No matter how achingly beautiful an arrangement or harmony is, a chord is still just a chord. Whether it’s the Beatles sticking your heart with a melody like a pin cushion or Hendrix making your teeth sweat during guitar solo the chords supporting the song, at root, are the same.
A few days ago, while browsing the aisles of Amazon Prime I saw there was a documentary about Elliot Smith called “Heaven Adores You.” Elliot was a songwriter who knew how to harmonize and arrange a song. His Album, XO, is desert island material for me. Obviously, I had to watch.
Elliot started out as a punk rocker, then as his writing developed grew into a sort of folk singer-songwriter who nabbed harmonies from The Beatles and Beach Boys like a pro. But the arrangements he strung his melodies over and through are still merely chords. Chords are something we can learn about.
Today’s sheet is talking about slash chords (called inversions by fancy pants music theorists). If you’re interested in learning something about Elliot’s music, (or anyone else’s music), slash chords are a great place to start.
Check out the sheet below, and check out the video for a couple examples of how Elliot used them.
The Prompt:
The Musical Idea:
Here’s a downloadable pdf of the worksheet above:
timmyr.com 
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