Slash Chords

Slash chords are fairly common, especially in piano music, and most people initially get scared at the sight of them, wondering what on earth they are and how they can play over the things. In this article I will explain to you what a slash chord is and how you can use slash chords in your own playing. A chord like G/B is an example of a slash chord voicing and it simply refers to a G major chord with a B as the bass note or “G over B”.

Piano players quite often make use of slash chords when creating smooth bass line movements and guitarists can do the same, using slash chords to create smooth walking bass lines.

Triad Inversions

The simplest example of a slash chord would be a simple triad inversion. We can take the notes of a C major triad (C E G) and voice it with either a C, E or G in the bass.

When the triad has the bass as the root the chord is said to be in root position. The 1st inversion of the C major triad has an E as the bass note and can be written as a C/E chord. It is a C major chord with an E as the bass note.

E G C

The nest chord inversion is a C major chord with a G in the bass. The 2nd inversion of the C major triad can be represented as a C/G chord and looks like this:

G C E

Slash Chord Voicings

As well as the basic triad inversion slash chords we can also create some really interesting slash chord voicings. Take a look at the examples below which show various ways in which you can create slash chords with C as the bass note.

C/C This is simply a C major chord.

Db/C Creates a nice Phrygian mode tonality.

D/C This is a really nice sounding slash chord that creates a Lydian sound

Eb/C This slash chord is a Cm7 chord.

E/C Here we create a strange sounding Cmaj7#5 sound

F/C This slash chord is an F major triad inversion

G/C This slash chord creates a Cmaj9 sound

Bb/C This produces a C minor 11 sound

Other Slash Chords

Seventh chords can be represented as slash chords. Take a look at the example below which shows seventh chords of the C major scale chords written out as slash chords.

Cmaj7 (Emin/C)

Dm7 (F/D)

Em7 (G/E)

Fmaj7 (Amin/F)

G7 (Bdim/G)

Am7 (C/A)

Bm7b5 (Dmin/B)

Hopefully you will be less afraid of playing over slash chords no that you understand more about them. Piano players are probably quite comfortable with the idea of slash chords but for other jazz instrumentalists they can take some getting use to. Once you get the hang of playing slash chords they can really open up your chord playing and give you some new and interesting sounds to play with.