrument back which creates some very odd fretting scenarios. The whole compromise is because the lower bout contacts my leg and prevents some more ergonomic positions. When standing that forward pointing neck more or less goes away with the instrument basically parallel to the front of my body. I should mention that I have the same issues with that maj7 voicing while standing too.

As for the ring, I've not noticed it being an issue for anything. Are there things that folks commonly have trouble with when wearing rings? To check my confidence I just took mine off and tried the voicing with one finger per fret, perhaps thinking that without the ring it might be easier to squeeze all the fingers together. No difference.

[wolflen]

Generally I find it useful to work out things systematically like that but I find it more useful and descriptive if you abstract the notes to degrees, so root position would be

1 3 5 7 (tonic - third - fifth - seventh)

whereby 7 can also exchanged for a sixth (in other words 7 reads "seventh or sixth").

It is like learning chord changes as chord names opposed to learning them as Roman numerals which the mind associates with certain sequences of sounds and which make it much easier to transpose a tune.

a very good exercise is find the ii7-V7 for each of these inversions..which of course may have to be inversions too..and of course extend it to the iii7-iv7 chords

This is an exercise of voice leading for chord melody studies

[Mick-7]

Neck is for sure pointing away from me somewhat. When seated I've found that's one of the few positions with this big bodied archtop that I can 1) have a raised neck angle, 2) reach all the lower frets, and 3) not tilt the whole instrument back which creates some very odd fretting scenarios. The whole compromise is because the lower bout contacts my leg and prevents some more ergonomic positions. When standing that forward pointing neck more or less goes away with the instrument basically parallel to the front of my body. I should mention that I have the same issues with that maj7 voicing while standing too.

Sounds like a gadget like this will be of help to you:
Cheaper and perhaps better alternative to Dynarette cushion?

[Bop Head]

a very good exercise is find the ii7-V7 for each of these inversions..which of course may have to be inversions too..and of course extend it to the iii7-iv7 chords

This is an exercise of voice leading for chord melody studies

I practice II-Vs and other chord sequences in drop 2 in all inversions all the time to study the voice leading.

[rpjazzguitar]

The way I learned was via chord melodies for songs. My teacher showed me the chord melody, diagrammed the chords, circled the root and told me to learn the grip in every key.

Work on a couple of dozen songs that way maybe in multiple keys and you'll have a pretty good chord vocabulary with voice leading. It won't be exhaustive but, at least, everything will work in some song.

Or you could write out the 24 permutations, learn them in multiple places on the neck and different string sets, and figure out the ii Vs. It will be exhaustive and a lot of it may be hard to apply.

I learn better the first way, with the songs. Permutations and combinations rarely produce something that gets into my playing. Not never, but not often.

[dconeill]

Just for my poor brain, is this a typo? Should it be F C E A? ...

This description does a very good job, btw. It makes sense as I read it. I have imagine the notes as on a keyboard. But I still don't have it internalized to the point of where I can say, "oh, that's drop 2 2nd inversion."

That said, I don't think this way. I dare say that I know all of the resulting voicings, but I didn't arrive at them by thinking of a drop. If I had to guess, it's just by understanding the layout of the guitar and finding voicings that work, moving notes to different octaves, etc. It's nice/interesting to know that there is actually a system.

Yep, a typo. Sloppy typing on my part. Thanks for the correction.

I didn't come upon them by drop, either. Originally, I permuted the chord factors like an undergraduate math student. I heard of, and explored, the "drop" processes later as I was trying to understand why the voicings fell like they did on guitar.

As I said, I came upon the "drop-n" processes later, and found that they're much easier to remember, less prone to blunder because they're simple, and are known to (or at least heard of by) many more people than "permutations".

Another observation for guitar is that if the four notes are on a contiguous set of strings (str 6 5 4 3, str 5 4 3 2, str 4 3 2 1), the voicing is likely a drop-2. If the four notes have one intervening unused string just above the bass note (str 6 4 3 2, str 5 3 2 1), the voicing is likely a drop-3. This is an observation and I haven't tried to see if it's generally true - it seems to depend on how many frets of "reach" you allow in your fingerings.
Additionally, str 6 5 3 2 and str 5 4 2 1 are likely drop-2&4, while str 6 5 4 2 and str 5 4 3 1 are likely drop-2&3.

[dconeill]

I have, I think, just a couple of final thoughts on this list of chord pitch orders that I gave above.

1. Once you've determined what the chord fingerings are, the task is to learn to play them. How you got to your set of chord fingerings becomes irrelevant, as long as the set is complete.

2. The only advantage I can see to using a little combinatoric math to tell me the possible pitch orders of a four-note chord (24 permutations), and what the four-strings-at-a-time subsets of six guitar strings are (15 combinations), is that I have assurance that I haven't missed any. A trial-and-error approach is fraught with the possibility that I missed something.

[rpjazzguitar]

If you start with songs you'll learn some of the 24 permutations, but not all. OTOH, the ones you learned will all be useful -- which is why they were in the song.

Later on, you can try the ones you missed to see if any of them are useful.

So, that's 24 permutations played on how many string sets? The obvious three, plus grips that skip strings? How many of those? And, then in multiple places on the neck, call that 4 places, maybe 5. And that's for one chord type. 400? 500?

I hope you didn't waste any time reading this post.

[RJVB]

The trick with that would be to place those 3 fingers first, then reach back with the index finger as that is the one with the biggest lateral range. Keep your thumb close to the middle finger so you can use it as a pivot to tilt the hand backwards for enough pressure on that low note, rather than to pinch.

Here’s what that looks like on a 647mm, 50mm nutwidth classical held in classical position (it was probably harder to get my phone in a position to take a suitable picture!)




EDIT: sorry, I wasn't notified about your reply to my post. I think you can see from the above why I think a ring would handicap me, but there are other reasons. So much the better if they don't apply to you, taking it off and putting it back on is a hassle (but do keep in mind that you may not notice the difference immediately).

I also hold my archtop in classical position btw. Not sure I could do that with a 17" though.

[Mick-7]

Here’s what that looks like on a 647mm, 50mm nutwidth classical held in classical position (it was probably harder to get my phone in a position to take a suitable picture!)

You'll need to bar with the index finger too (i.e., bar with both the 1st & 3rd fingers) if you want your wrist to be relatively level and perpendicular to the fret-board as it should be. Holding it up and at an angle like that is asking for trouble.

[RJVB]

It looks a lot worse than it is; there's very little strain on my hand. Less than when I try something weird like barring with 2 fingers; that would hardly change the bend angle of my wrist but oblige me to pivot my arm down/inwards around my thumb. And that would indeed be asking for trouble.

I just realise that this exact same chord occurs in Takeuchi's arrangement of Manha de Carnaval. He added fingerings, using the one shown above for this chord, but given the context I finger the upper 3 notes with a partial barré (with I) and take the F on the 5th string. I'm just a tad less likely to miss that shift (but I probably ought to try with those upper notes on strings 4-2).

[Mick-7]

It looks a lot worse than it is; there's very little strain on my hand. Less than when I try something weird like barring with 2 fingers; that would hardly change the bend angle of my wrist but oblige me to pivot my arm down/inwards around my thumb. And that would indeed be asking for trouble.

I just realise that this exact same chord occurs in Takeuchi's arrangement of Manha de Carnaval. He added fingerings, using the one shown above for this chord, but given the context I finger the upper 3 notes with a partial barré (with I) and take the F on the 5th string. I'm just a tad less likely to miss that shift (but I probably ought to try with those upper notes on strings 4-2).

Correction: I don't actually press down on all 4 strings with my index finger, just on the bottom bass note, but I am barring the other 3 strings with my ring finger. (If I only fingered the bottom note and strummed the top 3 strings, those strings would be muted).

My wrist is not bent at all (perhaps very slightly) whereas the bend in your wrist looks quite pronounced (as did the OP's wrist in his photo but less so than yours). It looks like you're not barring the top 3 strings at all in your photo, is that correct? I can't even imagine how that would be more comfortable.

[RJVB]

whereas the bend in your wrist looks quite pronounced (as did the OP's wrist in his photo but less so than yours).

Not more nor with more overall tension than in the stereotypical Italian "que voglio" gesture.

It looks like you're not barring the top 3 strings at all in your photo, is that correct? I can't even imagine how that would be more comfortable.

Yes, I'm using 1 finger per string. That would be the default approach in classical technique, and (pardon my saying) that has been around for a bit longer. I'm not claiming this particular solution is more appropriate here or for anyone on any guitar. Jamming 3 fingers on the same fret on 3 adjacent strings on a narrow neck is tricky enough that I avoid it too, and it requires quite a bit of painstaking practice to exploit that tip of placing the index last if that's the 1st note you need to play.

I think that barring with the 3rd or 4th finger is practical only with a very horizontal folk position but I can't play like that. But heck, it might even be possible to hit that F with the thumb.

[ragman1]

My basic question is, do others also find this voicing to be physically terrible? If you've experienced that and learned a way to make it comfortable, how did you do it?

FM7 xx3555

With index and third, not a strain for me. But I've noticed I also lay the index across all the strings too, so both fingers are lying flat. I don't know if that helps.

Bringing the neck up a little helps too usually.

[Mick-7]

I think that barring with the 3rd or 4th finger is practical only with a very horizontal folk position but I can't play like that.

I could play the top three notes without barring them as you did, the shift in my hand/wrist position would be insignificant if I did so (on any type of guitar), but I can't think of a reason I'd want to finger them like that.

and it requires quite a bit of painstaking practice to exploit that tip of placing the index last if that's the 1st note you need to play.

I find that easy (but I'd place both fingers down simultaneously), and in fact I'm rather mystified by your replies. Do you have small hands?

[Bop Head]

[...] I think that barring with the 3rd or 4th finger is practical only with a very horizontal folk position [...]

Not true in my experience. I think the secret is bringing the thump rather high up on the neck behind the index finger to get the wrist straight.

If I stand and play with a strap I maybe do not angle the neck up as much as a classical guitarist but much more than "very horizontal".

EDIT: I have medium sized hands (according to the packaging of the latex gloves I have to wear sometimes at work).

[Mick-7]

Not true in my experience. I think the secret is bringing the thump rather high up on the neck behind the index finger to get the wrist straight.

Yes, you're right... I worked out the ergonomics of my technique so long ago that I've forgotten the logic behind it. I never had classical training, figured most of it out by myself. But I am pretty sure that if you play a lot with your wrist bent like that, it will eventually be injurious.

[Bop Head]

I just tried to play the following II V I with one finger per string. It is possible but barring is much more ergonomic (IMO).

x-x-3-5-5-5

x-x-3-4-4-6

x-x-2-2-3-3

[RJVB]

f you play a lot with [...] it will eventually be injurious.

There are many things that can lead to injury if you play too much doing them. Using too much pressure is much nearer to the top of that list than having a bent wrist.
I've tried barring >2 strings with the 3rd and 4th fingers, been warned about hurting myself by several experienced players, and stopped doing it when I noticed they were right. I already have a trigger finger with arthrosis in the 3rd finger of my right hand, I'd like to avoid that in the left where it would be much more of a handicap.

It's very common to see someone suggest trying classical position and LH technique when an acoustic/steel-string player complains about pain or discomfort - I doubt the reason for that is pure arrogance.