Description
In this guitar lesson, you are going to learn 3 triad chord shapes (a triad means just 3 notes). I’ll show you how to play these chord shapes up the neck of the guitar and how to play a 1, 4, 5 chord progression with them. You can use them both in rhythm playing and when playing lead. This lesson contains both a rhythm pattern, and a lead – which is created by adding embellishments to the chord shapes. This lesson is a MUST learn!
Part 1 - Free Guitar Lesson
Part 2 - Adding Embellishments
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Part 3 - Playing The Melody
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Slow Walkthrough - Melody
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Slow Walkthrough - Chords
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Video Tablature Breakdown
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Yes! This will be so helpful in so many ways. Such an essential part of guitar playing . I can’t wait to learn this one. Thanks for changing the beat of the drum this week with some exciting theory on chords and their inversions.
a Great Lesson i would like more country licks thanks happy Easter YOUR A GREAT TEACHER JOETHESHAKER-RBL ROCKa Billy HALL.COM
Thanks,
Looks like a winner!
Ron
very good way too! glad you mentioned octaves and the Caged system too..also great fun way showing the triads here to see all the inversion shapes really great way learning the fret board up the neck!
No! You shaved your beard! It looked good. Grow it back. I made the same mistake once, and kids at work thought I was in my 30’s again!
Brian
This one is right on the nail as you say its a must.. fantastic .
I wonder what you have up your sleeve for the Big 200 next week. WOW hundreds of EP series lessons plus all the others
Big Thanks
JohnStrat
Hi Brian you are my favorite teacher. I really believe that your chord inversion lesson will actually transport me to a higher level of playing rhythm and lead. God Bless you friend!
onward and upward!
Brian,
On the personal level I think you look fine with or without the beard but shaving it was no mistake!
hah – yeah, i was feeling a little too hipster. had to change that quick
Brian, this is one great lesson. This will also give us a better understanding of future and past lessons using this concept. Very much like the EP198 lesson. Thanks
Gary Q
Great lesson Brian. I’ve just recently being working on using the CAGED shapes to move around the fretboard but I hadn’t seen the benefits of trimming the barre chords back to the the simpler triads. This is going to be invaluable. Cheers,
Rick
Must learn is right! Just in messing around with this for the last 30 minutes I’ve explored more territory on the fretboard (in a productive way) than in the last 30 years. This really opens up the instrument and makes it a snap to jam with other people on the fly. Thanks so much for this one Brian!
Brian, this was a real eye opener for me. Thank you for posting this.
Brian, this is a very very good help! This expands our ability to work on the fretboard a lot. In addition, it will be the basis, which can be implemented in different tracks. Rgds
Amazing lesson to explore the neck
Thanks Brian
Ale
Chandelier-full of light bulb moments!
The Triads can be incorporated into all styles of music and they provide a platform for improvisation. Thanks for sharing your guitar knowledge Brian !
I just bought a duckbill hat and now you’re wearing a baseball cap? I just can’t keep up! And now I have to shave as well..
😜
On a more serious note, this is excellent stuff! It ties together with other cool stuff as well, like oh lets say scales maybe?! But I’m not going to give anything away if you are planning a series here!
🙂
just an excellent lesson….these are my favourite ones…just pure theory and a great learning experience…I can only understand what you are doing because of your past lessons that explained these chord shapes
I also love the lessons where you” build the chord shapes” always adding a new lick that you could turn into a song..
thanks
Another informative lesson, and good re-enforcement on all previous lessons on caged. Any chance you can add another lesson including minor chords and their embellishments? Thanks
Thanks a lot. I’ve been getting a little frustrated with my playing, this is just what the doctor ordered.
Is anyone else having issues with the video feed in this lesson? It hesitates and stops a lot. Have tried this on multiple computers and at work. It worked fine on Saturday but have had issues Sunday and today. All the other lessons seem to work fine, just having issue with this one.
Think this will be an important lesson and don’t want to skip it.
Thanks,
Doug
This is excellent .This format looks like the beginning of a very cool structured method
to approach the infinite possibilities of improvisation.
You are simply the best !🎶
Jay
fabulous job, this lesson !!! Thanks !
how about minor chords? Can you please add another lesson about minor chord inversions?
You can easily convert these to minor by flatting the 3rd interval. On the first shape – move the 2nd fret 2nd string to the 1st fret, 2nd string – (A minor), On the 2nd shape, move the 6th fret, 3rd string – down to 5th fret 3rd string, and on the 3rd shape, move the 11th fret 4th string down to the 10th fret fourth string.
A minor chord it always the same as the major chord, you just flat the 3rd interval. Hope that helps.
Thank you Brian !
Difficult in France to find the same.
Hi Brian and the rest. First comment ever because, as many of my colleagues say, this lesson is a very important part in our guitar learning. How to unravel the intrincate connections within the fretboard. And this lesson gets it clearly and accesible for us. Good methodology for a guitar professor. Cheers from Vitoria, Spain
Great lesson Brian!
I’ve been hammering away at theory lately, really working on understanding and memorizing the fret board. This was another great piece of the puzzle. I really appreciate your work and would love to see more lessons like this.
Thanks,
Jeff
Great lesson, Brian. I’m glad you shaved your beard. You look much better and younger. Ha
Cool!
Great stuff! Ever consider letting basic members try a full lesson for free.? I am slow learner when it comes to guitar and would like to actually try to see if this would benefit me. Perhaps the way your site is designed it would be impossible. Maybe consider that idea as a promotion thing for your 200th lesson? Anyways, just love the you play. Keep up the great work.
Yes – I’ve added the 2 free lessons link throughout the lessons pages. Here’s a link: https://www.activemelody.com/try-two-complete-lessons-for-free/
Wow that easy! Great thanks Bryan!
Sorry to be a spoilsport but I found this lesson to be a bit on the simplistic side. That said, I realise you cannot cater for (hopefully, aspiring,…) intermediate players all of the time.
However, thanks for all the wonderful lessons you have posted here for a very modest fee.
Anton
It depends on how you look at it. If you’re taking literally as in – just learning 3 chord shapes it is pretty easy… but what you can do with them blows my mind. When you’re able to quickly jump to any of those voicings and work those chord tones into your lead playing – it isn’t basic at all.
Thank you Brian, Wonderful lesson. Really opens up the understanding of whats going on with the whole neck of the guitar.
“like a complete unknown!”
hah yep 🙂
Brian, these are probably my favorite teachings by far. Thanks for another great lesson.
Excellent lesson!
Thank you!
Hello Brian,
Super interesting and useful, as usual! One thing though, I have not gone through all the videos of this lesson yet, but are you covering the minor chords too (in case we want to have the same 1/4/5 in a minor tonality)?
Thanks for the awesome lessons!
Just major chord shapes in this one – although to convert all 3 of these chord shapes to minor you just flat the 3rd interval
That´s what I´ve been waiting for. Greetings from Germany, Brian
Brian,
I think the format of this lesson is perfect. I have been playing for 40 years. Problem is I was playing the same small group of songs in first position for 35 of those years. Your lessons have helped by leaps and bounds and also exposed me to theory that I find much more interesting than I ever thought it could be. Your style is engaging and fun. You slow things down enough that I can really absorb the material instead of just memorizing. Keep up the good work.
Best regards,
Jim L.
Wow. Here’s one you can watch in the morning and take to that stage that night! Nice!
I have never learned so much in a single lesson really really great!
Brian, thanks a lot for this excellent lesson! As a decades-long beginner, I have struggled to grasp what I have seen guitarists with this method. You have made it clear and easily accessible. It’s going to help me a lot! Cheers!
Hi Brian
After slogging away in the ‘shadows’ on your website, I had to say Thank You (!!) for all the help I’ve received from
your videos for the last year or so. I believe I may have turned a corner and may now be becoming a guitar player.
This lesson was the icing on the cake. Fantastic! I’m sure there’s not a better teacher out there. Thanks again.
Thanks Dave – come out of the shadows from time to time!
Brilliant lesson. Sort of had an epiphany moment whilst watching it. This is something I’ve played in various ways but not know about or understood . Thanks
Nice direction Brian, like it. Ta
This is one of your most helpful and instructive lessons… Thanks, Brian.
Was this inspired by the Allman Brothers “Seven Turns” ?
Bonjour Brian,
Again thank you for your devotion, teaching us the guitar. I have a little question though: I understand where the first two A bar chords come from (in video 1) but I cannot relate the third A bar chord to any pattern I learnt in your course.
I am grateful for you to show it and I will try memorising and using it in my own playing. However do you know how to link it to a pattern? or do I just need to accept that there are plenty A chords on the fret board and keep these three shapes and get use to it for every other chords?
A good point in this lesson is that I now understand exactly what you mean by 1 / 4 / 5 progression.
Thank you Brian.
Franck
Hi Franck, these little triads are really just playing the same 3 notes that make up an A chord, but playing them in the 3 prominent positions on the neck. These is related to the CAGED system, but is much easier to follow because it’s only 3 chord shapes instead of 5. These are the most commonly used chord shapes that I’ve found anyway. If you know these, you can do just about anything.
Great lesson thanks Brian.
I liked this lesson becaue when i’m not playing drums i’m working on the caged system and how to connect the shapes . and i know its not everything but it seems like a good thing to know
also if you know those three shapes its not difficult to figure out the c shape and the g
it sounds a bit amature to me if you play all arpegios, but i think it’s good to know how to connect the shapes smoothly and build off of that at lest thats my thinking. but i don’t know and thats why i’m here. cheers
Hey Franck,
If I understand your reply correctly, then I had the same problem. I have had it drilled into my head that the first note you play is the root of the chord, an “A” in this case. I too struggled trying to find how this “D” shape chord could be an “A”. I finally realized that what Brian is using is an inversion of the “A” chord. It does not start with the note “A” but in this case a “C#”. The “C#” is a note contained in an A chord just not usually the first one. But remember that Brian wanted to use only the 2nd, 3rd and 4th strings for this lesson so he used an inversion (different order of the notes) of the “A” chord to use just those strings. I hope this helps. And Brian I hope I am correct in my explanation of why you use the “D” shape in this way. If not please help me too 🙂
Dick
Thanks for great lessons, this inspire me a lot how to approach code shape and lead.
From Korea.
PS: still I am only one from Korea, Brian?
There are others from Korea on the site 🙂 Not a lot, but I do see them from time to time 🙂
Hi Brian,
Great lesson. I’m having difficulty with the Key of C. I know the chords C, F, G but I run out of room at the lower end of the neck. I’m playing an acoustic.
I’ll keep playing around with it!
Thanks!
jam tracks are so fast
Well Brian,If there is a lesson that has opened doors for me,it is definitely this one.I enjoy lessons from Activemelody,but this one made me understand the guitar neck much better-from 20% to 80%. With the information provided by this lesson,I don’t fear to join any jam session.Thank you for providing the much needed simplification.
Ok, I need some understanding here. I’ve been working with Triads and inversions for quite a while. I understand them (I think); but your #3 shape is using the index finger to barre? Can’t you use the shapes without the barre? Does the barre do something I’m not seeing?
Thanks
Ron
The barre just makes it easier (for me) to grab that chord. If it’s easier for you to make without using a barre, then you should use that fingering. The other thing the barre allows me to do is play just the barre – which would be a 1 chord, and then hammer on those 2 fingers to create the 4 chord. (Keith Richards style).
Thanks! That’s what I was missing. Seems to be so many ways to get the same job done!
I just went back over this lesson. Using the barre does in fact make it easier! Sometimes the lights a little slow to turn on….
Thanks
Ron
Brian: After subscribing to your e-mail list for years, seeing the quality and quantity of material you produce, and coming to understand your excellent teaching skills… I finally got a Membership with Active Melody this morning. About time, right? For any person at the Intermediate/Adv-Intermediate playing level, there is simply no better Guru on the internet than you… at any price. The fact that you have made all of this affordable to the working man… well, you are much admired here in my house. Thank You!!
I’m a old man, but this opened my eyes! And they say you can’t you can’t teach and old dog new tricks. All joke aside excellent explanation. Thanks Brian, Michael G.
Well, nothing changed for me since I was in grade school 70 years ago. The whole class gets it, and I struggle along trying to grasp it…..are there at least 3 positions in every chord shape yet to learn? and….how to remember what chord I’m playing in each position? and how to go directly to a chord from anywhere on the neck…..I am going to have to stay after school as usual and clean the chalk board and clap the chalk out of the erasers. It’s late, maybe tomorrow will be a better day for learning…gnite all 🙂
Where comes this rhythm from?
Thanks, Brian! Lightbulb Lesson here, for sure!
Wow! That is sooo helpful!