Inverted Chords and Sam Smith

We have been messing around with bass lines in chords. What we are doing in most cases is inverting the chord. This means that the lowest note of the chord is not the naming note, but rather a different note within the chord gets promoted (or depending on your view) demoted to the bass.

I brought up the example of Sam Smith's tune I'm Not the Only One.

This song makes nice use of inverted chords. Here is a chart of the chord progression. It is not perfect in terms of form, but you hopefully get the idea.

This is not the original key, but it is a guitar friendly key that allows us to illustrate some of the inverted chords. You will recognize an inverted chord by the / symbol. (ex. B7/D#) You would read this as B7 with D# in the bass. 

Here are some shapes for these inverted chords (and for the fantastic Dsus chord)

 

Enjoy!