Triad Chords #1of3 (Guitar Lesson CH-008) How to play

Justin's Completely Free, Guitar Chords Lessons. This is Lesson CH-008 Part 1.

In this lesson you will learn the three triad shapes on the thinnest three strings and where the root notes are. These are really useful little chords that you find yourself using all the time once you get to know them!

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

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

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Have fun :)

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Hi, how're you doin' dudes?

This is Justin here.

In this lesson today we're gonna be talking about triads.

And we're not talking about gang warfare,
we're talking about little chords.

First of all, for those of you that haven't done your
Music Theory homework,

a triad is a three note chord,
it usually contains the root, 3rd,

and a 5th of a Major scale,
so in the key of G,

for instance, a G triad
will have the notes G, B and D.

Now to play a triad, most of the big chords
that you play at the moment,

are probably kind of expanded triads if you like.

If we take a like a regular big G chord
that you might play,

like you know the open G chord,
then the notes that you're playing there,

are a G, B, D, G, D, G.

So there's actually only 3 notes
in the chord that you're playing anyway.

But the type of triads that we're going to look at today,

are ones that actually only use
the three notes of the triad.

You use them in lots of different circumstances

particularly common is kind of like a second guitar part.

So hopefully some of you
are jamming with your buddies,

and you know if he's playing
the chords to whatever song,

you need to be able to find a nice way
of kind of introducing a second guitar part,

and this is absolutely perfect for doing that,

and I'm going to give you
a few examples of the way to use it.

And also it gets used a lot in reggae,

so, a lot of people have kind of said
that you'd like me to

kind of demonstrate what I'm gonna do
before we actually do the lesson.

So, if I just use, I'm just gonna use
a little simple chord progression,

like G-C-G-D, some of those
kind of triad things that you might be doing.

Using G triad, C, G back to D. (plays)

Or, you can do it up here.
G, C, back to G, and then to D again.

You can do it right up the neck up here.
G, C, G to D.

So there's all of these,
that would be kinda good example of the 2nd guitar part,

if the first one was doing these chords,
G,C,G,D.

If somebody was doing that,
that's a really, really common kind of chord sequence.

And a nice one to practice your triads with.

So, that'll be the first way that it gets used.

The second is a lot of reggae stuff.

So, because the chords
are kinda nice and high sounding.

Like they're kinda crisp
and using mainly three strings.

At least the type of triads
we're gonna be looking at today,

are just on the thinnest three strings.

So, good example,
like a reggae kinda feel, you know

. . .

That kind of effect, you know,
so, nice short little chords.

Of course everyone always asks
about the sound that I'm using as well,

so I might as well get that
out of the way early on.

I'm using a Stratocaster,
it's from the early 90s,

nothing particularly fancy,
and this is going through the Mesa Boogie Rec Pre,

with a little bit of delay
from the TC Electronic G System,

and it's just coming out my studio speakers,

cause my amp is in for repair at the moment.

Not repair,
but having a kind of general service.

Anyway, so let's get started
and talk about these little triads,

and actually how you play them now.

So, what we're gonna start off with
is looking at the G triad.

So, as I mentioned earlier,
briefly, we're only gonna be looking

at triads in this lesson
on the thinnest three strings.

If you get good with those
it's quite easy to find the other triad shapes,

on the other strings once you know the theory,
which I'm about to explain to you.

So, if we talk about a G triad,
a G Major triad,

we've got Root, 3rd and 5th from the scale,
which is the notes G, B and D.

Now you can pick a G, B and a D
anywhere on the guitar neck,

put 'em together and you're playing a triad,
which would be a G chord.

And you could play it instead of the G chord
or as well as the G chord,

and it will still work
and it'll still sound cool.

So if you wrote down all the G's, B's and D's,

all over the guitar neck,
and then just look at the way that they kind of fall,

naturally on the thinnest 3 strings,
you end up with 3 different shapes.

And I'm gonna do a close up of this in a sec,

the first one will be kind of down here
around kind of the 3rd fret,

there's another one up here
which is around the 7th fret.

And another one right up
kind of around the 10th to 12th fret.

This is the three kind of triad shapes
that we're going to be dealing with first of all.

And the big key to these things is that you remember
where the Root note of the triad is.

Because that's how you're gonna locate
all of your other chords.

Now those of you that are using my
Practical Music Theory Book,

you'll find that there's a little section
on how to find your own chord.

So if you filled that out correctly
in the key of G,

you should be able to find those triad shapes,

on the first three strings anyway,
I've put some neck diagrams up on the website,

so you probably want to go
and check out the website,

to find out exactly what the triad shapes are,

and the correct fingering,
although I will be showing you in just a moment.

And using that kind of sheet
where you've written all the G's, B's and D's out,

you should be able to find the triad shapes
on all of the other strings too.

So without further ado,
let's go to a close up now,

and look at the way
that you're going to play these little triads,

and the three different shapes
that we're gonna talk about today.

OK here we are,
this is our first G triad shape.

So this here note, this is the 3rd fret,
and that's the note G.

That's the Root note,
really important that you clock that one first.

Now we're also, we're gonna be using
a little bar here with our 1st finger,

covering the thinnest two strings,
and then we're gonna reach the 2nd finger,

over on to the 4th fret, yeah,
and we're just gonna play those 3 notes.

So this is a G triad,
and making sure that you remember that the note there,

on the thinnest string is the Root note,
that's where we get the name of the shape.

Cause this shape's gonna move
up and down the finger board,

and it's just gonna change its name,
but that's the shape.

So 3, 3, 4.

So here we are for the second shape,

and hopefully some of you will recognize this,
it looks kinda like a D chord.

You could definitely refer to this
as kinda being a D shape.

We're here now,
this is the 1st finger on the 7th fret,

2nd finger also on the 7th fret,
but on the thinnest string.

And the 3rd finger goes down in the middle.

And this note here with the 3rd finger,
that's the note G.

. . .

This is the Root note, yeah,
really important that

you recognize that this is the Root note
here on the 8th fret,

of the 2nd string,
the other two fingers going down in the 7th fret.

. . .

And lastly, here we are,
this is our last G shape triad.

Now this one we're starting with our
3rd finger on the 12th fret of the 3rd string.

And this is the note G,
this is the Root note.

Then the little finger underneath
also on the 12th fret.

And 1st finger down on the 10th fret.

. . .

Making sure you remember this is the Root note.

This is gonna be really important
in just a second so,

. . .

make sure you get that down.

OK, we've been through now
the three different Major triad shapes.

You need to be able to practice them
and move between them.

So the first thing that I recommend you do
is just make sure you can go G, G, G.

Maybe the octave.

Which is exactly the same as the first one but 12 frets higher.

Then back down again.

. . .

Good idea to be able to do that properly first.

Make sure again
that you're only plucking the thinnest three strings.

Of course the other ones
you just have to leave alone.

Yeah, it's not a bad idea
to kind of mute them out,

with the inside of this hand here,
if you just rest that on the thickest strings.

That'll help keep them quiet as well,

if you're gonna end up doing this with any distortion.

Then you probably need to do that.

So the first exercise then that you should be doing,

once you've got your 3 shapes down.

Now I'm gonna use throughout this exercise,

this little chord progression which goes
G, C, G, D.

Yeah, it's a really,
really common progression,

you'll find lots of songs that use those 3 chords.

That's the I, IV and V chords from the key of G.

Also used in the thing called the 3 chord trick,

if you're familiar with that,
then you'll be familiar with I, IV, and V,

and probably the chords
G, C, and D.

Of course when it comes
to practicing it for real,

you could use whatever chord sequence you like.

But we're just dealing
with these three chords in all majors,

for the time being, so...

Tassie Devil singing.