Understanding Guitar Triads

triads are a great tool for a guitarist for both playing rhythym and lead, and they are fairly easy to understand. A triad chord is any chord consisting of 3 notes

First... I'm going to teach you how to build a major chord. Major chords consist of the 1st, or the root note, the 3rd, and the 5th notes of the root's major scale. Since I am focusing the lesson on D triads I will give you the notes of the D major scale.

1    2    3    4    5    6    7
D    E    F#   G    A    B    C#

Take the 1rst, 3rd, and 5th or the D, F#, and A, and those are the notes that make up a D major chord.

Now, that we have a little theory out of the way, lets learn how to play major triads on each consecutive grouping of 3 strings and how to easily move through the inversions.

There are 3 triad shapes that you will need to learn..

D major triads

"D" shape       "A" shape           "E" shape

e--2--  3rd      e--5--  5th       e--10--  Root
b--3--  Root     b--7--  3rd       b--10--  5th
g--2--  5th      g--7--  Root      g--11--  3rd
d-----           d-----            d------
a-----           a-----            a------
E-----           E-----            E------

To move these shapes up the strings you simply take the highest pitched note, in these examples the high notes are on the 1st string (the high E), and drop it an octave... To do that you move it from the high E string to the D string... And you get...

"D" shape         "A" shape               "E" shape

e-----             e-----                  e------
b--3--  Root       b--7--  3rd             b--10--  5th
g--2--  5th        g--7--  Root            g--11--  3rd
d--4--  3rd        d--7--  5th             d--12--  Root
a-----             a-----                  a------
E-----             E-----                  E------

And now the highest pitched note is on the 2nd string, so you drop it an octave to the 5th string

"D" shape          "A" shape               "E" shape

e-----              e-----                  e------
b-----              b-----                  b------
g--2-- 5th          g--7-- Root             g--11--  3rd
d--4-- 3rd          d--7-- 5th              d--12--  Root
a--5-- Root         a--9-- 3rd              a--12--  5th
E-----              E-----                  E------

And last but not least... Drop the high note from the 3rd string down an octave to the 6th string and you get...

"D" shape           "A" shape               "E" shape

e-----               e------                 e------
b-----               b------                 b------
g-----               g------                 g------
d--4-- 3rd           d--7--- 5th             d--12--  Root
a--5-- Root          a--9--- 3rd             a--12--  5th
E--5-- 5th           E--10-- Root            E--14--  3rd

It is a good idea to try and learn the notes so you can easily change the chord from a major to a minor, or whatever other chord you want to play. Also helps when going from a triad shape into a scale run.

Usually a small alteration to the major chord changes the chord name... For example, if you drop the 3rd back a half step, or you may hear it called "flat the 3rd" and leave the Root note and the 5th the same, then you are playing a minor chord.

The notes of the D major scale again(as a quick reference)

1   2   3   4   5   6   7  
D   E   F#  G   A   B   C#

Common triads:                      Formulas:

D major                        1, 3, 5    or  D, F#, A
D minor                        1, b3, 5   or  D, F,  A
D diminished                   1, b3, b5  or  D, F,  Ab
D augmented                    1, 3, #5   or  D, F#, A#
D sus4                         1, 4, 5    or  D, G,  A
D sus2                         1, 2, 5    or  D, E,  A

Now lets look at how to alter the major triads to get each of these triad shapes. I'm only going to show you one shape, I think you can figure out the rest of the inversions

  Dmaj      Dm         Ddim        Daug        Dsus4        Dsus2
e--2-- 3   --1-- b3    --1-- b3    --2-- 3rd   --3-- 4th    --0-- 2nd
b--3-- R   --3-- Root  --3-- Root  --3-- Root  --3-- Root   --3-- Root
g--2-- 5   --2-- 5th   --1-- b5    --3-- #5    --2-- 5th    --2-- 5th
d-----     -----       -----       -----       -----        -----
a-----     -----       -----       -----       -----        -----
E-----     -----       -----       -----       -----        -----

That's pretty much it, hope it helps. This is my first lesson, please let me know how I did, and if this lesson was helpful. Or if you have any questions feel free to post a comment.

Comments

[wadsh]

Nice lesson, Dude.... Is their any chords like A2 and A4? are they the same with Aadd2 and Aadd4?

[hounddogmusic12]

A2 and A4 are the same as Asus2 and Asus4
you can play an add9 chord which adds the same note as the sus2, in the examples above, the 2nd note of the scale is E, the only difference is, in the sus2 chord, you substitute the 3rd for the 2nd...in the add9, you play both notes, so you are actually playing 4 different notes....the formula for the sus2 chord is 1, 2, 5....the formula for the add9 is
1, 3, 5, 9. The scale degrees start over at 8..in other words the 8th note is the same as the root, the 9 is the same as the 2 and so on so forth.
Likewise anytime you see an 11 in a chord name, that note is the same as the 4. I can post a lesson further explaining how to build more advanced chords if you would like....but you really need to understand the major scale first...i'll post a lesson on that too if you want. hope that helps

[wadsh]

K. Tnx for your answer. It helps a lot....

[Steiger]

Thanks for this, it makes alot of sense!
I have just one question which may be a bit stupid:
What do you mean by the D,E & A shapes?
Cheers!

[hounddogmusic12]

in all 3 examples you actually play the same shapes as the D, E, and A chords

"D" shape "E"shape "A"shape

e--2-- ----- -----
b--3-- ----- --2--
g--2-- --1-- --2--
d----- --2-- --2--
a----- --2-- -----
E----- ----- -----

does that help?

[cyberx24]

i don't understand your shapes...
aside from that, it's a good lesson.
but not very important to talk about.
hehe!!! peace!!!

[Steiger]

Got it! Thanks :

[rolo45]

Brilliant Lesson
TY

[Joe310707]

Nice lesson ,easy to understand

[canvasDude]

nice lesson. 10/10

[3dw1n]

Hey man nice work i was looking for these chords for so long !!! KEEP GOING

[BSM123456789]

thanks alot dude

i havent seen a clearer lesson on triads anywhere else

[bass-man9712]

the only thing i didnt understand is that when you said that u can move the shapes up the strings but u just dropped the highest note one octave its not really going anywhere u can move the form up an octave on the same strings but thats about it

[bass-man9712]

and i just thought of something else, do the triads have to be on consecutive strings like E-A-D or can u skip strings like E-A-G

[hounddogmusic12]

not sure i understand the first question bass man...but to answer the 2nd question..the triad shapes do not "have to be" played on consecutive strings...you can skip strings as long as you get all 3 notes in the triad chord that you are playing

[canvasDude]

what is the name for a chord that replaces the 4 with a 5. for example:
e-2-----|
B-3-----|
G-0-----|
D-0-----|

[canvasDude]

*btw, if anyone knows leave a comment explaining on my profile b/c I will forget about this article*

[hounddogmusic12]

to answer your question canvasdude, you kind of need to know the role each note plays within the chord. The 1 is the root note, the 3 establishes whether the chord is major or minor, when you play upper extension chords such as a C13 for example, the formula for that is 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 that is 7 notes, you only have 6 strings...you can't possibly strum that chord, the trick is knowing which notes to drop. the 5th is actually the least important note within the chord, so it will be the first note to drop. the chord that you listed could be called something like Dadd11 or even Dadd11(no5)

[account247]

what is the difference of people who are used to play guitars without knowing what they are playing to those who play guitars reading a chord chart? cause im the first i mentioned. but i know alot of chords but i dont know how to use them. i read some lessons here. but im sorry to say i cant understand.

[hounddogmusic12]

account, the best place that i can tell you to start is with the major scale....everything that you will need to know in music theory is compared to the major scale and it really is not that complex...check out my lesson called chord building 101, then check out my learning the fretboard lesson, that should help clear some things up for you