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Chord inversions, in the wild

By Mayank Sanganeria

A chord isn't just its letter name — the note in the bass changes everything about how it reads and how it resolves. Reduce every piece in our library to block chords and look at what's actually sitting on the bottom: of 4802 chords surveyed, 53% aren't in root position. That slash chord in bar 12 (I/3, V6, whatever your edition calls it) isn't an exception — it's nearly half of what you'll actually read.

Practice with the pieces that use it →

The census

Reducing every piece in our corpus (18 pieces) to its harmony and reading the bass note of each chord:

First inversion is the workhorse of the inverted third — it outnumbers second and third inversion combined. A stepwise bass line under a chord progression is usually built from first-inversion chords, not a coincidence of voice leading.

Hear them in real pieces

Each link opens the piece in the harmony player, with every chord's bass and inversion labeled — read the bar numbers below to the moment the bass steps off the root.

• Arabesque No. 1 C. Debussy 40 inversions bar 1: vi7 (C#) (second inversion, bass C#4) · bar 1: vii (B) (first inversion, bass B3) · bar 2: viiø7/V (A) (second inversion, bass A3)
• Arabesque No. 2 C. Debussy 40 inversions bar 1: iii7 (D) (first inversion, bass D4) · bar 3: V7 (A) (second inversion, bass A3) · bar 5: vi7 (G) (first inversion, bass G2)
• Clair de Lune C. Debussy 40 inversions bar 1: I (F) (first inversion, bass F4) · bar 2: viio7/vi (Gb) (third inversion, bass G-4) · bar 2: viio7/vi (Gb) (third inversion, bass G-4)
• Humoresque No. 7 A. Dvořák 40 inversions bar 1: vi7 (G) (first inversion, bass G2) · bar 2: ii7 (C) (first inversion, bass C3) · bar 3: vi7 (G) (first inversion, bass G2)
• The Entertainer S. Joplin 40 inversions bar 1: vi7 (G) (third inversion, bass G4) · bar 2: vi7 (G) (third inversion, bass G3) · bar 5: V7/IV (G) (second inversion, bass G2)
• Liebestraum No. 3 F. Liszt 40 inversions bar 2: V7/vi (G) (second inversion, bass G2) · bar 4: viiø7/V (F) (first inversion, bass F3) · bar 5: I7 (Eb) (second inversion, bass E-2)
• Sonata No. 11, K. 331 — Alla Turca W. A. Mozart 40 inversions bar 2: bVI7 (A) (first inversion, bass A3) · bar 7: v (B) (second inversion, bass B2) · bar 9: i7 (C) (first inversion, bass C3)
• Sonata in C, K. 545 W. A. Mozart 40 inversions bar 2: V7 (D) (second inversion, bass D4) · bar 3: IV (C) (second inversion, bass C4) · bar 4: V7 (B) (first inversion, bass B3)
• Moonlight Sonata, 1st Movement L. v. Beethoven 40 inversions bar 2: i7 (B) (third inversion, bass B1) · bar 6: V7 (B#) (first inversion, bass B#1) · bar 8: v7 (B) (first inversion, bass B1)
• Prelude 2 in C minor (BWV 847) J. S. Bach 40 inversions bar 2: iv7 (C) (second inversion, bass C3) · bar 5: VI7 (C) (first inversion, bass C3) · bar 6: V7/v (C) (third inversion, bass C3)
• Prelude 3 in C-sharp major (BWV 848) J. S. Bach 40 inversions bar 3: I (E#) (first inversion, bass E#3) · bar 5: I (E#) (first inversion, bass E#3) · bar 6: viio (D#) (first inversion, bass D#3)
• Prelude 7 in E-flat major (BWV 852) J. S. Bach 40 inversions bar 1: ii (Eb) (third inversion, bass E-3) · bar 2: ii7 (Eb) (third inversion, bass E-3) · bar 4: I7 (D) (third inversion, bass D4)

Go deeper

• Train your ear to catch them → Our ear-training site drills the sound of a chord sliding from root position into first, second, and third inversion until the bass note is something you hear, not just read.
• The theory: inversion → Figured bass, slash-chord notation, and why the bass note changes a chord's function — the full chapter on our theory site.
• Inverted, and borrowed too → The census above is full of viio7/x chords in third inversion — the applied leading-tone chords surveyed on their own terms.
• Learn a piece that uses them → The practice ladder loops eight bars at a time — hear the harmony slowly, read along, then play at tempo.