Triad Chord Grips (Guitar Lesson IM-151) How to play IF Stage 5

Justin's Completely Free, Intermediate Guitar Course Lesson IM-151.
Stage 5, Lesson 1.

In this guitar lesson we learn the triad shapes on the thinnest three strings and how to apply them!

Find the related course notes on the following link:
http://justinguitar.com/en/CH-008-Triads.php

This is part of Justin's Intermediate Guitar Method, Foundation. A series of lessons available free online!

http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-000-IntermediateMethod.php

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

Full support at the justinguitar web site where you will find hundreds of lessons on a wide range of subjects, and all the scales and chords that you will ever need! There is a great forum too to get help, no matter what the problem.

And it is all totally free, no bull. No sample lessons, no memberships, no free ebook. Just tons of great lessons :)

To get help with this lesson (and for further info and tabs), find the Lesson ID in the video title (like ST-667 or whatever) and then look it up on the Lesson Index page of justinguitar.com

http://www.justinguitar.com

Have fun :)

.

Hi, how are you doing?

Justin here

Welcome to IM-151

in which we are going
to be checking out

"Triad Chord Grips"

Now, triads are little
three note chords.

The major ones that we're gonna
start looking at first

have the 1st note,
the 3rd note and 5th note

of a major scale in them.

They're kind of easy,

and the move all around
the guitar neck.

they work great as a
second guitar part.

But they also work great as a
main guitar part too.

Now, when I show you this,

I'm gonna show it you
in 3 parts.

And it's really important

that you make sure you
master each part

before you move on to
the next one.

So, let's get straight in

and check out
the 3 triad shapes

that you can find on the
thinnest 3 strings.

The 1st chord shape that
we're gonna check out here

is this G major triad

which I'm calling
"Shape 1".

Now, it's a G major triad because

we have the note G here,

at the 3rd fret,
of the thinnest string.

And if you check out
the chord diagram

you'll notice that the
root note is on

the thinnest string.

So, playing this little barre here,

which covers of course
this note here, the note G,

on the 3rd fret
of the thinnest string,

this will make this a
G major triad.

Now, to play it,

we've got our 1st finger
doing a little "mini-barre"

playing the thinnest 2 strings.

And the second finger
reaches over to play one fret higher

which will be of course
the 4th fret of the 3rd string.

So, of course you wanna "play"

"strum it"

"pick one note at a time"

and then "strum it" again

to make sure
that every note is clear.

(♪)

and as I mentioned earlier,

The most important thing here
is to remember where the ROOT NOTE is.

This is the note G (♪).

and this is a
G major triad (♪)

Really, really, really, really important :

The Root Note is G, there,
thinnest string (♪)

There's our
G Triad (♪)

The 2nd shape
we are going to check out

looks very much like a D chord.

Most important thing here is again,
"The Root Note."

Now, the root note is played
with the 3rd finger

in this case, it's on the

8th fret
of the 2nd string.

The root note for this shape is
on the 2nd string.

Very important.

Now, you should be already
familiar with playing that shape,

and you know that your 3rd finger
has to be nice and round -

not to mute the thinnest string.

But "play it, strum, pick out, strum,"
as usual

make sure that the chord sounds good.

(♪)

The 3rd triad shape
we're checking out

is also a G Major triad.

This time we have
the root note, (♪),

Up here,

at the 12th fret on the 3rd string.

That's the really important one.

Check the chord diagram there,

see where the root note is.

It's on the 3rd string,
with the 3rd finger.

Little finger goes directly underneath also
on the 12th fret.

1st finger is going down on the

Thinnest string at the 10th fret
in this case, (♪).

making sure that the little finger is
nice and round there,

so you can get that note clear

You're gonna
"strum and pick out, and strum."

♪

And make sure that you've got
that chord really good.

The most important thing right now

is that you have all three

of those triad shapes in your memory

and you are 100% sure you know

which note is the root note,

what string it's on

and what finger plays it.

Until you know that
stuff from memory,

please don't move on to
this next exercise.

Part 2 of learning triads

is all about moving our
triad shapes around

up and down the neck.

And in order to do this,

we need to know
our root note

and the notes
on the fingerboard

Now the first shape
we checked out

was a G major triad

and that was found at the 3rd fret

because the root note - G,

was found at the 3rd fret
of the thinnest string.

So, let's get back up
our G major triad.

(♪)

Now, we're gonna use
this little chord sequence:

G, C, G, D

just as an exercise

to practice moving our
triad shapes around.

So, the next chord that
we are looking for

is a C major chord.

Now, in order to find where C is,

we need to of course,

know where the
root note was on our triad shape

which was the thinnest string

and thereforewe need to find where C is,

on the thinnest string.

And hopefully, most of you guys

will know already, that the note C

on the thinnest string,
is found at the 8th fret.

So, if we now move that shape

up to the 8th fret

♪

Hey! Presto!
We've got ourselves a C chord!

You can check it, if you like

by playing a regular, open C

♪

and then our little C triad shape
at the 8th fret

♪

And Hey!
It's the same!

So we now moving back to G

♪

Which we know is at the 3rd fret

because the note G is on

the 3rd fret of the thinnest string.

And now we want a D chord.

So, a D note on the thinnest string

is gong to be found at the 10th fret.

So, if we move our shape down,

so the little barre is up at the 10th fret.

♪

We've got ourselves a D chord.

So, we can play our little sequence now

G at the 3rd fret

♪

C at the 8th fret.

♪

G back at the 3rd fret

♪

and now, D at the 10 fret.

♪

Have a go at playing that sequence now,

I'm just gonna strum the chords,

and I want you to
try and move that shape around.

It's still the same shape.

You're just moving it from the 3rd fret,

to the 8th fret.

Back to the 3rd fret,

and then up to the 10th fret.

Here we go.

3

4

G

2

3

Now move it up to the 8th fret

C

2

3

Back to the G

2

3

And now all the way up to the 10th fret.

2

3

4

And back to G.

You can hear that it works really nicely
as a second guitar part

Especially, if you "arpeggiate"
the notes a bit.

But right now
we're really concerned with

moving the shape around.

So, that was the 1st shape.

What about the 2nd shape?

Now, that one kinda looked like
a D chord - didn't it?

We found out that
the root note for that one

was on the 2nd string

and was played by the 3rd finger.

So, the 3rd finger

was gonna be in the
8th fret of the 2nd string

for it to be a G major triad.

♪

Now going back to our
little chord progression again,

we now want to find ourselves a C chord.

So, where is the C note on the 2nd string?

Now, most of you are thinking,
"Oh yeah, it's the 1st fret."

We could really use the 1st fret,

♪

but then we're not using our other fingers

and that actually defeats the purpose a bit.

So, the C note is also found

at the 13th fret of the 2nd string.

♪

So, we've got our C chord now at the:

12

13

12

Looks like a D chord,

but with our Root note,
which is played by

the 3rd finger
in the 13th fret.

♪

that's our C.

Now we are moving back to our G chord,

♪

which had the Root note in the 8th fret

played by the 3rd finger.

♪

by still using the little shape,
that look like a D chord of course.

And the last chord was: D

So, we now had

a little D chord in the shape
that we play a D chord, funnily enough.

So, with the root note,

the 3rd finger is in the 3rd fret.

♪

That's our D.

So if I play the sequence
through now, we have:

G

then we have C

we go back to G

and then down to D

So you can see
we've just discovered

another way of playing

that same sequence.

And there is gonna be another one.

So, the last shape that we checked out

was this little G chord

with the root note on the 3rd string

played by the 3rd finger
and we were putting it on the 12th fret

to play our G chord.

♪

So quite far up the neck.

It went: 12th

12th

10th

with our 3rd finger

4th finger

and 1st finger

Now, we want to find ourselves a C chord

So now what we're after here is

the C note on the 3rd string.

Do you remember where that is?

Can you find that one nice and quick?

If you can't you might
wanna use your octaves.

Find your C note
on the 3rd fret of the 5th string.

And then move it up an octave.

And there it is.

♪

We've got the 5th fret on the 3rd string.

That's the note C - the root note.

♪

and then the E and the G

♪

played on the 5th fret and 3rd fret.

♪

And we are moving now back to G

♪

which was of course,

having the root note on the 12th fret

and then to a D chord

which is going to have the root note

on the 7th fret of the 3rd string.

♪

Again, we've got our sequence:

G

C

G

and D

so there's three different ways

of playing that same sequence.

Now the ideal thing to practise

would just be to get a little
chord progression

Record yourself playing
G, C, G, D

And then practice using

those three different ways of

playing that chord progression,
using triads.

It's really important
that you get this into your memory

and you start being able to
look for the triad.

What you are really
looking at each time is,

"Where's the root note?"

You know what string the root note is

and what fret the root note is

and you get the right finger to it,

to form that chord shape.

That's the trick really,

for being able to make these
chord changes kinda fast.

Of course, it does means

that you need to know the notes
on the guitar fingerboard

but you've probably
noticed already

as part of this foundation series

I have been emphasizing
that a little bit,

particularly,
early on in the course.

Part 3 of this exercise

is learning how to find

all three of our triads

in the same area of the guitar neck.

So we will be playing the
same chord sequence

G

C

G

D

But trying not to

move up and down the guitar neck so much

and therefore, looking for the notes,

the root notes,

in roughly the same area
of the guitar neck.

Let's get to a close-up,

and see how these
triad shapes link together,

in the same area of the neck.

The first chord
in the sequence we are looking at

is our old friend, the G chord

which you should be
very familiar with by now.

So, we start of by playing that one;

♪

and now we are looking for a C chord.

So the first thing really we're
looking for a C note

somewhere very near one of the notes

that we are already playing.

Now, have a look around
and see if you can find it.

Hopefully you discovered

it was this one here

There's the C
on the 3rd sting at the 5th fret.

Now, what was the triad shape

that had the root note on the 3rd string?

Which one was it?

" I know, it was this one."

♪

There we go!

There's our C chord!

So we had G

and then we had C

and now we are going back to G.

Now, one of the notes in our G chord

is actually a D note already.

Beacause the notes in a G chord are

G, B and D

So which one of those
is the note D I wonder?

Okay, yep it's that one. (♪)

So, what shape was
it that had the root note

on the 2nd string?

Yep, it was the one
that looked like a D chord.

So there we have our D.

So the whole sequence now:

we have G

C

G

and D.

Okay, lets look at the same
chord sequence now

but this time starting off
with the second

G major grip
that we looked at

the one that looked
like a D chord.

So we've got this one now, here the

3rd finger is in the 8th fret

because that's where the G note is,

the root note (♪)

There's our G chord.

Now, the next chord
we are looking for of course is a C

So, who can find a C note there?

Have a look yourselves,
can you suss it out?

Okay! C - is there!

So, which was the shape

that had the
root note on the thinnest string?

It was the 1st shape we looked at.

♪

So, there's our C chord.

Back to G. As I mentioned before,

one of those notes is already a D

which is the next chord we're looking for.

So, have a look which one is that...

And you are right. It's this note here.
This is the note D.

So, the shape that has
the Root note on the 3rd string is...

That's it, you got it!

So, now we've got that sequence again,

G

C

G

and D

One more.

The 3rd triad grip we looked at
for the G chord

was this one up here
with the root note in the 12th fret

on the 3rd string, of course the note G,

so, that made our little
G chord there. (♪)

And we're looking for a nearby C note.

So, lets see if we can find a nearby C

Well, (♪) There it is!

Okay, so what's the shape
that we're going to look at for this one?

The Root note's on the 2nd string,

It's the one that looks like a D chord.

And then we are going back
to our G again (♪)

and now we are looking for a D chord.

So, which one of those notes was the D...

(♪)

Yes, we got it and the major triad grip

that has the root note on the
thinnest string is...

(♪)

You got it, it's that one!

So, our same sequence now is:

G

C

Using different fingers here,
it does not really matter

You can use those fingers or
sometimes use those fingers

Sometimes I use these fingers
for the G and there's our D chord

So, the whole sequence:

G

C

G

D

I guess you can see the importance now

of knowing the notes

all over the fingerboard

and why it was so important to know

the root notes for each of
the triad shapes.

What'd I recommend you do now

is go through and try a completely
different chord progression

Maybe something like:

B

E

F#

E

One quick technical thing
before we go any further:

make sure that you use the palm
of your picking hand

to rest on the thickest three strings

to stop those strings from ringing out

while you are playing your triad shapes.

Ok, it's homework time.

So the first thing you're all gonna do

is figure out how to play a
"Minor version"

of each of those triad shapes.

Now, we've only got three

and they were all major triad shapes.

Now, we looked at them all as a

G major triad to start off with.

And the G major triad contains the notes:

G

B

and D

Which is, of course, the 1st note

The 3rd note

and 5th note

of the G Major scale.

now to change it into a G minor triad

all we need to do is, "flatten" the 3rd

by one semi-tone.

And the 3rd in this case
is the note B.

So what I want you to do

is to go and take your triad shapes,

each one,

figure out which the notes are,

which one's G or which one's B and
which one's D

and then move the note that's B,
down one fret.

One semi-tone.
From B to Bb.

And that will give you your three
minor triad shapes.

What I would recommend then,

is going through and doing exactly
the same exercises

we've just done for the majors,
with the minor triads.

So, taking each shape,

moving it up and down the fingerboard,

for say: G Minor, C Minor, G Minor, D Minor

and then try to find them all
in the same area

of the guitar neck

as we did for the kind of the 3rd part

of our major triad exercises.

Once you know your
major and your minor triad shapes

the best thing you can do is

to start putting them into a song.

So find a song that you really like,

and see if you can play the whole thing

just using these triad shapes.

Then see if you can play the same song

using triad shapes

but in a different part of the guitar neck.

It'is a really-really good exercise.

Probably the best thing you can do

is to get your mate to play the song

using regular chords

while you try and play the same song,

at the same time, using the triad grips.

If you haven't got anyone
that you can work with like that

you could always record yourself

playing the chord sequences

and then try using the triads.

You'll really find that
loads and loads of fun.

And that two guitar effect

sounds pretty awesome 9 times out of 10.

Ok, let's check out homework part 2

Now this on's quite a big task,

but I know that you're good for it

and you are going to learn a whole lot
in the process.

In case you hadn't noticed,

all of the triads we have looked at so far

have been on the thinnest 3 strings.

But it's actually possible to play triads on

on strings 2, 3, 4

3, 4, 5

or 4, 5 and 6.

And in total, there's 12 major triad grips

that you can play on the guitar.

Now what I'd like you to do next

is to have a go at looking
the major triad grips

on strings: 2, 3 and 4.

Remember that you've got to find

a note: G, B and D, on each set of strings.

It's actually kind of easy

if you write out a picture
of the guitar neck

and write all of the notes on it

and just look for the G, B and D notes

you'll find that they kinda form into
very nice triad shapes

that are pretty easy on the fingers.

I'm gonna show you this set of
major triads now

but have a go at working it 1st
if you want to get the most benefit.

Triad Grip 4 looks like this:

(♪)

I am playing you a
G major triad

we have the root note here (♪)

on the note G which is the
5th fret of the 4th string

then we have got the
4th fret of the 3rd string

3rd fret of the 2nd string.

Pretty easy one to play this

you'll probably recognise it (♪)

it's the middle part of this
G barre chord shape.

Funnily enough, look at that!

That looks like the top part of that.
Look!

(♪)

That's strange, isn't it?

The next chord grip we are looking at

on Strings 2, 3 and 4 looks like this (♪)

Our root note G is here (♪)

at the 8th fret at the 2nd string,

played with the 2nd finger.

We've got our 1st finger
on the 7th fret of the 3rd string

and 3rd finger reaching over
for the 9th fret of the 4th string.

(♪)

And the last triad grip we are looking at

on strings 2, 3 and 4

looks like this:

(♪)

It is a straight barre.

there's our root note in the middle,

on the 3rd string, 12th fret.

you've got one note on either side.

You could also play it
kinda like that, I guess,

with all three different fingers
in the same fret

but it's a bit difficult

so you could, use a barre

doesn't matter what finger

so as long as you're just playing

4th string, 3rd string, 2nd string

If you use your 3rd finger
like I'm doing there

Now, look: there's your root note

that kind of looks familiar, doesn't it?

So there's quite a few tricks like that

to remember where your chord shapes are.

So that's the 3rd triad shape

that you want on stings 2, 3 and 4.

For those of you that are up for it

I've got one more bit of homework for you.

Now, we've just checked out
the major triad grips

using strings 2, 3 and 4.

What I think it is really important is

that you go and find the minor grips

on strings 2, 3, and 4

you shouldn't find it that difficult.

Use the same rules as before.

Look for the B note
and flatten it by one semi-tone.

There are triad shapes to be found
on strings 3, 4, and 5

and 4, 5 and 6.

But because the strings are thicker

and the notes are lower,

they tend to sound a bit muddier.

They are not quite as useful.

So I would highly recommend

practicing the 12 triad shapes.

That's the 6 major and the 6 minor

that we've covered in this,

and learn how to use them

before you even think about
learning those other shapes.

Hope you had a lot of fun with that,

haven't hurt your head too much.

I'll see you for another lesson
sometime very soon.

Take care of yourselves!

Bye-bye!