Your triad exercise or practice (beginner question)

lewischang88

Hi,
This is a beginner question, regarding learning triads.

After figuring out the major and minor shapes (root, 1st inversion and 2nd inversion) on strings 1-3, 2-4, 3-5, and 4-6, do you have certain triad exercise(s) to help you familiarize all these shapes and positions?

(analogy: after learning the individual alphabet letters, I would like to learn to spell some words. But I am far from being able to speak sentences)

Thx.

Jim Kaznosky

Pick a song you know well. play triads in quarter notes for that song using string set DGBE. One inversion equals one bar. move up the neck to the twelth fret and reverse direction there. Once you are comfortable, play this exercise in 8th notes, then triplets, then 16ths. Play the exercise ascending, descending, then alternate ascending/descending and the reverse.
It will take you a long time to learn to do this well for one song. When you do learn it at gig tempos, add a new song and work through this exercise.

wim

I found Benoit's exercises for joining up argpeggios to be really useful. Must have practiced this thing a thousand times or more now, and I still use it as a warm-up before a gig. Usually I swap a F#-b5 triad instead of F maj, to give those arpeggios a workout as well as the minor/major triads.

Here's the vid:

richter4208

Adrien does one similar to above but inserts a diminished arpeggio between each major scale chord tone.

Jazzaferri

Rather than triadic chords try the following. Example is for Cmajor

C E G B (Cmaj7 arp up) A G F E scalar down
D F A C (Dmin7 arp up) B A G F scalar down
E G B D (Emin7 arp up) C B A G scalar down
F A C E (Fmaj7 arp up) D C B A scalar down
G B D F (G7 arp up) E D C B scalar down
A C E G (Amin7 arp up) F E D C scalar down
B D F A (Bmin7b5 arp up) G F E D scalar down
C etc. etc.

All the diatonic chords of Cmajor scale and scale practice at same time
When you get one mastered going up 2 octaves reverse the order staring at the top. Learn them in all 3 positions starting on 6 string then in the 2 positions starting on string 5. If you are really keen name each note out loud as you play it. After this then learning different keys/notes is a matter of shifting positions.

Once you have that down one can play around with starting the arps in any position.

Buco

You could just play with various 2/5/1s with the shapes you've learned.

richter4208

I love that exercise you posted Wim! I learned the arpeggios in the decesnding pattern and that was a bit challenging. Its a fun one.

spud

That is a great excersise that Wim posted. But, correct me if i am wrong, it connects all the arpeggios that Have the root in the e string, and so it doesnt cover all the chord shapes ? (For instance on a major chord the shape that is like an open A major chord)

Or maybe one has to create the same excersise With the root on the a string?

In Any case i think its a good idea from Wim to add the m7b5 arpeggio.
Nearly all bases covered.

wim

spud wrote: »

But, correct me if i am wrong, it connects all the arpeggios that Have the root in the e string, and so it doesnt cover all the chord shapes? (For instance on a major chord the shape that is like an open A major chord)

No, you're right - this only covered the root-on-6th-string shapes. But they do have some common ground, so it also helps with the root-on-5th-string shapes indirectly.

For example, G major starting from the 3rd fret on the 6 string will pass through similar positions as an E- shape (minor 7th colour, root on 7th fret of A-string).

G minor starting from the 3rd fret on the 6 string passes through similar positions as an EbΔ shape (major 7th colour, root on 6th fret of the A-string).

In the first case, you can bump the D note up two semitones for the correct triad.
In the second case, You can bump the D note up one semitone for the correct triad.

Jazzaferri

Buco wrote: »

You could just play with various 2/5/1s with the shapes you've learned.

That's a more useful exercise IMO

NylonDave

Yup, much more useful.