Triads Chord Progressions.docx

TRIADS Triads as Chord Progressions We're going to talk about voice leading. This is a method of playing chords which visualizes each note in the chord as if it were a voice. Now, when that chord switches to another chord, each voice in the first chord will move the minimum possible distance in order to reach a note of the next chord. Except in the case there that note is already fulfilled by another voice. For example, if I want to voice lead from a D major triad to a G major triad. And here is a G major triad. So that sounds OK. But doesn't that seem more logical that given that there is already a D and G chord then I will keep that note. And given that the next chord tone is G major is only a half step away from F sharp. Doesn't that make sense that I'll let everybody go to the nearest note. Doesn't it sound more intelligent compare that to this. So that's voice leading. Instead of playing chords just as one block after another, where the transition between one chord to the next is a product of which chords I randomly decide to use, now I can intelligently choose the next chord based on how well it fit with the previous one. So be sure you understand the basic principle of voice leading. That's to move all of the notes from one chord to the next with the least possible motion. Here's an example using I IV II V in D. Notice that I land on the first inversion of D major, whereas I started on D major in root position. That means I can keep going now and do another cycle, voice leading to G again and then E minor. Of course I'll probably have to jump down an octave once I run out of the frets. Once you've done that, you should repeat the exercise, starting it from EVERY string set, and making sure you can cover every inversion, too. After that, you'll be able to play this common chord progression all over the guitar.

Choosing Voicings If you were playing the above, what chord voicings would you choose? Maybe you would choose open chords. But you might also play one of the two possible barre chord voicings: one with the “D” chord starting on Fret V, and one with it starting on Fret X. You could also just use power chords, or some of the CAGED chord voicings. What if we decided to uncover as many sequences of these four triads as possible? How many are there? Using the closed-position triads, we could create at least 12 more possibilities. Before proceeding, let’s establish some rules of study:

Hands-on Practice “Rules” for voice-leading 1. No possibilities will be left unexplored. We’ll map out 12 new progressions. 2. All triads will start and end on the “D” major chord. 3. All motion between triads will be kept to a bare minimum; common tones will be kept. Ex: for the G chord, the note “D” will remain where it is. Tips for voice-leading   

Chord progressions generally sound smoother and more natural when fewer notes move (voice-leading) Chords tend to sound good if they are not too high or low, so the triads on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th string are useful The chord progression itself has a big impact on voice-leading. Chord progressions that move in motion of seconds or sevenths have the least voiceleading opportunity. Consider D-7 to E-7 (DFA to EGB). No common tones, and poor voice-leading. See Chord Progression Cycles for more details.

Let’s begin with the root position major triad on the lowest three strings. Starting with the D major triad at Fret X, try to name the notes of the chord and create each next chord in the most efficient way possible. You should finish the sequence by arriving at another D major chord in its first inversion.

Example Chord Progression D

G

Emin

A

D

Key Tasks 1. Voice-lead the chord progression D, G, Em, A, D starting on every possible closed D major triad that you can find. Since there are four sets of three strings, and there are 3 different inversions of each chord, you should be able to find 12. (4×3=12). 2. Voice-lead your favorite chord progression following the same rules. You might be surprised what you can discover.

TRIAD CHORD SHAPES Triads are a very useful little trick, fantastic as a second guitar part, but also for creating riffs too. To hear some great 'real world' examples check out "Brown Eyed Girl" (Van Morrison) for some cool use as a second guitar part, "So Far Away" (Dire Straights) uses a whole heap of shapes for the main riff or "Substitute" (The Who) that uses the very shapes shown in the lesson to make the main riff. Maybe you should try and work them out?? hint hint... I break the lesson into three parts, each with a video. Try and get each bit down before moving onto the next. Part 1 This first step is to learn the three shapes of triads on strings 1,2 and 3. The shapes are shown below. Make sure that MEMORISE the shape and the ROOT NOTE. Without this knowledge you will never use them well. The shapes are shown below. Learn them well. Note that these triad shapes can be called Major (ie. G Maj), or just the note name (ie. G) or sometimes using the term triad (ie. G Maj Triad). Doesn't really matter, they are but simple major chords!

Part 2 Now that you know the shapes you need to learn to move them around to make any chord you want. For the whole demo in this lesson I am using the chord sequence: G...C...G...D... Now it is important that you know the root notes because knowing the root notes tells you where to place the triad shape. All you have to do is place the root note on the note that you want and it will be the correct shape. For example: Triad shape 1 - root note is on thinnest string. The note G is at the 3rd fret. So place the root note from the shape at the 3rd fret. To make it a C Chord, find the note C on the thinnest string... at the 8th fret. And put the chord shape down. Got it. Easy peasy!

Part 3 Now the fun begins ;) You have to now be able to find all three shapes in one area! This means you REALLY have to know your root notes and shapes. This will probably take you a little while and some practice. In area 1 use G (shape 1), C (shape 3) and D (shape 2) In area 2 use G (shape 2), C (shape 1) and D (shape 3) In area 3 use G (shape 3), C (shape 2) and D (shape 1) It is also good to just play around and use whichever one falls under your fingers. You should be able to move between them quite freely, but this will requite you to know the notes on the fingerboard very well.

So where to next???? minor problem.... Now you know your major shapes, you have some homework to do!!!

Make sure you know these major ones well first... then YOU have to work out the minor shapes. Find the 3rd of each shape (that will be the note B in a G triad) and flatten it by one semitone (fret). This will give you the three minor shapes on strings 1 to 3.

If you are struggling with this then you might want to check out Practical Music Theory, that will help with finding the notes, and understanding the chords! You should then be able to play pretty much any song using your triads. Try it. Be able to find any major or minor chord in and area of the neck and find the next chord nice and close!! Then once you have that down you should try and find the major triad shapes that live on strings 2,3 and 4. Then find the minor shapes of those! Advanced ideas... Then you might want to find then on strings 3,4,5 and 4,5,6 - although you probably won't use those ones as much, you still should learn them if you are an advanced player!

Using Triads for Melodies, Arpeggios and Rhythm Guitar Part 1 The topic of this tutorial is triads. You might think of them as a “not-so-useful”, very basic concept. Today I'll show you how triads can be thought as a skeleton not just for chords, but also for arpeggio and single notes melodies. 1. Theory As the name may suggests a triad is basically a three note structure. It represents the bones of a chord. Most of the time you'll be asked (as a guitar player) to play just few notes of a chord, so you should know which notes are more important than others. Playing the notes of the triad will often be a good choice. The note that gives a triad its name is called the root. A complete triad will also contain a note a third above, and a note a fifth above. Depending on the kind of third and fifth, a triad will have different names. There are four types of triads: major, minor, augmented and diminished.

A major triad is going to have notes out of the major scale, basically a major third and a perfect fifth. A minor triad will have a minor third and a perfect fifth. As you can notice the third is the only note that changes and its quality will draw the line between a major sound and a minor sound. An augmented triad will have a major third and an augmented fifth, whereas a diminished triad will be formed by a minor third and a diminished fifth.

Speaking of triads I’d like to talk briefly about inversion. In the following images you can see an F Major triad (F, A, C), where F is the lowest note. Rearranging the order of the notes (voicing) of the chord will give us different inversion. Triads have two possible inversions:  

First inversion: the third of the chord is the lowest note. Second inversion: the fifth of the chord is the lowest note.

2. Why Are Triads So Important? I’d like to spend a few lines on the "why" of using triads. First of all, you need to remember that often less is more. So, whether you’re composing a new rhythm progression or just playing someone else song, instead of using a lot of barre chords you could just play triads. For example, say you’re playing in a jazz trio. By using triads you won’t get too low, where you end up occupying the bass player's register, or too high, in the same area as the piano player or vocalist. Another example is when you’re comping with another guitar player, and there's no bass player. You may decide to use triads on the lower register. So, as you can see, triads are a useful solution in multiple situations. On the other hand, triads contains the most basic notes out of a chord. So, if you want to comp a jazz piece, but you don’t remember the altered chords very well, you can still play the triads and sound good. Of course, it’s not the ideal situation, but your audience will appreciate you playing something that still has the character of the song, instead of playing wrong notes or leaving complete silence.

3. Triad Shapes In this section, I'll throw a thousand different shapes of major and minor triads at you. (Well, actually 24.) It's very important to understand that while triads can be an easy concept to comprehend, it's not so easy to digest. I subdivided the charts into sections, not by quality (major or minor), but by sets of strings. You will have major and minor triads for each set of strings—123, 234, 345, 456, where the numbers relate to the string numbers involved in the triad.

Major Triads - 123 String Set

Minor Triads - 123 String Set

Major Triads - 234 String Set

Minor Triads - 234 String Set

Major Triads - 345 String Set

Minor Triads - 345 String Set

Major Triads - 456 String Set

Minor Triads - 456 String Set

These shapes are not just important when you're playing rhythm. In fact, if you play them note by note you will get an arpeggio. Once you get comfortable with the shapes all over the neck, you can start to create cool little moves that might help you while soloing. I'll explain what I mean in the next chapter of this series.

4. How to Practice Triads We've just covered 24 different shapes of triads. That's a lot of work, and you are not going to remember them all in just a couple of hours. So, how should you practice? First of all, I recommend you break it by string sets. Start off with the major triads on the 123 set of strings. Now, you need to visualize which of the three notes is the root, the third and fifth. It's important for a musician to know the third of a triad, since it's the note that is going to tell you if you're playing a major triad or a minor one. Once you've memorized the major shapes on the 123 string set, move the third down a half step and you will have the minor triad shapes. That's the whole game of triads: the better you visualize the notes inside of it, the easier is going to be to play around with them. Another good practice routine you can do is to play around with common chord moves using triads. Moving from the I chord to the IV chord in the harmonized scale is really common—just think about blues. Moving from the I chord to the V chord is also common. What does that mean? Let's keep working in the key of F major. You may want to stay in one position while playing a I to IV move. F is the I chord, Bb is the IV chord, and C is the V chord. Try to find every possible connection between F and Bb, and between F and C. Play around with those shapes. Of course, you can play inversions. Again, I recommend you to stay on the same set of string while learning them. Here are two audio examples. In the first I play F to Bb using every shape. I play all the combinations on one string set, then move to the next.

In the second example, I do the same thing, but this time F to C. I used a different rhythm for each string set, starting with an upbeat funky kind of rhythm, then even palm-muted eighth notes, eighth notes with an accent, and a basic rock rhythm.

5. Conclusion I hope this lesson has been helpful enough to start warming up to triads. I discussed the basic of this concept and I hope you understood how many solution you can have with just a bit of work and shape memorization. Next time, I'll go into detail about less common sounds you can obtain with triads, and how to use them while soloing.

Using Triads for Melodies, Arpeggios and Rhythm Guitar – Part 2 Welcome to the second part of our triads madness series. If you enjoyed Part 1, you'll be impressed with the tools you acquire from this tutorial. Last time we barely scratched the surface of the variety of sound you can get with triads. This time we will get into some heavier stuff. Again, even when the concepts basic, stay focused and try to understand what you're doing. You'll be rewarded.

1 - Harmonized Scale Harmonized scale? Well, yes. For those who might be already familiar with what the harmonized scale is and how to play it, pardon me if I waste one chapter of this tutorial to explain how it works. If you don't know what this is, great! Let's begin. Let's take a C major scale. It has nothing but major and perfect intervals so, in order, the notes are: C, D, E, F, G, A, B and then C again. Let's stack notes a third apart on the top of each other until we get a a triad. So we'll have:

Those chords, specifically triads, are all in the key of C (diatonic), and together they form the harmonized scale. There are different way you can play the harmonized scale both horizontally or vertically on the neck. I suggest you to practice both ways in different key to really open up the neck and, at the same, spread your knowledge no matter what's the fretboard zone you're playing in. Here are three ways to play the harmonized scale along the neck, and one way of staying in the same position:

As you can see there's one oddball: the diminished triad. Last time I just gave you a brief explanation of how this type of triad is built, but I didn't give you a chart. We'll discuss how to derive those shapes in the next section.

2 - Different Colors In the last tutorial I explained four different types of triad: major, minor, augmented and diminished, but I only gave you the charts for major and minor (24 shapes). The reason is obvious: I thought memorizing 48 shapes was just too much for one lesson and you would ended up thinking triads are just a bunch of nonsense charts.

Diminished and Augmented Triads I think that, once you have your major and minor shapes well-stored in your brain, you just need to use your theory knowledge to modify them and get the diminished and augmented shapes.

What I mean by that is really simple: A diminished triad is formed by the root, the b3 and the b5, and a minor triad is root, b3 and perfect 5th. Those sounds have two notes in common so the only thing you have to do is taking a minor triads shapes and move the fifth down an half-step. Same idea with the augmented sound, but this time you need to start with a major triad shape and raise the fifth up an half-step. Diminished Triads Here are charts for every minor triad for every set of string, and the relative diminished next to it:

Augmented Triads Here are the charts for the augmented triad. Notice that you just need to memorize one shape per set of string, because of the symmetry hidden inside the augmented sound.

Suspended Triads This idea of stretching and shrinking the intervals inside a triad can be applied not just to the fifth, but to the third as well. In this case it doesn't really matter whether you start from a major or a minor triad since in both cases you're going to substitute the note that defines the quality of the chord (the third) with a different one.

For instance, let's just take a major triad. If we lower the major third a whole step, we will get a triad that has a root, a fifth and a major second. We can call it a sus2 triad because the third is suspended by the second. We can apply the same logic to create a different kind of suspension. Take a major triad again, and this time, raise the third up an half-step. The triad contains now, a root, a fifth and the perfect fourth. We name it as a sus4 triad. Suspended Fourth Here

you

have the sus4 triad shapes

laid

out per set of string:

Suspended Second And here are all the sus2 shapes:

The concept behind these charts is not to make you crazy with tons of different kind of triads. You just need to be really comfortable with all the major and minor shapes, and work your way from there in order to obtain augmented, diminished, sus2 or sus4 sounds.

3 - Cycles The topic of triads is so simple and so huge at the same time, that everything you play, no matter which instrument, has something to share with triads. I'd like to invite you now to keep experimenting with the idea of breaking up a triad into notes, visualizing every note, and creating a progression. Specifically, you can follow a

certain criteria to come up with a progression that is going to help you practice this breakdown process. Let's work in the key of C, just to make it simpler. We'll change chords by always moving a third above the previous one, staying in one key (C major). Start with a C major root position on the 123 set of strings, where C is on the G string at the fifth fret, E is on the B string, still fifth fret, and G is on the E string at the third fret. Now, a third above C is E, and precisely E minor, because the chord built on the third degree of a major scale is minor. Take note of how to move from C to E, staying in position as much as possible. You can play an Em chord just by moving the root of the C major triad down a half step. If you followed me, you should end up playing B on the fourth fret of the G string, E on the fifth fret of the B string and G on the third fret on the E string (as in the following chart). So we can derive a rule: Moving the root down to the previous note in the key will give us a chord a third above, diatonic to the key. So, now we have E minor second inversion, with the root on the B string. If we move E down to D on the second string we have a G major triad, which is indeed a third above E minor. You can keep playing this game until you come back to C. Here

is

the

sequence

of

chords

and

how

to

play

it:

I started off cycling in thirds, since you only have to change one note each time to have a new chord. Same idea if you cycle in sixths. It can get a bit trickier once you start doing it in fourths and fifths, since you will have two notes changing and one that remains the same. Here are all the progressions for those cycles, and where to play them:

Covering this material can take longer that you expect, but I guarantee it will be super rewarding. You're basically covering every possibility of diatonic chord changes on the neck, which will give you the ability to read a chart without a problem, or improvise chord progressions without any concern. It's also very cool to do it as a practice routine, since most of the time you will hear sections of chord progression that are in popular songs. Why do it? Because most of the time guitar players learn chord without really understanding the connection between them. Music is a language, and we need to understand which word we want to put next in our phrase in order to make sense.

There are some connections that are stronger than others, and every chord we play will have a certain character that is going to affect our audience. A piano player, for example, will be more conscious of how to change chords, because while he moves from one to another he really sees which notes stay the same and which ones don't. We guitar players need to develop the same awareness.

4 - Superimposing Finally, we got to the playing section. Here I've included a short recording of how to over superimpose triads, as well as a backing track you can practice with. I played over a basic rock groove in D natural minor. I played around with basically all the triads that are diatonic to the harmonized scale, specifically I used: Dmin, Cmaj, Fmaj, Bbmaj, Amin and Gmin. You don't have to use them all, but the concept is that you can always use the triads that are in the key to create both a turnaround, a lick, or simply some harmonic line. Keep in mind that every triad you will use will have some particular sound that has to relate to the chord holds in the background (Dm in this example). For example, don't hold a diminished triad for two minutes unless you want to give everyone in the room a panic attack.

Conclusion I hope you enjoyed this tutorial even more than the first. Stay tuned to learn how to use triads for soloing, and some other "ear candy". This tutorial should have taught you: 



  

to help you to start thinking about the notes you're playing, instead of just seeing shapes. to develop the way you visualize triads all over the neck, adding some different flavors to your playing. to develop a practice schedule that will help you explore this topic even more. to have more options when comping using the superimposing concept. to sound authentic just using basic diatonic triads.

How did you go?

Using Triads for Melodies, Arpeggios and Rhythm Guitar – Part 3 This will be the third and final part of our series about triads. I'd like to end this journey with some additional voicings you may not be playing every time you pick up your guitar. So pick up your guitar and start experimenting!

1. Open Voicing Triads formed by notes belonging to the same octave are called closed voice. As we discussed in the previous tutorials, these kind of shapes are the most common and used ones, so it's absolutely fundamental to learn them well. That being said, once you're very comfortable with them, you may start spreading the intervals out—you can place the three notes of the triads in different octaves. Whenever you have a triads formed by three notes which are in different octaves, you call it an open voice.

This may be considered a more jazzy approach to guitar, but if you start thinking about notes and intervals instead of shapes on a piece of paper, you won't need any new diagrams to learn "cool sounding chords". Here are some shapes I came up with, but my suggestion is to try to challenge yourself to find every possible spot where you can play the notes of each triad.

The advantage of applying yourself to this process is that you start to sound less predictable. Also, if you start expanding your chord vocabulary along the neck,

you'll start messing around with seventh chord instead of regular triads, but still play just three notes at the time. The variety of sound you can get is endless, and I'm sure you can find a perfect spot for one of them, maybe in your song or in someone else's song. Here is some 12-bar blues I recorded. Since I want it to sound like authentic blues, I played an open voice version of a dominant seventh chord, just by playing the root, the third and the minor seven. I've also included the chart with the voicing I used, and a similar rhythm to the one I played. Almost every time I switched from one chord to another I moved to the note I have to reach chromatically. You may want to experiment with that too. Also, you have notes in the higher register of you chord that you might want to play around with while comping.

2. One-Five-Three Voicing Let's continue with the concept of spreading out triad intervals. For instance, we can start with the following progression:

You should be able to play this progression using different triad devices. Try playing it up and down the neck, staying in one position, and using different voicing / set of string. All these things you learned are definitely useful, but I want to give you a new insight about how you may arpeggiate those chords, and it's up to you to find the right context to do it. Instead of playing closed voice triads, experiment what I call a one-five-three voicing. Visualize it like a power chord, but with the third an octave above. Below isa chart with the shapes with the root on the 6th, on the 5th and on the 4th string for both major triads and minor. It's a very cool device because of the open sound it has, and also, it allows you to play with some distortion without getting too muddy.

Below you'll find the charts for the progression I wrote earlier, and an audio sample to give you a hint of what kind of sound you can get with these voicing. Don't get too scared for the odd meter I put in the chart. If you have already dealt with odd meters, you'll be able to count the bar of five. If you haven't, then try to understand and learn the flow of the riff, without caring too much about the odd meter bar.

3. Slash Chord This section is going to be a bit outside the scope I had in mind for this tutorial. Still, it's definitely related to triads, and I hope you find it interesting. A slash chord is simply a non-root position chord. We discussed them previously when we talked about inversion. I'd like to spend some time on a particular kind of slash chord: where the triads is played over a bass note that doesn't belong to it. Let's pretend you're playing a Gmaj triad and you put a C note in the bass. C doesn't belong to Gmaj so the chord that it comes out creates a really interesting harmony. This kind of slash chord gives you the typical "fusion sound", since it implies an uncommon harmony most of time, still keeping the well-known sound of triads on top. Here are charts for the most common slash chords you may encounter.

V/I

II / I

bVII / I

III / I

Slash chords often give a cool, unresolved sound, an interesting harmony transition. I'd like to get into the details and show you how to analyze those chords. Let's consider for instance G/A. The proper way to process and analyze this chord is to relate every interval to the bass note. So instead of thinking it like some kind of G chord, when analyzing, I suggest you to think about it like some sort of A chord. So, if you consider A as the root, then you just have to refer every note of a G triad (which are G, B, D) to A. As you might have already understand G is the minor seventh, B is the second (or the ninth) and D is a perfect fourth. You can call this chord an A9sus4. If you encounter this chord in a progression, which scale do you play over it? The answer is simple: Whatever scale that has those notes in it. A scale with a root, a minor seventh, a two, and a perfect four. This chord by itself can either be major or minor, so probably you would need other chords to explain and contextualize his harmonic function better. For now, you might want to try to play A mixolydian over it, since it has all the intervals we listed.

4. Soloing Finally, we get to the solo section. The concept of soloing with triads may be something new to you. In any case, I assure you it's going to improve your soloing approach big time. Why? Well, the majority of the guitar players look for a key center whether they're playing over song or a progression. They solo using that scale, no matter which note is played over which chord, since they're all correct. Soloing using a key center is not wrong. It just means you're grouping diatonic chords together and then just playing the scale you know. I'd like to take you a step up. It will require a deeper visualization of the notes all over the neck. Whether you already have it or not, it doesn't really matter. Working your way using this tut as a guideline is probably the best option you can choose. Let's start simple. We can take a Dm vamp, and start thinking about how to improvise with triads. As I said, you can apply whatever triad, diatonic to the key. Now, I'd like to give you more awareness of which triad corresponds to which sound. If you're playing a Dm vamp, let's consider a Dm13 arpeggio, because it's the extended arpeggio that relates to a Dm chord. It has the following notes:

If you look at three notes at the time, you'll surely notice that those are triads. If you look at the number below the notes of the arpeggio, you will see that those are the intervals that relate to D as tonic, center, home of the progression. So if you play a Cmaj triad over the Dm vamp, you will imply the 7th, the 2nd (or 9th) and 4th (or 11th) of the chord. Why you should be aware of that? Keep reading. While that Dm chord is being played, say instead of sounding minor (Aeolian) you want to add some Dorian mode flavor. A Dorian scale is simply a minor scale with a Major 6 instead of the b6. Playing triads derived from Dm13 arpeggio will make you sound Dorian since the 13th is just a 6th one octave above. So now, what's really going to help you is not just learning the name of the triads to play over a Dm to sound Dorian—you need to learn them in term of intervals. Basically over a minor chord you can play a major triad off the minor third, the minor seventh and the fourth or, a minor triad off the root, the fifth or the second. Here's an audio example I recorded with a couple of Dorian licks. Try to write your own. Remember, in this example there's no harmony that implies the use of the Dorian scale. Over a minor seventh chord I can play whatever scale that has a root, a minor third, a fifth and a minor seven. I'm superimposing triads from the Dorian scale because I want to sound Dorian.

Let's move to the major universe—take a Cmaj7 chord. The extended arpeggio you should considerer for this chord is a Cmaj13#11. The reason you have a #4 (that becomes a #11 an octave up) instead of a perfect fourth lies in the fact that in a major scale the third and fourth are just half step apart. This creates a clash between the two notes that make sound the chord really dissonant. So 90% of the time you have a major seventh chord, you will have a #11 instead of a regular one. Once again you should write down the notes that form the arpeggio and group them in triads. This is what you should get:

Try to remember everything in term of intervals. Whenever you play over a major seventh chord, you can use major triads built from the root, the fifth and the second, or minor triads from the third, the seventh and the sixth. You could also use the diminished triads from the #11. Once you understand that, become aware of what you are superimposing. Playing the triads I listed above implies a Lydian harmony, because the Lydian scale is just a major scale with a #4.

Here are another two major licks over a Cmaj7#11 vamp: Lydian licks

Be aware of this superimposition. It will make you sound less predictable, and definitely more interesting. At the same time you need to be conscious that you can impose a group of triads over a chord—depending on the key, the progression, and also the style. Triads are a super useful tool to use, but a solo isn't made out of just triads. Try to blend those elements you learned with your scale movement, and of course, your personal style.

Conclusion We've got to the end of our triad journey! I hope you've learned a lot—or at least I've given you some new ideas for a solo or your next song.

We covered: 







Open voicings, and different ways to look at the fretboard, spreading out intervals in two octaves. The 1-5-3 voicing, which will allows you to get a sound similar to the piano, create some cool rock riffs, and start developing a taste for triads soloing. Slash chords—which might seem outside our topic, but are used more often than you might expect—how to play them, and how to analyze them in a progression. Superimposing triads over a one-chord vamp, and which kind of harmony you will imply with the use of every triad.

I hope you will experiment further with these tools, and I can't wait to hear your sweet triads licks.

Economical Guitar Triads - An Easy Way to Dominate the Neck Triads are the most basic chords you can play on guitar, consisting of just three notes. Therefore, we only need three strings to play them. Now, I like to make your time learning guitar as productive as possible. So in this lesson I'll not only show you the most economical way to play these triads, but I'll also show you how to dominate the neck, in any key, using a simple method known as scale harmonization. First, take a look at the video below for a clear introduction to this powerful method...

Guitar Triads in Theory There are four triad types that form the basis of harmony in music: 

Major triads, which consist of a root (1), major 3rd (3) interval, and perfect 5th (5) interval. 1 3 5.



Minor triads - root (1), minor 3rd (b3) and perfect 5th (5). 1 b3 5.



Diminished triads - root (1), minor 3rd (b3) and diminished 5th (b5). 1 b3 b5.

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Augmented triads - root (1), major 3rd (3) and augmented 5th (#5). 1 3 #5.

Note: In the video, we didn't use augmented triads, because they don't exist in the particular scale we were harmonizing. That doesn't mean you can't try using them in places. Your ears are always the judge! Extra

info...

One way to see triads is a sequence of major 3rd and/or minor 3rd intervals. For example: Major

triad

=

1

-

major

3rd

-

3

-

minor

3rd

-

5

Minor

triad

=

1

-

minor

3rd

-

b3

-

major

3rd

-

5

triad

=

1

-

minor

3rd

Diminished

-

minor

3rd

-

b3

-

b5

Augmented triad = 1 - major 3rd - 3 - major 3rd - #5 Triads exist on the fretboard in many different shapes and positions. For example, if you've learned barre chords, you'll most likely be familiar with these six string major (1 3 5) and minor (1 b3 5) triad forms...

Even though there are six strings being used in these chord shapes, there are still only three tones (the triad) in the chords. We just repeat some tones to fill out the voicing of the chord. Barre chords are useful, especially when it's just you playing, but this lesson is all about economising our triad playing for more of a voice leading effect. As there are three notes in a triad, we only need three strings to voice the chord. 3 String Guitar Triad Chart In each of the shapes below, look at where the root (1) note is positioned, because this will tell you where to position the shape to get the chord you want (e.g. for G major, position the major shape on the root of G)... Major Triads

Minor Triads

Diminished Triads

Augmented Triads

I'm sure you're wondering... why are the augmented shapes the same? I won't get into that now, but it's to do with the symmetry of their intervals. In later lessons, we'll look at additional triad shapes that cover other strings, but the above is a great starting point (and easy on your fingers!).

Major Scale Triad Harmonization The major scale is the harmonic and melodic basis for a lot of songs you'll hear (and write). It contains both the natural (diatonic) major and minor key centers. Using the above triad shapes, we can cover the entire width of the neck on the top three strings in any given key. The

example

key I

used

in

the

video

was

A

major:

This A major key corresponds to the A major scale, which we can visualize on the same three strings "underneath" our chord shapes (if you don't already know the major scale by heart, don't worry because we're bringing together a lot of elements here).

Recommended... To fully understand how scales, keys and chords are related, take a look at Jonathan Boettcher's easy to follow guitar theory crash course - Unlocking I IV V.

When you've established a key, simply find the scale's root (1) on one of the top three strings and build its related major triad shape. So for A major, there are three positions as shown below. This is our I (or tonic) chord...

For the next triad in the scale (ii) we move each shape up by one note. The root becomes the 2 of the scale...

On to the iii chord, again we move each note in the ii chord up by one degree. The root becomes the 3 of the scale...

Follow

the

degrees

of

the

scale

up

to

the

IV

chord...

V

chord...

vi chord (our relative minor key tonic, F#m in this case - more on this in another lesson)...

and the vii chord - the "odd one out" because it's the only diminished triad in the scale...

So we now have three positions for each of the seven triads that exist in A major. Amazing how it all fits together isn't it? Together, these triads make up the seven notes of the A major scale. Hopefully, by following this process, you can see the intrinsic connection between the "parent scale" and its chords. So what if we wanted to harmonize a different key? Simply move the 1 of the scale (the root of the tonic major chord) to the appropriate note. For example, for C major harmony, we'd move the 1 to the note... C and build the sequence from there. Your task is to explore this triad sequence in different keys so you can internalize it and commit it to memory. Take your time. To make this process more fun, and to test your knowledge, come up with exercises that move between the triad degrees in interesting ways, like the following (we're back in A major again)...

Click

to

hear

Listen closely to the melody you create as you move between chords. This is the musical statement formed through the movement of each note to the next. For example, you could focus your ear on the highest note in the triad as the melody, the middle or the low note. More on chord melody another time.

Remember you can also arpeggiate these chords (play them one note at a time). Go nuts! As demonstrated in the video, we can also harmonize the scale/key by using two string, root-3rd forms...

The more ways you can come up with to explore the fretboard in this way, the better. The whole purpose of this method is to bring together harmony and melody into a unified musical expression. Use the scale as the "scaffolding" for your triad playing, even embellish your triads with short melodic phrases. The great thing about this method is, once the roadmap is memorized, you can improvise ideas fluidly and musically, without getting lost.

Expand Your Musicality and Fretboard Knowledge Using Triads and Inversions When first learning to play guitar, transitioning between chords and playing a few progressions can allow you to play hundreds of songs. While this can keep you entertained for quite a while, you might find there is a large amount of the fretboard that is lacking your attention. One of the many tools that can be used to learn the higher positions is the CAGED system. Though the application can be very useful, aspects of it can be simplified

and studied in a more musical approach. Doing this might help you have a better understanding of chord voicing and harmony. The CAGED system uses five guitar chord shapes—C, A, G, E and D—to create barre chords for playing in higher positions. The problem with this system is that its functionality has nothing to do with music itself. It is simply a physical device that works based on the tuning of the strings. It cannot be applied to music in general and is specific only to the guitar. These five chords are all root-position chords, meaning the letter name of the chord is the lowest-sounding note. But music does not always consist of root-position chords, so why should it on the guitar? In this column, I’ll demonstrate another approach for expanding your fretboard knowledge using triads and their inversions. First of all, what is a chord? If you’re asked to play a G chord, what really does that mean? Sure, it can be a shape from a chord diagram, but why that shape? And if it’s different from one diagram to the next, is one of those wrong? As guitarists, we often think about chords as shapes, and we have “go-to” shapes for certain chords. But that’s not thinking musically. So that we can develop a stronger sense of musicianship, we need to understand how chords are constructed. To demonstrate, I’ll use a simple I-V-vi-IV progression in the key of A, so the chords will be A, E, F♯m and D. First, we need to know what notes are in the key of A.

The basic chord is called a triad and consists of a root, a third and a fifth. The chords in this progression will have these notes:

A: A, C♯, E E: E, G♯, B F♯m: F♯, A, C♯ D: D, F♯, A Your “go-to” shapes for these chords might look something like this:

When first learning to play a chord progression, we’re typically using our basic “guitar” chords. I use quotations because many guitarists think of a chord as a certain shape. That may suffice for a beginner, but to make those root-position chords even more musical, we need to take advantage of the rest of the fretboard. We can do so by learning different chord inversions. As there are three different notes in a basic chord (triad), there are three basic forms for these chords. These forms are presented only on the top four strings. The reasoning for this is twofold: 01. Historically, the developing guitar was a four-string instrument until the Baroque era, when a fifth string was added, and then a sixth. Therefore, chords had to be formed on fewer strings. 02. Chords formed on the top four strings involve a systematic, musical approach to triadic harmony and the use of chord inversions.

Form I Voicing: 1-3-5-1 (root, third, fifth, octave)—“root-position.” Form II Voicing: 3-5-1-3 —“first inversion.” Form III Voicing: 5-1-3-5—“second inversion.”

There is a clear pattern of intervals with this system of chord inversions. While the official term is “inversion,” using form numbers can help to identify where the root of the chord is. For example, the root in Form I is on the first string, it’s on the second for Form II, and the third for Form III. This applies to both Major and Minor Forms. Applying these forms to the chord progression, A, E, F♯m, D, will give us three different fretboard locations, with each of these having a different sound because of the different chord voicings. The transition from one form to the next is designed so that common chord tones may be used where applicable, and shifting is kept to a minimum. EXAMPLE 1:

EXAMPLE 2:

EXAMPLE 3:

Each of these examples systematically moves through the different chord inversions, and they create sounds very different from the basic, root-position shapes. Learning these six total forms can be much easier than the learning CAGED system. With its musical approach, the focus is on specific chord voicing rather than just root-position chord shapes. Through using these, you can expand your fretboard knowledge in a musical way and gain a better understanding of how chords function. Sonically, if you’re playing the same progression with another guitarist, each of you can play the same chords, but in different positions, creating a wider spectrum of sound.