I guess that will come further down the line in later lessons of Grade 3 as this lesson is, I assume, juts an introduction to triads.
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Stuart, I donāt know, if you are using the app? If so, you can e.g. practice your triads by playing them over a simple track there. For example, I chose a song with an easy, repetetive chord progression and replaced chords by triads. I first tried to find the triads at different positions on the neck and then just to play them over the track. Sounds lovely. Itās at least one option to get used to the different shapes and their voicings. Two simpler examples are āMore than thisā by Bryan Ferry or āStumblinā inā by Suzie Quattro. Both are nice tunes with repetitive easy chord progressions to practice the basic implementation. You can also experiment to just strum them or to pick the notes out and youāre able to slow down the speed and try to increase it step by step.
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I would learn to play it with 2 fingers. Itās a bit tricky and will take some practice. Itās been discussed in other threads, do a search if you want more details.
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Love Is the Drug - Roxy Music
The triad āchipsā are very obvious throughout this song.
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@Stuartw Jack and Diane is full of triads and only 3 chords using 3 different places on the neck. Justin has a lesson for it as well.
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I was referring to E-shape and A-shape barre chords and how major/minor triad grips on strings 1-3 are related to them:
E-shape grips:
A-shape:
Thereās another lesson on triad you might find useful: Introduction to Triads
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Thanks all. This seems to have opened a can of worms! Feeling a bit over whelmed with this to be honest.
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Thanks @sequences
Vintage Club #12 was explicitly about teaching songs & riffs that use major & minor triads on the G, B & E strings.
There are video shorts for each of four sings too.
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No need to worry too much about it. You could start out with playing a simple A-D-E or G-B-D progression first in what Justin refers to as grip 1 (with the root note on the 1st string) just to get a feel for using these grips and how they sound. When you feel comfortable with that you can add the other grips and tackle minor triads as well. No need to rush these things.
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I think you made a small typo G C D for grip 1. B would be a minor grip.
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I meant a G major - B major - D major chord progression.
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My bad: just wondering why youād suggest a chord progression that isnāt in any Major Key to a beginner?
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Yep, that was typo, I stand corrected. 
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@Stuartw, you and I are in similar places in the course. Hereās how I think of triads, keeping things super-simple:
Most of the chords weāve learned so far are built from three notes - the root, the major third, and the fifth for a major chord; the root, the minor third, and the fifth for a minor chord. The power chords are only the root and the fifth, no third. Sevenths also include the seventh, but letās set those aside here.
Our most familiar chords all use more than three strings, so some of those intervals (root, third, or fifth) get repeated on more than one string, but they donāt have to be. For example, if you donāt strum the D (4th) string on a D chord, youāre still playing a D chord; youāre just not repeating the D. Weāve also been taught so far that itās desirable to have the root note be the lowest pitch in the chord, but it doesnāt have to be. (Changing their order is called āinversion.ā)
A fun exercise (at some point) is to play 1-3-5 triad combinations on each set of 3 adjacent strings, i.e. strings 1, 2, and 3; then strings 2, 3, and 4; and so on. It really reveals how those intervals are laid out on the fretboard and why the chords weāve learned are constructed the way they are.
As youād imagine, stripping a chord down to its minimum 3 notes on adjacent strings makes the chord sound less āfull,ā since youāre narrowing the range of pitches being included - but itās still a perfectly valid chord. In theory, you could use the triad version of any chord in a song in place of the chords youāve learned, but it wouldnāt sound as rich because of the loss of range in pitch. So, where a song includes triads, itās likely to achieve that sparse effect.
Donāt let any of this worry you. Itās an introductory glimpse into the bigger picture. Like everything else, it seems foreign at first, but in time, as itās repeated in new contexts and other pieces are added, it will come together to contribute to a broader understanding of what weāre doing - and why.
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You must know a lot more theory than I do. To be honest I have never really looked in to what the notes of a chord. Just a case of getting fingers in the right place quick enough.
Easier said than done!
I hope so. Small start to bigger things
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I encourage you to explore - at your own pace - the notes in the chords. It really will prompt some āAha!ā moments where some curtains will fall away and a few things will become less mysterious.
Hereās a tool that Iāve found very helpful:
With it, you can āclick inā on the fretboard diagram a chord you know and see a breakdown of its components on the left. Notice that there are different displays on the left panel (the three boxes at the top) that will break it down in different ways, all useful. You can add, change, or remove notes in the chord to see what the result is. But then itās even more helpful to explore some of these on your guitar, too.
The best part is that thereās no hurry, so itās a joy to have all of these things to learn.
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Iām trying ā Come Back to Meā by Kelli Scarr where I have laid my first track using Fingerstyle on my Acoustic. On a second track, using Triads, with my electric guitar, I tried to emulate a pedal steel sound with assistance from a YouTube video on making ambient sounds. I used the Boss Tone software for the Katana MK50. (Thereās really no comparison to the original on that part, but hopefully it may work out.) Next, I want to lay down a third track using Triads again. My question is; can I do Triad picking pattern(s) along with the Finger style patterns Iāve already used? Will it interfere with the Finger style? Or should I try something else? If so, suggestions?
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I know the feeling, it can feel overwhelming at first, but stick with it. Triads are simply 3 note chords, made up from the Root third and fifth intervals of a scale.
When arranged in different orders the triads are referred to as chord inversions. (5,1,3, or 3,5,1).
Still the same 3 notes chord, but different order/fingering for a slightly different sound.
Find the root on the fret board and count the scale intervals to find the 3rd and 5th notes. If you learn the scale intervals you can quickly construct lots of chord variations eg 7ths
John Fogarty of CCR fame, is another great player who often used triads and diads to spice up his solos.
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Correct but this requires knowing the major scale across the whole fingerboard. Better to just learn the shapes.
This is a conflated use of the Nashville numbering system which IMHO is not intended to identify intervals in chords. It would not work for minor chords, for example, as the root is not ā1ā in a minor chord. Peter
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Youāre right Peter. The numbering used does correctly locate the note intervals in relation to the root but as its primarily application is to allow players to figure out chord progressions on the fly, Iāve removed the reference to Nashville.
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