[Reedolo]

Hey. I've been teaching myself to play piano for a while now, and up until now all I've been doing is playing sheet music and a bit by ear. I just started trying to play from a fake book, and some of the chords confuse me. Can someone tell me what an E/F chord means? Does that mean I play an E chord with an F at the bottom... or an F chord with an E at the bottom... or something like that? I've looked online and I can't find anything. If someone could enlighten me I would appreciate it.

Peace,
Reed

*EDIT* Normally when I see something like that it's something like F/C or Bb/D, in which case i'll play a F major chord with a C root instead of an F at the root, or a Bb major chor with a D at the root instead of a Bb. But i'm confused because an E major chord has no F, so I'm not sure what it wants me to do.

[Decency]

You are completely wrong, no offense. When I play a slash chord, what I will do is play the chord with my right hand and with my left, octave the bass note. Like in your E/F, you play an E with an F octave on it. Look at Jeremy Camp's "My Desire". The whole verse is slash chords. I love them. Word of God Speak also incorporates a C/F slash.

[Nate]

Slash chords: X / Y; X = chord; Y = bass. Bass, mind you, not root. It's very important.

"Bass" refers to the lowest sounding note. "Root" refers to the base note of the chord.

To play a slash chord, voice the chord however you like, then put the bass note with it.

Yeah, it's really that simple. Just make sure that the lowest sounding note is the "/ Y" note.

Usually, as you've alluded to, slash chords indicate chord inversions, but they do not have to.

To avoid harmonic confusion, it's usually best to voice the bass note an octave below the chord.