Training with diatonic sevenths

Let's face it: training yourself to ingrain a chord library is a bit of a chore. A chore that pays worthwhile dividends, to be sure, but a chore nonetheless. Today, somewhat out of the blue, I realized that I have to add another item to the practice regimen. It came out of trying to re-familiarize myself with diatonic sevenths from the Western major scale on the Guitar Craft tuning's top four strings. I've got a lot less time in these shapes than I do with the shapes of all-fifth-intervals, and that's probably what brought this thought out: I need this skill now, because my constraint of the NST intervals on the banjo means that I don't have four strings in fifths to lean back on. This is exactly what I was hoping to force myself to do here.

My basic chord library--what I try to train myself in as a basic competence--follows a few key constraints:

• Closed shapes only, available to any key.
  
• One shape per chord inversion (so, if I want to master Cmaj7, I construct four shapes, so that I can put any desired note in that chord--C, E, G, or B--in the bass or in the treble position)
• Inner chord tones may be swapped around if fingerings become superhuman (some of 'em are pretty tough!)
• All chord tones represented if at all possible (and in all but a couple of cases, it is!)
  
• Use of a four-string group to cover the chord (three-string chords introduce the structural complexity of "which tone to omit?" which I think will be a useful thing to address after I've cemented the basics)
  

Yep, they're arbitrary constraints, but building a library this way has helped me immensely with comfort with chords, and it's given me a vehicle to alter them methodically. I can recommend it with enthusiasm.

So! When practicing these inversions, I like to walk up the scale playing the diatonic chords (that is, Cmaj7 - Dm7 - Em7 - Fmaj7 - G7 - Am7 - Bm7b5) according to these rules:

• First: Play each inversion of a chord before moving to the next chord. That is, play Cmaj7/C, Cmaj7/E, Cmaj7/G, and Cmaj7/B before moving to the Dm7. I like doing it both starting with the root inversion of each chord, and then starting with whatever inversion is closest to the nut. This builds a sense of how to move from one inversion to another within the same chord, at different spots on the neck (when I use keys other than C major).
  
• Second: Play the I chord of the key (whatever inversion you choose to start with), then the closest II chord, then the closest III chord, etc. When moving from VII to the root, play the next highest I chord inversion. Again, I like to do it both starting on the root inversion of the I chord, and then again with the lowest available inversion of the I chord. This exercise gives you a sense of the chords closest to your original hand position, and it also teaches you how the different inversions interrelate to each other over the entire fingerboard. This is really eye-opening, to watch yourself go through four passes through the key, playing seven chords at a time, and only occasionally needing to move your hand position more than a couple of frets at a time.
  

I started to do this second exercise today, in a different key than C, and realized that I froze up because I had started to internalize the key of C, rather than the abstract shapes determined from inversion and scale tone. Which inversion was I looking for again? Well, drat. More work to do.

So: I am now going to add to that this exercise:

• Third: Play the chords of the scale, ascending, all in the same inversion. This should accomplish two things: first, it should cement how the chords alter the basic shape common to the chord inversion (i.e., which tone goes flat to turn a M3 into a m3); second, it should help you to understand where your next chord should be, ascending or descending, in the same inversion...this may help to develop a sense of where the other chords overlap (in theory, one should always be able to play the chord a diatonic third up in almost exactly the same hand position as the chord you're on...so you can develop a cadence: I chord in root inversion, shift up a whole tone to II chord in root inversion, back down a whole tone to III chord in a different inversion, then up a whole tone to the IV chord in that same inversion, back down for the V chord, back up for the VI chord, back down for the VII chord and then up to the next available I chord...). It's an oversimplification, but only barely. It works in all but a couple of special cases such as "do I alter the chord in order to play it at the nut rather than at the octave, because one of the chord tones would be 'just below' the nut?"

Time to put that into practice. I expect it to be a great skill-builder, and will report back here with a little work.