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Hi, how're you doin' dudes?

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This is Justin here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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are probably kind of expanded triads if you like.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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You use them in lots of different circumstances

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particularly common is kind of like a second guitar part.

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So hopefully some of you 
are jamming with your buddies,

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

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

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and this is absolutely perfect for doing that,

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

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And also it gets used a lot in reggae,

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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And a nice one to practice your triads with.

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

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The second is a lot of reggae stuff.

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

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

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

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are just on the thinnest three strings.

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

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. . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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and it's just coming out my studio speakers,

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cause my amp is in for repair at the moment.

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Not repair, 
but having a kind of general service.

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

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and actually how you play them now.

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

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

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at triads in this lesson 
on the thinnest three strings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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you should be able to find those triad shapes,

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

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

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to find out exactly what the triad shapes are,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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So 3, 3, 4.

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So here we are for the second shape,

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

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

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

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

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And the 3rd finger goes down in the middle.

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

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. . .

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This is the Root note, yeah, 
really important that

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

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

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. . .

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

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

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

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

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And 1st finger down on the 10th fret.

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. . .

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Making sure you remember this is the Root note.

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

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. . .

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make sure you get that down.

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

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

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

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Maybe the octave.

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

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Then back down again.

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. . .

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Good idea to be able to do that properly first.

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

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

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

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

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That'll help keep them quiet as well,

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

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Then you probably need to do that.

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So the first exercise then that you should be doing,

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once you've got your 3 shapes down.

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Now I'm gonna use throughout this exercise,

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

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

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

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

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Also used in the thing called the 3 chord trick,

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

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and probably the chords 
G, C, and D.

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Of course when it comes 
to practicing it for real,

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you could use whatever chord sequence you like.

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

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for the time being, so...

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Tassie Devil singing.