The FIRST Slash Chord To Learn And How It's USED In SONGS!

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hi everybody, Levi Clay here, the owner of guided practice routines.com where we practice together to progress faster. In today's lesson, I want to continue delving deeper into chord theory and looking at some of the more pragmatic approach or what I like to call emotional resonance that we can connect with chords and our ear training. So, this is taken from my uh science of chord progressions course which I launched recently. And if you want to download a free PDF resource that goes with that where I transcribed 350 songs so you can look at common chord progressions and group things together and be able to understand these commonalities uh between different chord progressions and start to hear function in chords. Check it out with the link in the description. So, as I mentioned, this is the science of chord progressions work, but also of course my flagship course, Triad Mastery. We're doing a lot of triad work in this lesson today. and of course my ear training method because I am an ear training guy and so learning ear training is very very important. If we take a look at the guitar, I'll walk you through what we're going to do here. So this lesson is based on the idea of slash chords or more specifically the most important slash chord or the first slash chord that you really want to learn and understand. So what is a slash chord? If we're working in the key of G, a slash chord is anytime you take one chord and play a different note in the bass. So inversions, technically speaking, are slash chords. They came up briefly in a previous lesson. If I take a G major and I put a B in the bass, technically you would call this a slash chord, right? It's a G slashB. G over B.

[00:01:31]But the slash chords we're going to be looking at will be well not inversions where we're taking different triad sounds and playing them over the top of different bass notes. So in this particular instance, we need to learn the sound of the emotional resonance behind what I'm going to call the four over five slash chord. So back to the key of G. Now, we should know at this stage from the lessons that we've looked at that the one, the four, and the five are the important sounds, the primary colors in a key if you like the one, four, and five. And we should be able to hear the bass notes of those.

[00:02:07]Those are the most important sounds, the primary colors if you like. Uh, G major, C major, and D major. Now that five chord going back to G G the one chord is the five chord going to the one. This is what we can call a cadence in music.

[00:02:24]Now I think of a cadence as being musical punctuation. When you get to the end of a sentence, you put punctuation there. This is a final statement. Five going to one is what we would call the perfect cadence. It's the strongest form of musical gravity. It is the basis of a lot of western harmony. And we need to hear that particular cadence.

[00:02:48]We've learned that sound. We've heard that sound a million times. Like I say, that 51 motion is the most important uh sound in western harmony. But it's not the only cadence we have available. We also have the plagal cadence, which is the four chord going to the one.

[00:03:08]very commonly heard sound that uh sometimes referred to as the amen cadence because in church music you'll often hear this sound of um this top note uh amen where that note stays the same when you have that resolution. So to me the 5:1 cadence would be the classical sounding resolution and the plagal cadence is a softer sounding cadence. It's more of a gospel uh adjacent sound to it. It's got a very cool pop soul sound to it. So, the slash chord that we're going to do will combine the best of both of those worlds. We're going to have all of that voiceleading beauty of the plagal cadence, the four chord, C going to G, but all of the strong classical harmony of the five going to the one. When we put those together, we have a C triad with a D in the bass. C over D. C slash D.

[00:04:28]Very common sound. You hear this in soul music quite a lot. very uh soft sounding, soulful, but still having that strong resolution of that 51 motion. So, it's a beautiful sound. We need to learn how to play it on the guitar. And then we're going to look at songs that actually use this. And trust me, there are so many of them. So, um what I'm playing I mentioned there is a C triad over a D bass note. And again, not to plug the triad mastery course on guided practice routines. It's like almost 20 hours of lesson content there. uh where five levels we're breaking down triads all over the neck and like all those practice sessions so you don't think about this stuff because of course when I'm doing this hopefully you can tell I'm not thinking about these triads I just know this stuff so I can play my C triad and put a D in the bass or a C triad on the top three strings put my bass note on the bottom but that's not the only place I can play that I can play a C triad up here and I can put my D in the bass I could even play that C triad on the top and put the same D in the bass.

[00:05:40]And we want to learn the sound of that resolution.

[00:05:58]So that's our uh four over five, the four chord with the five in the bass. So what you want to practice here is you want to learn to hear this strong sound of this five on resolution. And then you want to play some chord progressions that have this chord in there and try both the four over five and the five going to the one. So if I take a song like uh Sign, Seal, Deliver by Stevie Wonder, right? If I go We go. Like a fool. I went and stayed too long.

[00:06:30]Now I'm wondering if your love's still strong. Oh, baby, here I am. Signed, sealed, delivered. I'm a bit high for me. Right. So, when we're playing that, we're playing the one chord, F, the four chord, uh, sorry, the six chord, D minor.

[00:06:50]One chord, F, six chord, D minor, F7, four chord, B flat 7, B flat with a C in the bas.

[00:07:05]Let's put some more spice in that.

[00:07:23]Now that four over five, beautiful sound.

[00:07:26]If I do the same thing but play a C7 instead of B flat over C, it it still works, but it doesn't have the same punch as that four over five sound.

[00:07:36]So if I went uh from from you don't like this nowhere near as cool much cooler sound. So that's our um our four over five sound. Now you could also analyze this and call this chord a seven sus because that's what we really have.

[00:08:23]This is a C7 root 7. We have the nine and the 11. So it's a dominant chord flat 7. There's no third in there so it's suspended. Some people might call this a C9 sus. Also correct to call it that. But to me functionwise, it's the four over the five. There are lots of places in songs you'll see this chord voicing happen. If you took like Never Too Much, that's the chord at the start of uh Never Too Much, those voicings. Or uh Chic's Everybody Dance. Everybody dance.

[00:08:56]Clap your hands. Clap your hands.

[00:08:59]It's in there, but it's not functioning like a four over five in that context.

[00:09:03]We're trying to hear it in this four over five context as a perfect cad.

[00:09:07]Well, a blend of the two, right? A plague or perfect cadence if you like.

[00:09:11]Uh so yeah, Stevie Wonders Sign Seal Delivered. Great example of it. Another example that I want to bring up is Randy Newman's song um Short People. I love Ry's music. And you could use a song like Louisiana, another great example of him doing that four over five thing. But if I'm playing short people in the key of A, it's a 1 1625 chord progression, right? 1 6 2 5 like a melodya.

[00:09:53]If I play dietonic harmony on that, we'd go uh da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. That's not the harmony round he's playing. He's playing a B7.

[00:10:09]And then the five chord E is going to be that D over E or four over five or E7 sus.

[00:10:16]So we could go da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. Or if I give you the vocal, short people got no reason. Short people got no reason. Short people got no reason to live.

[00:10:50]played it there again. Right. A D chord with a E in the bass.

[00:11:14]really nice sound and you know big fan of Randy Newman so getting to use Randy Newman in these examples is always fun but yeah great example of that seven voicing but it's not limited to places like that if you look at modern pop music uh or pop soul music like I love the band Lawrence and if you take the uh the song Me and You I think it's from their breakfast CD uh CD album which is in the key of And uh again I'm thinking of this in terms of Roman numerals. So I'm thinking play the one then the five chord next then the two chord next then the four chord go to five.

[00:11:55]One then the five then the two then four five one. So, what I'm doing there is I'm It might sound like I'm trying to sing bass notes. I'm actually trying to think more in terms of the vocal melody of the song. So, I'm thinking me and you and baby, if you only knew, I could tell what to do. Tell me, baby, tell me baby. If I put my harmony on that, my last chord there is going to be that four over five. Me and you. And baby, if I only knew, I could tell what they do. Tell me, baby, tell me, baby.

[00:12:42]Up.

[00:12:55]Beautiful sound there, right? And actually, I mean, Lawrence used that chord all the time. If I took um a guy I used to be, they play that in the key of C. I've got no hope of singing that in the key of C.

[00:13:15]We do that in G. Uh, bye.

[00:13:20]Uh, it's got like a 128.

[00:13:25]Bye to the guy I used to be.

[00:13:30]To the life I used to lead.

[00:13:34]Because now I see you're the only thing that matters to me. Bit high for me. Uh but again I'm doing one one inverse inversion four then the four with the five in the bass pulls us back wonderfully. One threw a spicy chord in there but you don't need the spicy chord. So that's our four over five in the Lawrence context. Now you could just keep going with this. In the book, I've listed uh Sailor V by um by Bewitched for some reason. We've also Yeah, I mentioned um uh Louisiana by Randy Newman. But you're going to hear this everywhere. And you can use this, you know, if you want in a blues. There's nothing to stop you. If I Here's one. If if I do Jimmy Herring's Buildwater Blues, there's this cool I think it's in a That's the progression. He's baritone so it's not in that key. But you'll hear that much cooler than going or or I want you to hear thata that strong note that stays on the top versus hearing this.

[00:15:10]We don't like that hearing.

[00:15:14]I want to hear.

[00:15:17]I like that. It's like a really soft sound to it. Okay, so the last song I want to do is uh Easy by the Commodores.

[00:15:24]This is a great one because it's going to allow us to also tap into what we looked at in the previous lesson. If you missed that video, check out on my channel. We look at the flat 7 chord. Uh Easy by the Commodores is great because it uses this four over five all the way through the song. But at the end of the chorus, we also get a very good example of what a flat 7 chord sounds like and the the impact. Again, I'll use the word emotional resonance. If you learn the way that feels when you hear that sound, you can much more uh easily identify it and play it without thinking about it.

[00:15:53]So, um, easy by the commodors is in a flat, right? And I'm not going to think about this. I'm just going to go bass notes. So, one chord, three, dropping to two, and then five. as my bass notes.

[00:16:21]That's why I'm easy.

[00:16:26]I'm easy like Sunday morning. Those are my bass notes. Once I can hear that, I can then put harmony on there. So, one chord. That's why I'm easy.

[00:16:37]Then four over a flat.

[00:17:01]So that's a move you'll hear me do. I'll do this move down chromatically. three going down to two. Always sounds fun to do that. Uh yeah, easy.

[00:17:13]I'm easy like Sunday morning.

[00:17:21]That's why I'm easy.

[00:17:26]I'm easy like Sunday morning.

[00:18:01]Yeah, I could go around on that core progression forever. The goal here is to spend your time hearing bass notes and then you'll be able to more confidently spot I'm playing my progression. 1 3 2 4 over 5 and then that very cool flat 7 to the four to the one root note is here. So my flat 7 two frets below and then the four back to the one. I can always see that and it shouldn't matter the key. I should be able if I'm playing uh an A flat up here, one 3 2 and I want my flat 7. I'll play flat 7 4 1 So, you want to be able to do that in lots of different keys. I want to be in a situation where if a singer says to me, "Uh, Levi, can we do Easy by the Commodores, but I can't sing it in A flat, could we do it in the key of E?"

[00:19:34]Yeah, great. I don't want to have to move my the the pattern down. I want to be free to play that. So, if somebody said, "Can we do it in E?" Here's my E.

[00:19:41]It's going to be the one 3 2 4 over five.

[00:20:00]And then Hey, hey, hey.

[00:20:42]Oops.

[00:20:54]Sorry.

[00:21:02]We could go forever on this, right?

[00:21:04]That's me doing it in the key of E. So, what you want to be able to do in your practice is to be able to take this chord progression or any chord progression. You learn it internally.

[00:21:11]You you really get to grips with the the notes that are in there. And then if somebody says, "Right, I want you to play that in the key of B." You pick different keys, keys that are far enough away from each other that you are forced to do. If I had to play in B, can I play 1 3 2 5? So, that's okay. Right, I'll have to do my Or if I was in the key of C It doesn't matter the key. I'm just fluent and I can I can move it to whatever key that I need to. And that's from, you know, lots of chord knowledge, lots of triad knowledge.

[00:22:28]practice will get you there with that.

[00:22:29]But then more importantly, a ton of song knowledge. And I've been a professional transcriber for, you know, 15 years. Transcribed a lot of music.

[00:22:37]So, I know a lot of songs have played a lot of music. But if you want to make that a little bit easier on yourself, well, check out that free resource, download the uh chord progression encyclopedia. Yeah, the progression encyclopedia. Uh 350 songs in there, functional harmony. Great way to practice that. And of course, if you do want to take this to the next level, then why not check out the free trial for guided practice routines.com. Again, we practice together to progress faster.

[00:22:59]I mean, what do I mean by that? I mean that I don't just teach you lessons like this. We have practice routines. And I play through the entire routine. So, you can log into the website, you do the lesson, but then you actually sit through the 10-minute practice session.

[00:23:11]You go through the practice session with the scrolling animated tab um to make sure that we're doing the actual practice. It's not enough to know what you need to do. We actually have to sit down and put in that practice. You only get better by putting in practice. And all this fluency on chord progressions comes from a lot of practice time on chords. You can't just learn a thing.

[00:23:30]You have to learn it and then actually spend the time practicing it. And I find that students always struggle with the practice side of things. So why not practice with me? If that interests you, check out the link to guided practice routines.com in the description. If you have any questions, please don't be shy.

[00:23:43]Let me know in that comment section below. I'm always watching and happy to get back to you guys. Uh I've just been Levi Clay while you have been awesome.

[00:23:50]Thanks for watching and I will see you for another lesson soon. players.