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While both of these concepts are important to have under your fingers, running them through exercises such as inversions or chromatically across the neck, although productive exercises, can sometimes lead to boredom in the practice room. Because of this, one of the ways I like to practice and teach these chords is to run them through all 12 keys by using the cycle of 4ths. With this approach, you not only get all of these chords under your fingers, but you see them used in a progression that moves across the entire neck, you learn to alternate inversions within the context of multiple keys, and you begin to see how these inversions relate to each other when applied to a multi-key cycle. In this article, well explore four ways that you can practice Drop 2 chords through the cycle of 4ths, learning all four inversions of these chords in 12 keys along the way. For the sake of space, I have only written these exercises on the middle four strings, so make sure to take them to the top and bottom four-string sets as well when you explore these exercises further in your practice room.
Cycle of 4ths
The cycle used in this exercise to move through all of the 12 keys is called the cycle of 4ths. For those that are familiar with the cycle of 5ths, this is just that cycle but moving in reverse. As the name suggests, each interval between two different chords in the cycle is a Perfect 4th, which continues through all of the keys until you return to your starting note. Here is how the cycle looks starting on the note G. G C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb B E A D G Notice that each chord moves down by the interval of a Perfect 4th, creating the Cycle of 4ths mentioned above. This sequence is beneficial for practicing chord voicings, as compared to simply playing them chromatically up or down the neck, because it forces you to think about which chord is next in the sequence, as well as allowing you to move between multiple inversions as you progress through all 12 keys in the cycle. Now that you have a short background on the Cycle of 4ths, lets take a look at how you can use this cycle to learn and practice Drop 2 Dominant 7th chords.
One of the cool side effects of alternating root position and 2nd inversion chords is that you can do the reverse and it will also work out on the fretboard. So, you can start this exercise on a 2nd inversion chord, such as C7 in the example below, and then alternate 2nd inversion and root position chords around the cycle of 4ths to cover all 12 keys on the neck.
This means that you if you learn the root-2nd inversion alternating exercise, you have already learned the 2nd inversion root position alternating exercise at the same time, effectively getting twice as much bang for your buck in the woodshed.
In the same way that you double-dipped with the root position and 2nd inversion chords, if you start this exercise on the 3rd inversion and alternate it with the 1st inversion you can work your way through all 12 keys in the cycle of 4ths without having to learn anything new. Here is how that would look starting with a Bb7 chord in 3rd inversion.
After you have explored these chords by starting in different keys, adding in rhythmic variety and bringing them to a tune that has these changes, such as Jordu or the bridge to Rhythm Changes, try applying these same exercises to Drop 2 chords on the top and bottom four strings of the guitar. Running 7th chords through the cycle of 4ths will not only help you get these drop 2 chords under your fingers, but they will help you to see your neck better and train your ears to hear this commonly used bass movement, cycling in 4th intervals, all of which can help you reach the next level in your development as a jazz guitarist. Do you have a favorite way to practice Dominant Cycles? If so, share it in the comments section below.
Photo: Leandro Couri Matt Warnock is the owner of mattwarnockguitar.com, a free website that provides hundreds of lessons and resources designed to help guitarists of all experience levels meet their practice and performance goals. Matt lives in the UK, where he is a senior lecturer at the Leeds College of Music and an examiner for the London College of Music (Registry of Guitar Tutors).