Yesterday I was practicing and I placed my fingers in a certain way. I did some research and found out it’s the C major triad, but I still have doubts. The position is the following:
e|-----4-----|
B|-----1-----|
G|-----2-----|
D|-----3-----|
A|-----0-----|
E|-----x-----|
The notes in that grip from lowest to highest are A, F, A, C and Ab. Since there’s no E and G in it, it cannot be a C major chord.
F A C is an F major triad, so the notes played on strings 2-5 could be named F/A. However, the Ab is a b3 in the key of F major. Since this is in a different octave, I would call this chord F/A add b3, but I’m sure @Richard_close2u can suggest a more sensible name.
Hello Johnnie and welcome to the community…
A triad has three notes only.
As @Jozsef has identified, this has more than three.
If it is some kind of A chord …
A major scale
A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#
The notes (in ascending order) are
A, F, A, C, G#
1, #5 or b6, 1, b3, 7
Reordered…
1, b3, #5 or b6, 7
That is rather unsatisfactory…
Amin maj7 #5
What about some type of F chord …
F major scale …
F, G, A, Bb, C, D, E
The notes (in ascending order) are
A, F, A, C, G#
3, 1, 3, 5, #2 or #9
Reordered…
1, 3, 5, #9
The chord could be …
F major add #9
Some type of C chord …
C major scale …
C, D, E, F, G, A, B
The notes (in ascending order) are
A, F, A, C, G#
6, 4, 6, 1, #5
Reordered…
1, 4, #5, 6
The chord could be …
Csus4 #5 add6
They all leave a strange sensation in naming them.
I’m on my smartphone with no guitar to hand.
I will look again tomorrow.
Im so confused reading these answers. How do you guys learn all this
Cmaj triad will have 3 notes.
CEG.
From the scale of C
CDEFGAB.
The 1st, 3rd, and 5th note comprise the C maj. triad.
Sorry, I’ve no idea what chord is made up of AFACG#. I tried it and it didn’t sound to good to me.
Myself, I got a long ways to go in understanding. But I think it starts with learning the notes of the scales. It appears to me that much is based off the scales as to which chords your playing. I’m sure there is much more than that though, hence I’ve got a lot to learn myself.
Hey Jonathan,
Plenty of helpful info here already.
Out of curiosity, I just wanted to ask where did you seek the info that labelled this as a C Major triad? AI possibly?
I only ask, as many people are now using AI tools such as ChatGPT for answers.
From my experience, these tools, particularly ChatGPT are absolutely woeful in relation to music knowledge; even very basic questions. I was very surprised at this initially.
I’m not entirely sure of the reason for this, but it’s obviously something to do with the AI training data. I have tested ChatGPT on very, very basic music theory questions over a fair period of time, and it has performed dismally. It follows that AI is even more wayward on more complex questions I ask it.
Given the very mathematical and logical nature of music, I find this very surprising.
Hopefully, continued training on quality data will improve this situation.
So, in short; if anyone is putting trust in AI tools like ChatGPT for music knowledge. Don’t. Not yet anyway.
I’d suggest using one with at least full internet search capabilities. Perplexity is one of the better ones imo.
Cheers, Shane
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I got a chuckle with this. 
It is work in progress for sure! I think this will take some dedicated study for me to have it at the front of my brain, but I can usually work it out with a few minutes and a piece of paper. The basics of music theory follows rules that just take some memorization.
See Justin’s Practical Music Theory course. The initial part is free, and I think there is enough there to have answered the original question with a bit of thought and estimation, but the triads part of the class is in the paid area, and this is where you learn the answer for sure instead of an educated guess you’d have from the early material.
I’m back with guitar in hand …
Experimenting with finger placement to seek out different sounds and chord grips is a fantastic creative step.
Question …
Do you like the sound of the chord grip?
To my ears it is very tense, dissonant, unsettled and unstable. I would not play it or hold it for very long. That top note on the e string sounds desperate to move a semitone down to fret 3 and / or to fret 1 and / or open string.
In order those moves would create Fadd9, F, Fmaj7.
I am definitely calling it F major add#9 but you have an A in the bass so it is a slash chord. Therefore, in simple terms:
Fadd#9 / A.
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