Triads are a very useful little trick, fantastic as a second guitar part, but also for creating riffs too. To hear some great 'real world' examples check out "Brown Eyed Girl" (Van Morrison) for some cool use as a second guitar part, "So Far Away" (Dire Straights) uses a whole heap of shapes for the main riff or "Substitute" (The Who) that uses the very shapes shown in the lesson to make the main riff. Maybe you should try and work them out?? hint hint...

I break the lesson into three parts, each with a video. Try and get each bit down before moving onto the next.

Part 1

This first step is to learn the three shapes of triads on strings 1,2 and 3. The shapes are shown below. Make sure that MEMORISE the shape and the ROOT NOTE. Without this knowledge you will never use them well. The shapes are shown below. Learn them well.

Note that these triad shapes can be called Major (ie. G Maj), or just the note name (ie. G) or sometimes using the term triad (ie. G Maj Triad). Doesn't really matter, they are but simple major chords!