Ed DeGenaro
Shredder
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Soundslice.com
We NEED to talk about triads!
- Thread starter Sascha Franck
- Start date
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
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Absolutely not what I need. All I want is to display the chord voicings discussed in this thread in a static manner. Just as on oldfashioned ASCII tabs.
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
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- 7,588
Got tons of sheet/TAB and whatever PDF templates, but I don't feel like writing manually, then do a foto, then beam it back to the computer and what not.
Ed DeGenaro
Shredder
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- 1,332
You asked free, and just because it's mainly a tab player doesn't mean you can't use it to display static chord diagrams.
There's always musescore.
Or for that matter the free version of Dorico for either IOS or OS.
Or use the trial version of
Download - Neck Diagrams
www.neckdiagrams.com
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
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- 7,588
Yeah, got that installed already. Too much functionality for what I need for now.
Anyhow, got it pretty much sorted in Logic now.
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
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- 7,588
Hopefully a rather quick one. On to the E triad, as mentioned before, so we can play proper I-V, I-IV-V and what not progressions.
As I already covered the D triad, there's not much new here as anything E will just live two frets up from D on the fingerboard.
Root position:
E - root
G# - major third
B - fifth
x
12
13
14
x
x
1st inversion:
G#
B
E
x
17
16
18
x
x
This one obviously also works shifted down an octave:
x
5
4
6
x
x
2nd inversion:
B
E
G#
x
21
21
21
x
x
This one is hardly working up there anymore but perfectly fine shifted down an octave:
x
9
9
9
x
x
Following the same "minimal movement" rules applied to the A-D progression already, the possible movements from our good old A triad to E look like this:
A root position to E 1st inversion
x --- x
5 --- 5
6 --- 4
7 --- 6
x --- x
x --- x
A 1st inversion to E 2nd inversion
x ----- x
10 ---- 9
9 ----- 9
11 ---- 9
x ----- x
x ----- x
A 2nd inversion to E root position
x ----- x
14 --- 12
14 --- 13
14 --- 14
x ----- x
x ----- x
And a very stupid sound example, chord progression is A, E, E, A. Just as they do in cuntry land, yeehaw.
I think the next posting (which I am almost done with) will then show how all the three triads covered so far may work in combination (or maybe not, as I will stick to that lame a$$ country backing).
As I already covered the D triad, there's not much new here as anything E will just live two frets up from D on the fingerboard.
Root position:
E - root
G# - major third
B - fifth
x
12
13
14
x
x
1st inversion:
G#
B
E
x
17
16
18
x
x
This one obviously also works shifted down an octave:
x
5
4
6
x
x
2nd inversion:
B
E
G#
x
21
21
21
x
x
This one is hardly working up there anymore but perfectly fine shifted down an octave:
x
9
9
9
x
x
Following the same "minimal movement" rules applied to the A-D progression already, the possible movements from our good old A triad to E look like this:
A root position to E 1st inversion
x --- x
5 --- 5
6 --- 4
7 --- 6
x --- x
x --- x
A 1st inversion to E 2nd inversion
x ----- x
10 ---- 9
9 ----- 9
11 ---- 9
x ----- x
x ----- x
A 2nd inversion to E root position
x ----- x
14 --- 12
14 --- 13
14 --- 14
x ----- x
x ----- x
And a very stupid sound example, chord progression is A, E, E, A. Just as they do in cuntry land, yeehaw.
I think the next posting (which I am almost done with) will then show how all the three triads covered so far may work in combination (or maybe not, as I will stick to that lame a$$ country backing).
That's how I got through college man.That vid really encapsulates the nature of this forum.
jay mitchell
Roadie
- Messages
- 856
One very small nit to pick:
That should read "Bdim or Bminb5."
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
- Messages
- 7,588
Oops! Thanks for noticing and mentioning! Corrected!
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
- Messages
- 7,588
Time to bring things together! Well, at least some of them...
As said before, the chords of the first, fourth and fifth degree of a major scale (or I, IV, V in roman numbers), namely tonic, subdominant and dominant are possibly *the* single most important barebone of western music (btw, their minor variations are somewhat similarily important but there's some things requiring additional explanations and at least given traditional songs and such, they're not just as as important - but we'll get to them later on).
Perhaps you might want to google that very chord progression, it'll result in an almost endless list of songs. I won't post any examples as I don't even want to get close to any "but how is it done in this or that song?" discussion.
Ok, now that we have all the three chords more or less covered as triads (at least on the D, G and B strings), it's about time to combine all the three. For a start, we will again follow the "minimal voice movement from one chord to the next" rule.
For all examples, I'll be using a I-IV-V-I progression (hence tonic, subdominant, dominant, tonic) as the most relevant movements (tonic to subdominant and dominant back to tonic) are covered.
So the progression in A major will be A, D, E, A.
Here's the 3 possible "shortest movement" shapes (ph34r my l337 new TAB skills!)
A root position, D 2nd inversion, E 1st inversion:
A 1st inversion, D root position, E 2nd inversion:
A 2nd inversion, D 1st inversion, E root position:
Obviously, it's a good idea to play all these. And as progressions using these very 3 chords come in tons of variations (mixing the I, IV and V chords almost randomly), it's possibly a good idea to just fool around with some different combinations.
For the following sound examples I'll stick with I, IV, V, I, though.
Here's the three displayed inversion variations just plain and simple:
And for a very little bit of deviation, one can as well play all of them over an A pedal note (a pedal note usually means one single bass note used throughout multiple chords). The progression is losing a bit of its functional character that way (especially when it comes to the E triad, because the A bass note isn't part of the chord), but it's possibly a nice way to enhance a longer passage where you might usually only find an A chord.
And finally here's something with more movements. I usually try to shift position while staying on the chord (hence using another inversion in another position) and stay within the position when the chord change happens. IMO this is adding some "plausibility" (if you will) because the movements from chord to chord are using very little voice movement, which, in general, is a very typical arrange technique (for all kinds of polyphonic "environments", be it vocals, horns or whatever). You also avoid parallel voice movements that way (which is a pretty wellknown "to be avoided" thing in many arrangement 101s, having its origins in classical music already).
And yes, as threatened, it's the same cheesy country backing thing...
And that should be it for today.
As said before, the chords of the first, fourth and fifth degree of a major scale (or I, IV, V in roman numbers), namely tonic, subdominant and dominant are possibly *the* single most important barebone of western music (btw, their minor variations are somewhat similarily important but there's some things requiring additional explanations and at least given traditional songs and such, they're not just as as important - but we'll get to them later on).
Perhaps you might want to google that very chord progression, it'll result in an almost endless list of songs. I won't post any examples as I don't even want to get close to any "but how is it done in this or that song?" discussion.
Ok, now that we have all the three chords more or less covered as triads (at least on the D, G and B strings), it's about time to combine all the three. For a start, we will again follow the "minimal voice movement from one chord to the next" rule.
For all examples, I'll be using a I-IV-V-I progression (hence tonic, subdominant, dominant, tonic) as the most relevant movements (tonic to subdominant and dominant back to tonic) are covered.
So the progression in A major will be A, D, E, A.
Here's the 3 possible "shortest movement" shapes (ph34r my l337 new TAB skills!)
A root position, D 2nd inversion, E 1st inversion:
A 1st inversion, D root position, E 2nd inversion:
A 2nd inversion, D 1st inversion, E root position:
Obviously, it's a good idea to play all these. And as progressions using these very 3 chords come in tons of variations (mixing the I, IV and V chords almost randomly), it's possibly a good idea to just fool around with some different combinations.
For the following sound examples I'll stick with I, IV, V, I, though.
Here's the three displayed inversion variations just plain and simple:
And for a very little bit of deviation, one can as well play all of them over an A pedal note (a pedal note usually means one single bass note used throughout multiple chords). The progression is losing a bit of its functional character that way (especially when it comes to the E triad, because the A bass note isn't part of the chord), but it's possibly a nice way to enhance a longer passage where you might usually only find an A chord.
And finally here's something with more movements. I usually try to shift position while staying on the chord (hence using another inversion in another position) and stay within the position when the chord change happens. IMO this is adding some "plausibility" (if you will) because the movements from chord to chord are using very little voice movement, which, in general, is a very typical arrange technique (for all kinds of polyphonic "environments", be it vocals, horns or whatever). You also avoid parallel voice movements that way (which is a pretty wellknown "to be avoided" thing in many arrangement 101s, having its origins in classical music already).
And yes, as threatened, it's the same cheesy country backing thing...
And that should be it for today.
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
- Messages
- 7,588
Ok, so far I only covered major triads on the D, G and B strings. To complete the "major triads in close position all over the neck" story, I would now like to cover the other stringsets as well (note: Might be obvious, but due to all of them being a perfect fourth apart from each other, the shapes on E, A and D strings will be identical to those on the A, D and G strings).
And while building the rest of those triads would follow exactly the same principles as on the covered set of strings, while I also defenitely believe that exploring things yourself is a great idea, here's an overview of all the (close position) A major triads on all sets of strings pretty much all over the fretboard.
R - root position
i1 - 1st inversion
i2 - 2nd inversion
Notes: I think it's absolutely great to know the function of each note in each of these voicings. I could've tried to mark them in the diagram above, but not only would that've meant some fooling around, I also actually think it's counterproductive. For a start, knowing inversions is fine but after a while, having the internal structure of those triads internalized is just immensely helpful.
As a short recap:
Root position (bottom to top) is 1, 3, 5, 1st inversion is 3, 5, 1, 2nd inversion is 5, 1, 3. The most important notes likely being 1 and 3.
How you get there is almost irrelevant, I can almost safely say that once you keep using them and especially modifying them (which I will hopefully cover quite a bit in some following posts), it'll pretty certainly kick in more or less naturally.
A thing that'll very likely speed up the process is to combine different chords as done in my previous examples while (at least for a start) focusing on minimal movements between them.
And it's also a great idea to examine the individual voice movements, simply because it'll likely allow you to navigate between different inversions and progressions much faster.
As an example, when you move from A to D, there's a move from C# (major third of A) to D (new root). Once you can "see" this move, you will more or less instantly know what inversion to build around that D.
However, all that takes some "doing it" (I wouldn't even call it "practising", simply because these can be useful straight from the start and when you keep going, things will come automatically).
Anyhow, here's a last example using that sort of lame-aging A, D, E, A progression, utilizing the very same triads on 3 different sets of strings, namely E6-A-D, D-G-B and G-B-E (leaving out the A-D-G set because it's the same shapes as E6-A-D anyway), also all even using the very same inversions, hence the tonal material spread over 3 octaves.
Feel free to blame me on the musical content (below), but I think it still goes to show how these fit very well in a number of positions and how each of the sets can nicely accomodate a given spot in the music.
The triads and inversions used all throughout would be:
A root position
D 2nd inversion
E 1st inversion
And here's a little TAB of them (and how they move):
And finally, another gloriously cheesy sound example:
Soooo, while this is still only scratching the surface, I think after this post it's time to leave all that happy-go-lucky major triad stuff behind for some time and head over to the ohhh-sooo-sad minor variations. Stay tuned. Or so.
And while building the rest of those triads would follow exactly the same principles as on the covered set of strings, while I also defenitely believe that exploring things yourself is a great idea, here's an overview of all the (close position) A major triads on all sets of strings pretty much all over the fretboard.
R - root position
i1 - 1st inversion
i2 - 2nd inversion
Notes: I think it's absolutely great to know the function of each note in each of these voicings. I could've tried to mark them in the diagram above, but not only would that've meant some fooling around, I also actually think it's counterproductive. For a start, knowing inversions is fine but after a while, having the internal structure of those triads internalized is just immensely helpful.
As a short recap:
Root position (bottom to top) is 1, 3, 5, 1st inversion is 3, 5, 1, 2nd inversion is 5, 1, 3. The most important notes likely being 1 and 3.
How you get there is almost irrelevant, I can almost safely say that once you keep using them and especially modifying them (which I will hopefully cover quite a bit in some following posts), it'll pretty certainly kick in more or less naturally.
A thing that'll very likely speed up the process is to combine different chords as done in my previous examples while (at least for a start) focusing on minimal movements between them.
And it's also a great idea to examine the individual voice movements, simply because it'll likely allow you to navigate between different inversions and progressions much faster.
As an example, when you move from A to D, there's a move from C# (major third of A) to D (new root). Once you can "see" this move, you will more or less instantly know what inversion to build around that D.
However, all that takes some "doing it" (I wouldn't even call it "practising", simply because these can be useful straight from the start and when you keep going, things will come automatically).
Anyhow, here's a last example using that sort of lame-aging A, D, E, A progression, utilizing the very same triads on 3 different sets of strings, namely E6-A-D, D-G-B and G-B-E (leaving out the A-D-G set because it's the same shapes as E6-A-D anyway), also all even using the very same inversions, hence the tonal material spread over 3 octaves.
Feel free to blame me on the musical content (below), but I think it still goes to show how these fit very well in a number of positions and how each of the sets can nicely accomodate a given spot in the music.
The triads and inversions used all throughout would be:
A root position
D 2nd inversion
E 1st inversion
And here's a little TAB of them (and how they move):
And finally, another gloriously cheesy sound example:
Soooo, while this is still only scratching the surface, I think after this post it's time to leave all that happy-go-lucky major triad stuff behind for some time and head over to the ohhh-sooo-sad minor variations. Stay tuned. Or so.
duzie
Shredder
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- 1,971
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
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- 7,588
Yeah, I'll defenitely continue. Had some quite busy days.
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
- Messages
- 7,588
It is! Every bit!
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