triads and chord scales for guitar

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Triads and Chord Scales: In all inversions

on all sets of strings. By Rob Silver

What you have here are scans of my own hand written notes, complete with the odd coffee stain

from when I was starting out and figuring all this stuff out for myself.

Very Basic Chord Theory...

A triad is a chord with three notes. There are four basic triads, Major, Minor, Augmented and

Diminished. Each is created by combining different intervals and playing them at the same time.

The Major triad is created by taking a root note and simultaneously playing another note a Major 3rd

(4 frets) higher than that and another note A 5th (7 Frets) above the root note/minor 3rd above the

second note

For example if your root note was A then A Major would contain the notes A, C#, E

The Minor triad is created by taking a root note and simultaneously playing another note a Minor 3rd

(3 frets) higher than that and another note A 5th (7 Frets) above the root note/minor 3rd above the

second note. (For a brief explanation of intervals see appendix1)

For example if your root note was A then A Minor would contain the notes A, C, E

The augmented triad is created by taking a root note and simultaneously playing another note a

Major 3rd (4 frets) higher than that and another note an augmented 5th (8Frets) above the root

note/major 3rd above the second note

For example if your root note was A then A Major would contain the notes A, C#, E#

The diminished triad is created by taking a root note and simultaneously playing another note a

Minor 3rd (3 frets) higher than that and another note a flat 5th (7 Frets) above the root note/minor 3rd

above the second note

For example if your root note was A then A Major would contain the notes A, C, Eb.

So what are inversions of a chord?

If you invert a chord you place a note other than the root as the lowest note,

so for triads which have 3 notes, you would have the root position, spelt 1, 3, 5

then the first inversion spelt 3, 5, 1 and the second inversion spelt 5, 1, 3.



Next...

Chord scales.

On the next few pages I’ve mapped out the chord scales for the Major Scale on

all sets of strings with all in inversions of the chords.

So how do you know what chords are in a particular chord scale?

You just take alternate degrees of the scale and create triads from them.

Huh?

Well we know that the first triad in a major key is a Major chord. (spelt 1, 3, 5)

So if we continue up the scale taking alternate note:

Major Scale (1,2,3,4,5,6,7)

SCALE DEGREE Notes of the scale Triad created

1 1, 3, 5 MAJOR

2 2, 4, 6 MINOR

3 3, 5, 7 MINOR

4 4, 6, 1 MAJOR

5 5, 7, 2 MAJOR

6 6,1, 3 MINOR

7 7, 2,4 DIMINISHED

In the diagrams that follow you can see how the chord scale is played in

various inversions and sets of strings.



So hopefully by now that should all make sense. If it doesn’t then drop me a line at my blog

or on facebook or email me at [email protected]

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APPENDIX.

Appendix 1.

Intervals:

The difference in pitch between any two notes is called an interval. If they are played one after each other the interval is “Melodic” if they are played at teh same time the interval is “Harmonic.” There are different names for the various intervals depending on how big the gap between them (ie. the number of frets) is. The names of the interval for two notes 1 -12 frets apart are listed in the table below:

FRETS WORDS NUMBERS 1 Flat/Minor Second b2 2 (Major) Second 2 3 Flat/Minor Third b3 4 (Major) Third 3 5 Fourth 4 6 Sharp Fourth/Flat Fifth #4/b5 7 (Perfect) Fifth 5 8 Minor Sixth, Aug. 5th b6/Aug 5 9 (Major) Sixth 6

10 Flat/Minor Seventh b7 11 (Major) Seventh 7 12 Octave 8/1

(b is a flat sign, # is a sharp sign)

When you talk about the intervals that “Spell” a particular scale or chord, they are always named in relation to the “Root note” ie. the first note in the scale. The Minor Pentatonic scale is spelt 1, b3, 4, 5, b7, which means the distance from the root note (1) to the different scale degrees are 3 frets, 5 frets 7 frets and 10 frets. Similarly for the Major Pentatonic scale spelt 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, the distances are 2 frets, 4 frets, 7 frets, and 9 frets.

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