Lately, I've been reviewing my knowledge of triads, particularly because some of the guys I've been playing with like a bluegrass sort of thing. The chord changes we're using are pretty basic, which to me means, I've got a lot of opportunity to try new things.
I found the band vamping on A major, so I said, let me try moving up and down the neck, hitting the triad notes in their inversions here and there, embellishing them with riffs in the same position as whatever triad I'm playing, and see what they guys think. One of my favorites is the second inversion of a triad, because the root note will be in the middle of the three strings you play it on, so you get a "string skipping" interval if you leave out the root, which is something all the greats cultivate (and a lot of guitar players seem to neglect).
Anyways, I pulled it off, and the band approved; they seemed to think I had some deep knowledge of some sort of blue grass zen, when all I really did was blow around some of the triad inversions of A major, occassionally throwing in a run and the basic blues note, which in A major, would be C (the flatted third).
So, one performance note here; you CAN NOT go wrong if you know your basics and use them in creative combinations and phrases.
Anyway, I did find myself saying "ok, so an A major triad is A, C#, E. First inversion is C#, E, A, so let me find the C# and hit that, then the second inversion is E, A, C#, so let me find the E and hit that..."
I know the three triad patterns (root and two inversions) on all strings, so when I find my target note I can lay it on, and of course in A, G, C, or E major/minor, the target notes are in pretty familiar spots. But what about, say, Db major? I'll be honest here and say that I can't name the notes with the same no-thought immediacy of, say, C or A major.
It occurred to me that I should plug this somehow into my little Fretboard Framework, which is all about easy-to-recall points of reference for running around the fretboard (I still work hard to know all the notes at a glance and such, but l don't think there's anything wrong with using landmarks to get around a town you visit, but don't live in, which is how I look at some keys).
Say you're working in A major. The triad is A, C#, E. That's the first, third, and fifth, of the A major scale; pretty straightforward.
Start with A major on the sixth (low E) string. You start on the fifth fret, use your Ionian mode pattern, and get this (roots are annotated with "R":
5
R-x
Hmm...well, you can see your root (A on the fifth fret), and the second, B. We still need the third and the fifth. Throw in the Phrygian (which in the order of modes, is the third one) mode pattern, and you get this (the root, third, and fifth is indicated with an R and the corresponding numbers).
5
R-x-3x-5
Notice that the Dorian mode is in there too (starting on the second of the major scale, Dorian is the second mode in the order of modes). That's not entirely relevant here though, because we're interested in the first, third and fifth notes. The Ionian and Phrygian modes, played sequentially, contain those notes, so there's our framework.
I've heard this sort of thing also called "one string theory" as well. While I think that you should know your mode patterns and think in terms of them for just about everything, it's worth mentioning that you can forego thinking about modes here entirely if you can just move all the way up a string in either a major or minor scale, so in A major, you'd count "A is one, B is two, C# is three, D# is four, E is five". However, if you know your mode positions, when you play that second inversion, you can more easily embellish it with phrases and runs, because you know what pattern works in the position you're playing the triad.
So, whether you're just counting, or you are thinking of modes, or both, now we have our first, third, and fifth. So without having to compute/hunt the notes of the triad, I know, just from knowing my mode patterns (or counting), that the root triad starts on the 5th fret, the first inversion starts on the 9th, the third on the 12th. True, I have to know the shapes of the triads, but at least I don't have to hunt 'n peck for the target notes to start them on, as long as I can identify the root note of the scale on any given string.
Let's map it out; because I only need three strings, I'm only showing the low E, A, and D strings (6, 5, 4). The roots are shown as "R", and the other notes use a number to indicate if they are the third or fifth (remember the number on top specifies the fret number for orientation, in this case I use 2, but note that the root is indeed on the fifth fret).
2 (root position A major triad)
5---
--3-
---R
7 (first inversion A major triad, the target note, C#, is on the 9th fret)
R--
5--
--3
11 (second inversion A major triad, the target note, E, is on the 12th fret)
3-
-R
-5
So, if I know those three shapes, and I know my mode patterns and/or if I can count, I can find the targets for my triads on the 6th string, in any key, easily.
Regarding the triad shapes, there's three sets of shapes to know: set 1 is the shapes with the target notes on the 6th and 5th string (the shapes are identical, but the frets you target them on change because A is now either an open string, or on the 12th fret), the shapes on the fourth string (so you'd apply this logic starting on either the 7th or 19th frets), and the shapes on the third string (apply logic on the 2nd or 14th frets). There's plenty of reference for triad shapes out there, so I won't go into that in this article.
The minor triads work the same way, except instead of starting with the Ionian mode, you start with the Aeolian one, and use the modes "to the right" until you have your third and fifth. In this case, Aeolian contains the first and third, Dorian contains the fifth, so we mentally move past Locrian and Ionian; or, we just "count" up the minor scale until we find the third and fifth notes. Note that minor triads are almost the same shapes as the major, except the third is lowered a half step in all the shapes (half step = 1 fret). Here's A minor:
5
R-x3-x-5
So I know my triad shapes start on the 5th fret (root shape), 8th fret (first inversion, note it's now 8 instead of 9, because this target note is the third, so we need to lower it a half step; the root and fifth remain the same), and 12th frets. Here's the map:
2 (root position A major triad)
5---
-3--
---R
7 (first inversion A major triad, the target note, C#, is on the 9th fret)
R--
5--
-3-
11 (second inversion A major triad, the target note, E, is on the 12th fret)
3--
--R
--5
Again, the only difference between the major and minor shapes, is that the third is lowered a half step. Diminished lowers the fifth a half step as well, and augmented starts with the major triad shapes, but raises the fifth a half step.
Ultimately, you want to know the voicing you're looking for (major/minor/dim/aug), know the inversion you want, then look at the fretboard and just bang them out without thinking, but that's a tall order for even an advanced guitar player (though I assume any of the "gods" can do it easily).
Play around with it, look both ways when crossing the street, and so on. As always, have fun.
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