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We NEED to talk about triads!
- Thread starter Sascha Franck
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Those freakin' rock guys! Shame on them.
Sascha Franck
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Ok, for the end of this day, a rather quick one.
Basically, in the following example I just did what I elaborated on a bit more for the major triad episodes, but I'll take a kinda shortcut now, so we can possibly get to some more interesting things.
What you'll hear is a simple I-V-IV-V progression in A minor, so it's rather Imin-Vmin-IVmin-Vmin, namely Amin-Emin-Dmin-Emin.
I'm just using the D-G-B strings. As said before, if you want to apply these kinda things to other stringsets, the required information is all covered in the major triad episodes. Still, here's a bit of an illustration of how the triads fall in place when you play them with the least movement from one to another. Starts with Amin root position, next round 1st inversion, then 2nd inversion.
In the audio example you'll hear all combinations twice, then I'll go back down to the Amin-root-position pattern and there's a kinda single note muted arpeggio thing added, using the 2nd inversion pattern, to illustrate how these work pretty well together. And then there's a little lame melody coming in, just to annoy you before the fade.
So here's the example:
As you may see, apart from the somewhat different order of tonic, subdominant and dominant, this is all pretty much identical to the examples for the major triads, just that in each chord the major third got replaced by the minor third.
And as if you hadn't guessed already, yes, I have a faible for lame musical wallpaper elevator stuff.
Basically, in the following example I just did what I elaborated on a bit more for the major triad episodes, but I'll take a kinda shortcut now, so we can possibly get to some more interesting things.
What you'll hear is a simple I-V-IV-V progression in A minor, so it's rather Imin-Vmin-IVmin-Vmin, namely Amin-Emin-Dmin-Emin.
I'm just using the D-G-B strings. As said before, if you want to apply these kinda things to other stringsets, the required information is all covered in the major triad episodes. Still, here's a bit of an illustration of how the triads fall in place when you play them with the least movement from one to another. Starts with Amin root position, next round 1st inversion, then 2nd inversion.
In the audio example you'll hear all combinations twice, then I'll go back down to the Amin-root-position pattern and there's a kinda single note muted arpeggio thing added, using the 2nd inversion pattern, to illustrate how these work pretty well together. And then there's a little lame melody coming in, just to annoy you before the fade.
So here's the example:
As you may see, apart from the somewhat different order of tonic, subdominant and dominant, this is all pretty much identical to the examples for the major triads, just that in each chord the major third got replaced by the minor third.
And as if you hadn't guessed already, yes, I have a faible for lame musical wallpaper elevator stuff.
Sascha Franck
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You're absolutely right. I actually know this but keep forgetting it because in German it's different. The German "Mollparallele" is what you English speaking folks call "relative minor".
Mollparallele – Wikipedia
Need to try remembering the difference.
Sascha Franck
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Well, he actually said "root on the d string", so in the CAGED universe that'd be the E-shape.
---
However (not directed at you, Ed!), after two pages of all that nonsense, I'd really like to return to something more meaningful. CAGED, as much as some persons seem to love it, very clearly is something pretty different from what I'm trying to get into in this thread, even if there's overlapping things.
bucephalus
Roadie
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I'm finding this interesting stuff (between the bickering), thanks.
I'm a complete newcomer to this type of playing as when I played out I was always solo acoustic and voice so such to cowboy chords and some picking styles in general to round out the sound.
Is there any material out there as a good starting point you'd recommend?
I'm a complete newcomer to this type of playing as when I played out I was always solo acoustic and voice so such to cowboy chords and some picking styles in general to round out the sound.
Is there any material out there as a good starting point you'd recommend?
Sascha Franck
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Actually not really. Which is why I was at one time starting to explore and sort it on my own, based on general/common music harmony/theory/whatever wisdom. And it's been quite a while ago since I started.
I'm sure that these days there's quite some stuff around covering this kinda ground - but to be honest, so far I find the things I try to present in this thread to be somewhat moderate, you just need to get your hands dirty at one point.
What exactly would you need as a starting point? You could for instance take one of the cowboy chord songs you're familiar with, record some smaller exerpts and try to "enhance" them using the stuff I'm trying to explain here. In fact, these kinda things are used all over in country, folk, pop and what have you. Some singer/songwriter may come up with the baseline cowboy chords and to spice them up these are excellent "weapons".
One of the next things I have in mind is actually using a pretty typical open chord strumming chord progression and then trying to beef it up a little, just using the material presented so far.
bucephalus
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Cheers, appreciate that.
Sascha Franck
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Time for a brief resume.
If you followed this thread, you should now be able to build close position major and minor triads all over the neck on all sets of 3 adjacent strings.
You should as well be able to go from any plain major/minor chord to the next with as little movement as possible. Which obviously isn't always mandatory musically - but very often it's a great way to build "plausible" chord movements with proper voice leading.
IMO this can take you quite far already - the few examples I've posted are really only scratching the surface (at least so far).
And the most interesting things are yet to come.
---
Something else: The attentive folks may now ask: "Hold on, what about that diminished triad?"
Yeah, what about it? Possibly deserves a little bit of explanation.
First off: Any chord not using (or suitable to use) a perfect fifth (the interval 7 semitones away from the root) is generally considered "unstable". It's hardly ever a chord you may land on to finish something, let alone being the "home" (aka tonic) chord for whatever composition. Yes, I know that there are exceptions, but in 99.9999% of typical western culture based music there's no exceptions.
In many (possibly the majority of) cases, the diminished chord is used as a kind of substitute, extension, placeholder - or whatever you may call it - of something else. Jay has actually already mentioned a pretty typical use case, namely a diminished chord building up on the third of a major chord, resulting in a "final" sound of a dominant seventh chord.
Example: A spelled out C7 chord would be C-E-G-Bb. And when you look at the notes starting on the third E, it's E-G-Bb, an Edim triad. Now, when you play this chord and have it resolve to, say, an F major triad, the impression will be that of a C7 chord being played, regardless of whether there's actually a C root note present or not. Great stuff.
There's certainly other use cases, too - but this is likely the most common one. And in general, it could rather safely be said that the diminished chord usually can't "live on its own".
And while we're at it, this kind of "let's place a triad (not just a diminished one) over another root note" thinking is absolutely interesting and something I will defenitely get into later on.
But for now, I think it's pretty safe to skip the diminished chord for a while (poor fellow - grow a pair, err, a proper fitfth next time).
And if you still wanted to construct any diminished triad right now, that's easy. Just lower the 5th in any of the already examined minor triads and there you go. A-C-E (Amin) becomes A-C-Eb (Adim).
---
Another thing I wanted to mention: You may have noticed that I'm largely using the D-G-B strings. I think that these are the best working set of strings on pretty much any guitar. Sort of full sounding without getting muddy, sort of sitting well in mixes (of course that depends on a lot ot other things, too), sort of cutting through without getting harsh.
In addition, I think of that string set as offering the best balance in case you want to add stuff. There's the E1 string in case you want to have something on top and the A5/E6 strings in case you needed to provide lower root notes on your own.
Further, for me, most things are playable easily on these strings.
YMMV, but that's like it for me.
---
Next: The cheesiest cowboy chord backing I could possibly come up with. Which will hopefully get some sort of "let's make this at least a more delicious cheese" treatment, just using the things explored so far.
Edit: Link to next "content" post.
If you followed this thread, you should now be able to build close position major and minor triads all over the neck on all sets of 3 adjacent strings.
You should as well be able to go from any plain major/minor chord to the next with as little movement as possible. Which obviously isn't always mandatory musically - but very often it's a great way to build "plausible" chord movements with proper voice leading.
IMO this can take you quite far already - the few examples I've posted are really only scratching the surface (at least so far).
And the most interesting things are yet to come.
---
Something else: The attentive folks may now ask: "Hold on, what about that diminished triad?"
Yeah, what about it? Possibly deserves a little bit of explanation.
First off: Any chord not using (or suitable to use) a perfect fifth (the interval 7 semitones away from the root) is generally considered "unstable". It's hardly ever a chord you may land on to finish something, let alone being the "home" (aka tonic) chord for whatever composition. Yes, I know that there are exceptions, but in 99.9999% of typical western culture based music there's no exceptions.
In many (possibly the majority of) cases, the diminished chord is used as a kind of substitute, extension, placeholder - or whatever you may call it - of something else. Jay has actually already mentioned a pretty typical use case, namely a diminished chord building up on the third of a major chord, resulting in a "final" sound of a dominant seventh chord.
Example: A spelled out C7 chord would be C-E-G-Bb. And when you look at the notes starting on the third E, it's E-G-Bb, an Edim triad. Now, when you play this chord and have it resolve to, say, an F major triad, the impression will be that of a C7 chord being played, regardless of whether there's actually a C root note present or not. Great stuff.
There's certainly other use cases, too - but this is likely the most common one. And in general, it could rather safely be said that the diminished chord usually can't "live on its own".
And while we're at it, this kind of "let's place a triad (not just a diminished one) over another root note" thinking is absolutely interesting and something I will defenitely get into later on.
But for now, I think it's pretty safe to skip the diminished chord for a while (poor fellow - grow a pair, err, a proper fitfth next time).
And if you still wanted to construct any diminished triad right now, that's easy. Just lower the 5th in any of the already examined minor triads and there you go. A-C-E (Amin) becomes A-C-Eb (Adim).
---
Another thing I wanted to mention: You may have noticed that I'm largely using the D-G-B strings. I think that these are the best working set of strings on pretty much any guitar. Sort of full sounding without getting muddy, sort of sitting well in mixes (of course that depends on a lot ot other things, too), sort of cutting through without getting harsh.
In addition, I think of that string set as offering the best balance in case you want to add stuff. There's the E1 string in case you want to have something on top and the A5/E6 strings in case you needed to provide lower root notes on your own.
Further, for me, most things are playable easily on these strings.
YMMV, but that's like it for me.
---
Next: The cheesiest cowboy chord backing I could possibly come up with. Which will hopefully get some sort of "let's make this at least a more delicious cheese" treatment, just using the things explored so far.
Edit: Link to next "content" post.
Last edited:
AFKAEjay(retired)
Roadie
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100% agree!
There is no denying the visual aspects/reuse of shapes to transpose (nature of the instrument), but the downside of that as your main reference/method is that you don’t become aware of intervals and (even more importantly) function of notes. (Which the rest of musicians use). And that awareness is an important key to being an improviser cause it allows you to build a bridge between your musical imagination and your fingers. Also helps to remember parts, transpose, compose, communicate with others.
Tbh, the whole visualisation emphasis, and almost zero musical context in guitar teaching annoys me quite a bit tbh. Tabs, “put your finger on fret x”…all guilty of obstruction of talent!
On A side note, first year students at conservatory: guitarplayers are typically the worst improvisers of the bunch, maybe not on a blues, but a soon as it gets more complicated, the other instruments are steps ahead. I think the way most guitarist seem to learn (visual), has a lot to do with it.
Sascha Franck
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"Minor pentatonic, 1st box"
Sascha Franck
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Eagle
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I posted it because it’s actually useful.
Sascha Franck
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It's not related to what I'm trying to get through here.
Sascha Franck
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What exactly?
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