Triad Chords #3of3 (Guitar Lesson CH-008) How to play

Justin's Completely Free, Guitar Chords Lessons. This is Lesson CH-008 Part 3.

In this lesson I cover the best way to learn and use them - by staying in the same position and being able to use all the chords! Plus I set you the challenge of figuring out how to play the minor versions!

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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.

Now you've got three different ways
of playing that sequence

You can either use shape one and go:

. . .

Shape two and go:

. . .

or shape three and go:

. . .

Now, all of those are cool. They all sound nice.

And by experimenting a little bit,

I'm sure you'll find some really cool ways
of using those chords.

But. There is an easy way to do it.

Now, of course, you don't have to move.

Those of you who are a little bit observant

might have noticed that if we've got our G chord

down here at the third fret,

. . .

we also had a C chord around that as well:

. . .

I'm going to get a little close up with this in a sec,

just so you can make sure you get this right.

But I'll explain it in a wide first.

So we had G

. . .

then we could go to C down here

. . .

and then back to G

. . .

and our D chord was just behind

. . .

So instead of having to jump all around the guitar neck,

suddenly you can find all of your chords in one shot,
in kind of one area of the guitar.

So that was the first area:

. . .

Now, there's a second area too.

If we had the G chord using the second shape:

. . .

then we have C chord using the first shape, just nearby:

. . .

back to G chord:

. . .

and D chord we can just go back a little bit.

. . .

You can hear they're all kind of next to each other.
I had a G

. . .

C

. . .

back to G and down to D

. . .

And of course there's a third one,
because we've got three shapes.

there's three different kind of areas that you can play it in.

First one being up around at the twelfth fret,

. . .

for the G chord.

. . .

Staying around the twelfth fret for the C chord

. . .

going back to G

. . .

and using D using shape one.

It's a really cool idea.

Once you get the idea of how these little things
connect with each other,

you don't have to shift around the neck so much.

You can choose to shift around if you want.

Because sometimes it sounds better to do
G down here and D right up here,

but sometimes you don't want
to have to shift that far on the guitar

and be looking and staring at the guitar neck.

Especially if there's some nice girls around
that you want to look at,

you don't want to have to be looking at your guitar
to shift about.

You might want to just shift back to D
so you don't have to look.

So let's go to a close up now and I'll show you
the ways of playing

the G-C-G-D chord sequence,
just using one area at a time.

Here we are for our first G shape

and this is down the third fret, there's the note G.

. . .

Now, rather than sliding up the neck,
we've got a C chord

. . .

here, using the third shape. There's the root note C.

. . .

Then we'd go back to G:

. . .

And then if we look nearby, there's the note D,

. . .

and there's our little D chord.

So in shapes using the first area, we could have G,

. . .

C

. . .

G

. . .

D

. . .

You can see the way that they all just link together.
that's obviously

. . .

a lot easier,

. . .

a lot easier than shifting up and down the neck.

OK, let's have a look at the second area.

OK, here we are for the second way
of playing through our little sequence.

The first one we used is the one
that looks like a D shape.

There's the root note there, G.

. . .

Now we want a C chord.

There's a note C, on the thinnest string,
so we do shape one:

. . .

Then we go back to our G chord

. . .

and then we're looking for a D shape,
a D chord, rather. There's our note D:

. . .

So, we're using kind of the third shape there.
So we'd be using here:

Second shape

. . .

To C using the first shape

. . .

Back to G,

. . .

and then using our third shape there for the chord D,

because there's our root note: D.

. . .

Nice one.

. . .

OK, here we go for the third one.
So this is a G chord again:

. . .

Here, this is the third finger on the note G, the root note.

At the 12th fret, of course, because you can see
the double dots there.

. . .

There's G. Now, C chord nearby:

. . .

Would be done like this, using

there's the root note there, 2nd string, 13th fret.

. . .

Back to G:

. . .

And then D.

. . .

There's the note D, there's shape one.

. . .

Because shape one has the root note
on the thinnest string.

. . .

So G:

. . .

Now, sometimes I finger

. . .

using different fingers this time to make my D chord

Instead of that, you could use this.
It doesn't really matter.

You could even play that first shape like this

. . .

Whatever works to you.
And then:

. . .

There's your D chord.
So, G:

. . .

C

. . .

Back to G

. . .

D

. . .

OK, what we've covered in this lesson
is quite a lot of information

It's really important that you get to grips with this,
these kind of shapes first.

Being able to find and locate the root note,

and then be able to put the appropriate shape
around the root note.

The root note is the key here.

If you don't know where the notes are on the guitar neck

and you don't know where the root notes are,

using this technique is going to be really difficult.

Kind of possible, I suppose, if you just use your ear,
but it's really, really hard.

So, my big advice would be making sure
that you get to know the notes on the fingerboard,

which is discussed on the website and also
discussed in my practical music theory book,

which might be worth a quick look if you are interested
in understanding what you're doing.

That's the fundamental thing.

The next thing is just to make sure
that you are aware of the shapes

and which note in the shape is the root note.

For that you can go and check out the website

where I'll have little diagrams of those three shapes.

Now, so far we've only looked at G, C and D.

But it's really important that you're able to find
any chord that you'd like,

and that, again, just relies on the root notes.

So, if you want to play an A chord,
an A triad, then you know,

"Well, there's an A on the thinnest string."

so, if I'd use the shape with
the thinnest string having the root note,

I'd use the first shape, which is that little one,
with that little barre with the first finger.

So that would be an A chord up here at the 5th fret.

. . .

That same shape at the 9th fret would be a C# chord.

. . .

They all just move around,

so it's getting that understanding where the root is
and finding the shape,

is really, really key important.

Now, those of you -- It's a little challenge part for you.

Now, if you want to learn the minor triads,

so the same three shapes that I've just shown you,
but the minor ones.

Those of you who have done a little bit of music theory,

will know that the only difference between
a major chord and a minor chord

is that the minor chord has a flattened third.

Now, in this case, that note would be B,

because a G major chord was G, B, D.

So, Gm chord is going to have the notes G, Bb and D.

So, your little task now is to go and figure out,
from those three shapes,

which one's the root note, which one's the third,
i.e. the note B,

and which one's the fifth, which is the note D.

Once you've done that, if you lower the degree
that is the third by one semitone

you get your three minor type triads,
which I'm going to show you from wide shots,

so you can't cheat too much.

. . .

You'd have here Gm

. . .

You'd have the Gm here

. . .

And you'd have a Gm right at the 12th fret as well.

So, they are really similar looking, you know,

It's only one note moved one fret back
between the major shapes and the minor types.

Minor shapes.

So, it's really important now for you
to do a little bit of homework,

and figure out what the notes are in each of those triad shapes that I've shown you.

work out which note is the note B, flatten it,

and then you've got all your minor types.

I want to leave discussing minor triads
and the other ones for a little while

to make sure that you actually work it out,
because if you if you learn this stuff yourself,

you're going to find it a lot more beneficial
than if just I spoon feed it to you.

Hopefully, that's more than your brain,

You know, hopefully your brain is getting a bit sore now
from all of this information.

The big deal now is go and use it and to understand it.

So figuring out what the notes are

and get cracking trying to put it
into this chord sequence we're doing.

Jam with it as much as you can, and then try
just picking another song, I don't know:

"Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd.

it's got, you know, pretty basic kind of chord structure.

So why not have a go at seeing if you can work out
all your triad shapes for that song.

Get your mate to play the rhythm guitar
and use the triads over the top.

Or, just play the record.

You know, put the CD on and then try
and play along with it

using your new found triad skills.

It really sounds great as a second guitar part.

Really cool for jamming and really,
really useful kind of mind expanding lesson

if you go through and work out where the notes are
and you understand the concept.

If you don't subscribe, -- please hit that --
please go and check out the web site,

lots of information there on this and a whole lot more
as you probably know already.

Worth a look if you haven't gone and checked it out already.

See you again for some more lessons,
sometime in the near future.

Take care of yourselves and I'll see you soon.