Originally Posted by: aliasmaximus

Hey Guys, is that what the Guitar Tricks Ultimate Chord Finder is doing - demonstrating inversions?

[p]Not explicitly, but kind of in a way.

The Chord Finder usually shows all possible chord tones in certain fretboard location, using as many strings as possible. The Chord Finder is closer to showing CAGED shapes for most major & minor chords. Now on some chords it does show just a small group of notes.

The bigger problem with the Chord Finder is that it does not display chord tones.

Chord tones are the scale degree numbers that form any given chord.

That's unfortunate because that's where the rubber meets the road for understanding how scales & chords are related, how to visualize inversions, see chord tones in all scales, all over the fretboard & improvise.

Strictly speaking an inversion is a chord voiced such that the root note is not the lowest note. That sounds more complicated than it is.

A root position chord has the root note of the chord as the lowest note of the chord.

|--------------|

|--------------|

|--0-(5th)---|

|--2-(3rd)---|

|--3-(1st)---|

|--------------|

A 1st inversion chord has the 3rd of the chord as the lowest note of the chord.

|--------------|

|--1-(1st)---|

|--0-(5th)---|

|--2-(3rd)---|

|--------------|

|--------------|

A 2nd inversion chord has the 5th of the chord as the lowest note of the chord.

|--0-(3rd)---|

|--1-(1st)---|

|--0-(5th)---|

|--------------|

|--------------|

|--------------|

That's the basis of triads & inversions. And from that small, but powerful concept you can extrapolate how any given chord can be voiced in a multitude of ways all over the fretboard. But it requires that you know & can see the scale degrees that are the chord tones in any fretboard position.

Once you grasp how this works it opens up the entire fretboard & makes it possible to see how the whole thing is one integrated pattern.

CAGED is one way to do it. My tutorials on visualizing triads & inversions are another.

https://www.guitartricks.com/collection/triads-and-inversions

Hope that helps!