Thanks Adrian exactly as you say. And if you pick any adjacent string pair you will find that for any twelve fret span there are four different double-stop 3rds to match whatever chord is being played. Yoh are never far away from playing just two notes of the triad or two notes where one of them extends the triad with its 7th.
Example:
B and E strings only.
If the underlying chord (triad) is D major you can play within the triad at frets 2 & 3 plus frets 5 & 7 plus frets 14 & 15 and you can suggest Dmaj7 at frets 9 & 10.
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Good stuff as usual Richard. I’m struggling to understand why the Dmaj7 has a C and not a C#?
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Looks like a typo as above the table its C# again
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Whoops, it is a typo.
Correction coming soon.
Thanks for noticing it @jacksprat
3rd & Thirds Part F - FUN FUN FUN
Back to the fun.
In fact, this part is all fun.
Nothing but FUN FUN FUN.
Warning – Spoiler Alert – Cool Stuff Dead Ahead. Lot’s of fun to be had.
We started off in this whole exploration of 3rds with the notion of having fun, playing, bringing along a ‘joie de vivre’ to using 3rds and in turn getting the shapes under our fingers. There followed a deep dive in to some theoretical underpinnings. For some people that dive may have been too deep. The resurfacing too swift. Perhaps some are suffering with acute cases of the bends. Although I hope not. And I hope the pearls down in the depths were worth the effort.
Now is time to cast theory and knowledge and brain work aside. Now is time to get back to fun fun fun.
Playing these 3rds solo
If you have not yet, go back to the [first part of section A and begin finding the shapes of these 3rds on your fretboard.
Find your fingering.
Most people use fingers 1, 2 & 3 only.
Play them in succession, as double stops, as arpeggiated notes, slide them around, learn them as pairs on one set of strings first before learning on other sets of strings.
Have fun.
Playing over a D Major backing track
I posted a couple backing track in Part A. Try playing some 3rds along with it.
Try another backing track - here’s just one suggestion, there are many to be found.
See if you can make your guitar play sound great over the top.
As embellishment work.
As melodic ideas or harmonies, sliding notes up and down in arpeggiated or double stop style.
You don’t need to overplay, just make it fit and sound good.
Have fun.
Playing over a B minor blues
When I first wrote about 3rds in the old JG forum, @CT wanted to be able to use 3rds in a ‘bloozy’ way and found these D Major 3rds very bright and happy and melodic.
They are. If playing solo or over a D Major backing.
So for bloozy, try something totally different instead.
Play over a B minor blues backing track.
This will work a treat if you mix these D Major 3rds with some B minor pentatonic licks and riffs.
Something to do with relative minor - but hey - don’t even think about it … just know that it works.
D Major 3rds and B minor blues - go dig it.
Yeah!
Have fun.
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Playing over minor key music
You may want to play in the minor moment … something smooth, soulful and seductive … something mellow, meaningful and moody … something honest, heartfelt and heavenly …
Try playing these D major 3rds, along with either the B minor pentatonic scale - or even the B Aeolian (B natural minor) scale over a backing such as:
Feel it, be it, mean it.
Have fun.
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Playing over an E dorian vamp
Yes, it’s true. You can take these D Major 3rds, play them mixed in with a little E minor pentatonic and have some mega Dorian fun.
You can of course use the E blues scale, or, if you know it, E Dorian scale. But do not get hung up on that technical malarkey. D major 3rds, as learned in this topic, plus minor pentatonic and go!
Freaking fast funky E Dorian fun:
Groovy vamp with a light reggae bounce:
Chill with this mellow pill:
Have fun.
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Inspired by my own good self, I created a few backing tracks with guitar and Digitech Trio+
I also created a Guitar Challenge for good measure.
It has been sitting dormant in a dusty corner of the Challenges section since I migrated the original contributions much earlier in 2022. Perhaps it is time to revive it with some new recordings of people playing and having fun!
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Questions, comment, discussion etc …
Definitely real cool stuff to check out here.
This is why I love Justin Guitar.
Not quite sure how to put it but throughout my journey I felt as if things would start to click in my mind and then the next lesson would be exactly about what I discovered working on the previous lesson
I could never describe how happens but it is something that I have noticed a lot.
Back to the point of this post sorry.
Last night for the 1st time I put on Pink Floyd “Echoes” and tried improvising, jamming with the track from live at Pompeii.
I had no idea what I was doing or if I could even get any kind of sound like I wanted I was watching Gilmore and it seem like there was a lot of playing of the thinnest strings above the 10th fret. So I messed around and to my amazement I think It sounded pretty good. The same amazement I got from the improvising lesson with C scale.
So I was just looking around today and I find this topic on exactly what I was trying to do last night. I also checked out the linked topic. This is something I will be spending some time on.
This example of how awesome Justin guitar is it’s some thing I felt compelled to share many times previously.
So thank you Richard for creating this topic and revisiting it, because if you didn’t I would never have found it. The timing of how this part of my journey fell into place amazes me. I was wondering if anybody else has experienced anything like this? I call a gift from the guitar gods when there is some kind of concept or theory makes sense to me and I can put it into practice.
I contemplated sending this, but I want to compliment Richard and the team that they are doing a great job. And it is appreciated 
Jason b
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Me too Toby commented on other part and never realized there were some more!
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Wow, Jason, thank you, thank you. Those are kind words indeed.
I’m smiling at the thought of you having progressed so far that you’re jamming along with Echoes at Pompei. That’s quite a thing.
I love thinking my way around these cincepts and have a passionate desire to write out and share my thoughts. It is my hope and wish that some people share the fascination and find learning and playing value in what I present.
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Time to sharpen your axe and get chopping Toby (in the musical metaphor sense of course).
Haha
There’s always more Adrian.
This topic is concluded for now, I have some partially migrated from the old place some I have not even started to migrate (remember borrowed chords for instance) and other new o es not yet written anywhere.
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That will be another useful thread for sure. I assume you still have some limited access to the old platform and will not have to write up from scratch ?
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