I was doing fine, 5 months, until I got to inversions. I guess I'll be at this part for a year.

Had the first full tuneing & voicing on my new M&H. What a difference. The tuner wanted to know if I had any requests but I told her that I was too new to have any thoughts. She said it was too bright & she was right on. Next time, in 3 months, I might have her soften the sound some more.

Just love'n this piano!

The theory of inversions or playing them?

For theory it might help just playing the chord in the right hand in root position and adjusting the bass so you see how you "move up the chord" with the bass. Here the sound. Then try it with the right hand chord itself.

I learned inversions via guitar tabs ... to me that's more sensible! C/E ... that's easy; C, first inversion ... what's that again?

The idea of inversions on piano is to create a shorter distance between chords and notes. A simple way to look at this is to take a piece of music mainly using chords and then work out which inversions fit best to creat a smaller distance between the chords, for example if you are doing a simple 12 bar blues using the chords C Major F Major and G Major, the inversions you would use are: -
C E G - C MAJOR ROOT POSITION
C F A - F MAJOR -2ND INVERSION
D G B - G MAJOR - 2ND INVERSION

The way the inverted chords work for 2nd inversions is to take the root inversion of the chord and bring the top note down an octave, which creates a smalle gap between chords.
Try it with some other chords.

Oh, I didn't know that, I imagined; say c major

C.E.G (first)
E.G.C (second)
G.C.E (third)

Thats how I understand it, I'd just call the First position Root instead of 1st as thats the original position of the chord, so root, 1st & 2nd Position.

Try a scale book with Broken chords and arpeggios in. This might help you to hear them also.

http://www.playpiano.com/Tips/Inversions.htm

Scroll down to about halfway

Basically, it says

C.E.G (Root inversion)
E.G.C (1st)
G.C.E (2nd)

ooopps you were right

Wayne, you have the notes right, but the names wrong. First inversion is E, G, C. Second inversion is G, C, E. C, E, G, is called root position (not really an inversion). There is no third inversion of a triad (3 note chord).

Yeah I noticed! Thnx

Its like baseball...Root is "Home", so it is not an inversion. First and second inversions are "versions" of Root, so are labeled first and second.

Thanks all. I understand the theory ok it's the execution that's hard. Probably I need to just practice these and memorize the inversions. Is there a pill to take with this, to help with memory?

The pill is called "practice". It's free but some people think it's a little bitter

Doing inversions as part of scales or similar practice can work. Just go up and down the keyboard. Root, first inversion, second inversion, root again (octave up) .... then come back down.

My teacher had me buy Bastien's "Scales Chords and Arpeggios" ($5.95 at Amazon). For every major and harmonic minor key, it has 1 and 2 octave scales, a cadence progression showing the root, 1st and 2nd inversions for the I IV and V chords, and a 2 octave arpeggio of the key chord on one page. It also has 2 octave melodic minor scales.

I've only been taking lessons for a month and a half and she has assigned me the G, D, and A major key pages (a page has all the scales, progressions, and arps for a key). Seems a good way to practice and learn scales, chords and arps for each key.