We NEED to talk about triads!

[Dogboy]

Yes you have it and use caged to quickly find your way around. If you know the notes on the neck and the spellings of the chord you want, you have it anyway.

People have been asking me to teach them how to shred for 40 years, and I’ve always told them to memorize the natural notes on their instrument and burn in their triads. Not that I’ve ever been a shredder, but guitar players aren’t the sharpest pencils in the jar so….

 

[maguchi]

For myself, when it comes to anything chord related, triads have got to be *the* most important things I ever tried to explore. In this thread, I'll be trying to share some of the "whys" and "hows".

Way cool subject and a timely post for me. Coincidentally Just a few days ago I put playing triads diatonically up and down the scale into my daily practice routine again. I had learned them before but haven't played them that way in awhile, so I'm a little rusty. Hoping to get proficient at triads again.

I have a couple questions. Forgive me if you already covered them in your previous posts.

1. Which stringsets are triads most useful on? I been doing major and minor scales diatonically on the 1st stringet (strings 1, 2 and 3), 2nd stringset (strings 2, 3, and 4) and 3rd stringset (strings 3, 4 and 5). I'm starting to think the 3rd stringset is overkill because it's in a lower register).

2. Should I throw augmented triads into the mix? With the minor scale I been playing triads with the ii chord diminished, the III chord major and the vii chord diminished. However I'm thinking about playing the III chord as augmented when in minor. It might be a cool sound for some variety.

When this thread came out in early Febuary it piqued my interest. I had already learned the 3 inversions of major and minor triads on the two highest stringsets quite awhile back. I decided to learn the two lower stringsets in major and minor also, as well as the diminished and augmented triads on all 4 stringsets.

The way I burned them into my memory and fingers is to practice the 3 inversions of the 4 qualities of triads in one key a day on each of the 4 stringsets. That is for example on a Monday all 3 inversions of F major triads, 3 inversions of F minor triads, 3 inversions of F diminished and the 3 inversions (1 shape per stringset) of augmented triads on all 4 stringsets.

This is a little less daunting than it sounds at 1st blush due to the augmented triads are 1 shape per stringset. And for the 2 lower stringsets the shapes are the same. On Tuesday I'll do them all in Bb, Wednesday in Eb etc. through the circle of 5ths. After about a month of this I should have my triads under my fingers and in my brain pretty well.

Oh and almost forgot, I play triads up and down the scale diatonically in major, minor, harmonic minor and melodic minor in the key of the day.

 

[Sascha Franck]

On Tuesday I'll do them all in Bb, Wednesday in Eb etc. through the circle of 5ths. After about a month of this I should have my triads under my fingers and in my brain pretty well.

I actually don't do it this way. I just play. I do however try to cover as many keys as possible. And I do especially try to cover less guitar friendly keys - because even if transposing is easy and sometimes things are just a centimeter away, there's still a noticeable difference between, say, C and Db, even if you leave the open strings out.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I tried, but it put me to sleep. Which is why I asked the question….

Well, I'm afraid I can't help you then. Because I explained anything there is to explain (at least so far) already.
If you know all your triads already, if you can play and modify them fluently all over the neck already, this thread isn't for you. And that's not even remotely meant snarky or whatever. Be happy about it. Seriously.

 

[jay mitchell]

Playing closed-voiced triads is relatively easy once you memorize all the intervals between adjacent tones. For example: in ascending order, a major triad, root position has a major third, then a minor third. In first inversion, the same triad has a minor third, then a perfect fourth. In second inversion, there's a perfect fourth, then a major third.

Open voicings are a only bit more challenging but potentially very rewarding. Using the same example as above, an open-voiced major triad in root position has a perfect fifth, then a major sixth. In first inversion, there is a minor sixth, then a perfect fifth. In second inversion, there's a major sixth, then a minor sixth. Because some voices are not on adjacent strings, playing open voiced triads requires selective string muting for chords and string skipping for arpeggios, so it will take a little more effort to learn.

While the above is not terribly specific to guitar, it's not especially difficult to translate general musical information about intervals to fretboard fingerings/shapes. Knowing the intervals in triads, combined with knowledge of the intervals between string pairs, enables the player to learn and execute triads with minimal effort, both as chords and as arpeggios. IMO it's better to learn the shapes/fingerings on your own directly from knowledge of the various intervals than to rely on fretboard diagrams created by someone else.

 

[Sascha Franck]

IMO it's better to learn the shapes/fingerings on your own directly from knowledge of the various intervals than to rely on fretboard diagrams created by someone else.

I absolutely agree. And this is why I only did show diagrams all over the fretboard for the first round covering major triads.

 

[AFKAEjay(retired)]

fretboard diagrams created by someone else

Let’s ask the admins here to put these on the same list as politics and Ts

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

I actually don't do it this way. I just play. I do however try to cover as many keys as possible. And I do especially try to cover less guitar friendly keys - because even if transposing is easy and sometimes things are just a centimeter away, there's still a noticeable difference between, say, C and Db, even if you leave the open strings out.

Yeah my old teacher Don Mock used to say the guitar is a slide ruler.
Sadly what that doesn't take into account is us being used to fretmarkers that make that Db a pain

 

[PLX]

Yeah my old teacher Don Mock used to say the guitar is a slide ruler.
Sadly what that doesn't take into account is us being used to fretmarkers that make that Db a pain

Ed.. "triad" means 3, right ?

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Ed.. "triad" means 3, right ?

Yes why

 

[Sascha Franck]

Sadly what that doesn't take into account is us being used to fretmarkers that make that Db a pain

Yeah, it's actually quite weird. Playing in Db is kinda like the moment when you can play better without looking at the fretboard because doing so will only confuse you.

---

Ed.. "triad" means 3, right ?

You didn't ask me and Ed already answered, but still (even if I have partially covered it already): Yes, and a "typical" triad is considered the smallest group of notes to form a "real" chord. We could have a discussion whether that is really so, but that's pretty much the general consensus.
Sort of because of that, triads can also be considered being the smallest building blocks to pretty much sufficiently "describe" any harmonically functional context.

And fwiw, a "typical" triad consists of root, third and fifth of the chord. To build them up yourself within a key/scale, you grab any key/scale note as your root and then slap two diatonic (within the key/scale) thirds on top of it. You can then analyse the results (I've done just that in one of the first posts in this thread, in case you're interested).

 

[PLX]

Yes why

Why not ?

 

[Sascha Franck]

To get back on track, as a sort of "interlude" and as promised - kinda triggered by @bucephalus - here's some true horrorshow cowboy chord stuff, which I will try to make a little more acceptable (and if only from a player's POV) using the very triads discussed so far.

I'll stick to the key of good old C major and use one of the most common chord progressions in existance, namely the 1645 progression, in roman numbers: I-VI-IV-V.
Hence, the chords used will be C-Am-F-G.

I'd almost take a bet that pretty much everyone has already strummed these (or something very similar) on their acoustics in the beginning of their career, possibly struggling a bit with the F, kinda faking their way through it, likely using a "not so complete" barre version, as in leaving out the A5 and E6 strings or whatsoever.
Anyhow, when you hear it, it'll be instantly familar.

And instantly cheesy! Don't say you haven't been warned!

So, I tried my best to use lame drums, bass, piano and guitar patterns for a start. Uninspiring all throughout, to put it mildly.
Next I added two guitars just using the very kind of major and minor triads I was trying to explore so far to improve the situation. I'm not saying it's acceptable music all of a sudden (we all know about the non-polish-able turds), but at least these kinda parts are more fun to play and IMO it's at least a little more acceptable for the audience.
8 bars of pure horror, 8 more bars of slightly less horror:



No idea whether this demonstrates anything properly for you folks, but personally, I defenitely think it's a noticeable improvement. Anyhow, it basically was just to show a sort of real life example (unfortunately, I sometimes have to deal with less than enjoyable music, things like this help me to get along with those situations).
Here's what I did. The left (almost faux slide) guitar is playing the chords very strictly as written:

So, a really easy part.

For the right, more "rhythmi-sized" guitar I was using a little bit of additional movement by approaching (or "embellishing") the target chords by other triads from C major. Without going into any details about the hows and whys, this is something you can do with pretty much any chords out of the key. Just release them to the target chord in time and you'll be fine.
Otherwise it's exactly the same triads as already covered:

And that should be it for now.

I hope you've enjoyed that marvellous (or should I better say "mindnumbing revolutionary"?), emotionally pleasing piece of art!

 

[bucephalus]

glad to have triggered a true horror show with my cowboy chords

 

[bucephalus]

Though it is hard to do solo acoustic gigs without any cowboy chords.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Though it is hard to do solo acoustic gigs without any cowboy chords.

Absolutely. And I have zero issues with them. But there might be some interesting ground to cover about how you could use these very triads with just some minor modifications for solo guitar stuff as well.