Your Online Guide to Playing Better Jazz Guitar
Drop 2 Chords
Along with their closely related cousins the Drop 3 Chords, Drop 2 Chords are some of the most popular and commonly used voicings in jazz guitar. They are easy to play, don’t require a lot of stretches, and because of their “jazzy” sound, they’ve become favorite comping and chord soloing tools for players such as Joe Pass, Ed Bickert, Wes Montgomery and George Benson.
Drop 2 Chords are built by stacking four notes together, on adjacent strings, with the following interval patterns:
- Root Position: R-5th-7th-3rd
- 1st Inversion: 3rd-7th-Root-5th
- 2nd Inversion: 5th-Root-3rd-7th
- 3rd Inversion: 7th-3rd-5th-Root
Notice how the 3rd and 7th, as well as the Root and 5th, are always next to each other in these voicings. This knowledge will help you memorize Drop 2 Chords, as well as understand the theory behind how they are built.
Feel free to use this page as a reference point for Drop 2 Chords, rather than memorize them all at once.
The following chord dictionary contains Drop 2 voicings for:
- Major 7
- Dominant 7
- Minor 7
- Half Diminished
- Diminished
- Minor Major 7
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Drop 2 Major 7
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Drop 2 Dominant 7
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Drop 2 Minor 7
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Drop 2 Half Diminished
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Drop 2 Diminished
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Drop 2 Minor Major 7
24 Responses to "Drop 2 Chords"
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Hi matt. These are great. Have you thought about including a PDF link to to the chord charts so it is ‘printer friendly’? That would be great!
Badge, I have a series of snooks coming out, in PDF form, that will have all of this info nd much more, stay tuned for the launch dates!
matt i am a little confused on the drop 2 chords. how do i know which note is the name of the chords- by reading the top note???? of each example.?
Hey Richard,
Here is where the root is for each chord.
Root Position = Root is lowest note
1st Inversion = Root is 3rd note
2nd Inversion = Root is 2nd note
3rd Inversion = Root is 4th note
Hope that helps!
Thank you Matt!
No problem Michael!
So ALL of these chords are C and the given quality?
Yes all of these examples are in the key of C, root C, then the quality of each chord.
Matt, the light finally came on. I have been struggling trying to understand inversions and not making any progress. Finally after studying the Drop 2 section it has become clear. It is all about the order. I knew for the first inversion that the 3rd becomes the bass note; however i never knew that it is followed by the 7th, Root, and then 5th. I kept trying to keep the orginal order of the chord i.e. R, 3rd, 5th, 7th even for inversions. Thanks for all the great information on your site.
Very cool Alex, you got it!.
R 5 7 3
3 7 R 5
5 R 3 7
7 3 5 R
So the R and 5 are always together and the 3 and 7 are always together, so that helps me think of each inversion as well.
Maybe I’m missing something, (a grey cell perhaps), I’m trying to apply logic but the maj7 examples with “B” in the form, these are 9ths?
Hey Ivan, the B is actually the major 7th interval.
C = Root
E = Third
G = Fifth
B = Seventh
That’s it, no ninth in that chord. Thanks for checking out the site!
mi matt- haveing a problem with terminology/ i see what you are doing w.notes but have a problem distinguishing a drop chord from an inversion. can you straighten me out???
Hey Richard,
No worries, a Drop 2 chord is the name of a chord shape on the guitar, so
R – 5 – 7 – 3 interval structure.
Then, an inversion is just taking each of these notes and moving them to the next note in the chord.
R becomes 3
5 becomes 7
7 becomes R
3 becomes 5
So the Root position of a Drop 2 chord is:
R 5 7 3
and the first inversion is
3 7 R 5
I hope that makes sense
Interesting it’s called “Drop” 2 when in fact the second note of the chord is raised an octave. Now THAT would make sense (2nd inversion, standard -close- position is 5-7-R-3 but in Drop2, is 5-R-3-7).
Thank you for publishing this; I have been puzzling over it for a long time.
Glad you dug it Ammo. That’s how I learned to think about then, raising the second note up an octave. But there is another way to think of it as well. Take a closed position chord, CEGB, the lower the second note from the top, G, an octave and you get GCEB, a drop 2 chord. Either way of thinking works, I like the first way like you mentioned, but other people like the second way. Whatever works!
Hi Matt, I would like to rename the inversions. According to Wikipedia, under “Block chords”, Drop 2 – the second voice from the top is transposed one octave lower. This is what you say in your previous reply, but it is inconsistent with your naming.
Root position, 1 3 5 7, becomes 5 1 3 7.
1st inversion, 3 5 7 1, becomes 7 3 5 1.
2nd inversion, 5 7 1 3, becomes 1 5 7 3.
3rd inversion, 7 1 3 5, becomes 3 7 1 5.
I had analyzed the chords from the way you named them, and mistakenly concluded the rule was to raise the second voice from the bottom by an octave.
Yeah, I wouldn’t rename the inversions, only because Drop 2 does come from closed position, like you said, but they are their own entity. So, it might be confusing to relate the two, as far as the names of inversions are concerned. If you did that, then 5-R-3-7 would be the Root position of a drop 2 chord, since it is built from the root position of the closed position chord. But that’s kind of confusing, since the root is not in the bass. So I would stick to calling R-5-7-3 the root position of a drop 2 chord, and working the inversions up from there. It’s just common practice to call the chord root position when it has the root in the bass. That’s all.
Oh! Also, you might explain that there are 3 fingerings for Drop2 voicings, because they are adjacent strings (6-5-4-3; 5-4-3-2; and 4-3-2-1. The Drop2 and Drop2&4 voicings have only 2 possible fingerings.
It wasn’t until I went through the exercises that I realized you were providing ALL those fingerings.
Thanks again.
I intend to build a chord diagram library in Finale using these fingerings.
Yeah, I have pages on Drop 3 and Drop 2 and 4 chords as well, so I just focused on the Drop 2 chords on this page. There are three string sets for drop 2, as you said, in the notation above, and on the drop 3 and drop 2 and 4 pages I wrote out the two string groups, 6th string and 5th string roots. Though when I play these chords, I usually use Drop 3 chords when I want a 6th string root, or sometimes a drop 2 and 4, I rarely play drop 2 chords on the 6th string root, just because I find the sound muddy, but if you have a brighter sounding guitar/amp you can use those chord shapes as well.
Hello Matt, I’m studying voicings (drop 2) right now and I can’t understand one thing, so here’s my doubt:
Let me explain:
When we have the inversions, we have:
Root position – 1357
1st inversion – 3571
2nd inversion – 5713
3rd inversion – 7135
and then, when we’re working with drop 2, we have
Root position – 5137
1st inversion – 7351
2nd inversion – 1573
3rd inversion – 3715
, because we transpose the second highest note from the top one octave lower, right??
What I can’t understand is why you refer to the drop 2 chords, for example, in root position, 1573. ??? The correct form for drop 2 chords in root position is 5137, right?? So, why do you say that it is 1573?? I’ve understood all about this topic but I can’t clear my mind…
I’m not English, I’m portuguese, so I’d be delighted if you could explain it to me in a lighter language, like, in a simple way, for me to understand it better.
Waiting for your answer, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Henrique
Oi Henrique,
Eu acho que de “Drop 2″ acordes como uma forma na guitarra. Por isso eu continuo a Root como a nota mais baixa para a primeira posição. Todas as outras formas na guitarra tem a tônica como a nota mais baixa na posição de Root, e assim eu faço o mesmo para “drop 2.” O que você disse é correto, mas acho que funciona melhor para arranjar, mas na guitarra é mais prático para ver a Root como a nota mais baixa desde que é como vemos todos os outros acordes como “Drop 3.” Espero que ajude. ambos são boas abordagens, mas acho que este apenas se encaixa melhor na guitarra. Abraços
Hi Henrique,
I think of ‘Drop 2″ chords as a shape on the guitar. Therefore I keep the root as the lowest note for the first position. All of the other shapes on the guitar have the tonic as the lowest note in root position, and so I do the same for “Drop 2.” What you said is correct, but I think that works better for arranging, but on the guitar it is more practical to see the root as the lowest note since that is how we see all of the other chords like “Drop 3.” I hope that helps. They are both good approaches, but I think that this one just fits better on the guitar. Hugs
Hi matt
I’ve known about the inversion however not in the drop 2 form,my issue is coming up with a proper practice routine,hand stamina exercise and improvisation,I’m not into playing fast however I’d love to pick up some pace.
for sure, practicing these chords can be tough at first. Here is an article that might help you, I’m also doing a series on how to practice these chords coming up next month that you might like.
http://www.mattwarnockguitar.com/drop-2-chords-for-jazz-guitar