Description
In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn several dominant 7 triads in various positions that you can easily add to your blues rhythm or lead. You’ll learn how to connect these to basic chord shapes so that you can easily find them and play them over any chord / key.
Part 1 - Free Guitar Lesson
Part 2 - For Premium Members
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Slow Walkthrough
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Video Tablature Breakdown
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Sounds great and looks like fun! I can’t wait to learn this. Thanks Brian
Nice chordal motifs Brian.
Great Stuff as Always – Thanks Brian!!
Thanks Brian. This is just what I needed! I know you covered some of this before and I printed out the triad shapes you gave us but this is the reinforcement for that lesson. Hopefully after this one some of these shapes will be on instant recall!
In that previous lesson (EP362) – I mentioned major chord triads – this lesson is Dominant 7 triads.
Whew! Thank you, Brian. I have been meaning to look up an explanation of the difference, but no doubt yours is clearer and more complete. A Big advance for me in this lesson.
Right up front; this is not one of my favorite types of music. That said, I found a lot of very useful information in this lesson, and will probably end up learning most, if not all, of the song. So, thank you as always Brian.
That sweet ES-175 sounds super and looks like at least a couple of years old, Brian!! :>) Jim C.
I love this stuff.
Brilliant lesson. It’s often the fairly simple stuff that makes the big breakthroughs when playing the guitar.
I’ve been playing almost 50 years and am almost embarrassed to say had never even thought of making a dominant 7 chord triad using the 4th 5th and 6th strings for G7 and A7 followed by C7 on 3, 4, 5 strings (all using the ‘ D7’ shape) until I saw this in a Mike Pachelli video discussing The Beatles Sgt Pepper intro a week ago. The change in sound using these correct (for this song) chords shapes astounded me.
Your lesson explores and combines many more voicings and fills off simple triads which all give various unique sounds, many of which I often previously thought to use as a convenience and not how they sounded off eachother. Many thanks Brian.
I already learned a few months ago from another site that the 5th could be dropped (the reasoning being, from what I understood, that the 5th had the least “harmonic value”(?) but didn’t realise that any note (1,3,5) could be dropped. Brilliant as usual.
An unbelievably useful lesson. Triads and dominants not memorising or just learning but using them. I’m grateful.
Thanks Brian, this is a really interesting and helpful lesson.
I’m missing some diagrams as you did in other lessons, to help visualize triads and how they can be found to regular position chords but maybe it’s all in EP362? I have to review this lesson!
Nice one! AND… is that another recent purchase you are playing here? It looks well played in! I love P90’s. The headstock looks unusual as it doesn’t have the standard ‘open book’ look on the top. I don’t think I’ve seen that before on a 175. Perhaps you can enlighten me. Best wishes and stay safe.
Replying to myself… I’ve just done some research and had another look at the video, but in full screen mode this time, and the ‘open book’ is more visible but the top centre ‘fold’ is less pronounced than the more familiar, and current, style. Now I’m wondering about the tuners… ; )
Check out last week’s lesson – EP385 at the beginning of the video I talk about the guitar. Rough shape cosmetically but it plays like a dream!
Brian,
This is a brilliant breakthrough lesson that integrates so many blues concepts. I have always been a proponent of visualizing the intervals around the nearest root to fully understand the shapes, rather than memorize them. These triad shapes should also help integrate all the positions of the myxolydian mode for soloing over the changes. This might be one of the most important lessons you have ever done, along with CAGED and mixing the major and minor pentatonics.
John
Another great lesson. I have watched many dominant 7 triad videos from some other great teachers on YT but this one is the best example of using them in a musical framework as a rhythm ‘lead combo. Nothing I didn’t know already in regards to chord shapes but a lot to learn here on applying them.
Hi Brian, I have a few questions that have to do with your right hand technique. There’s a great shot at 7:47-7:48 that clearly shows your pick grip and right hand fingernails. I’ve played for a long time and the past few years I’ve been paying a lot more attention to my right hand technique and trying to clean up some technique problems. My questions are about your nails: Are they natural nails or acrylics? How do you take care of your nails?
You get an amazing tone playing fingerstyle on acoustic and electric. I’ve played fingerstyle with mostly flesh, but I’ve been adding a little bit of nails to add clarity, and would like any tips you have for keeping nails usable.
Another huge tip I’ve picked up from your pick playing is to rotate from the wrist. That has definitely cleaned up my alternate picking and upstrokes. Guitarists can learn so much by just watching you play.
Also, do you ever play nylon string guitar?
Thanks for all you do for us “geetar players”.
oh man, talking about my nails.. i feel so unmanly right now. They’re natural and i don’t do anything regarding maintenance … chip them every now and then, but that’s just the price you pay I guess 🙂
Good point on rotating the wrist – that does help a lot and I never really thought about it. I do play some nylon string here and there, but the nylon string guitar I have is in rough shape.
Another great one Brian. Getting a backlog of amazing lessons I want to learn but this is going to the front. Thank you.
This is another excellent Lesson with good backround information,because 7 accords we all play all the Time.Excellent work,Brian as usual.
Hello Brian, think music with triads rather than scales, pentatonic, positions seems to be better way to progress. It’s difficult. No sense learning that without understanding what we play, intervals, Caged positions… This lesson is top !!!
A great lesson on using the Dominant 7’s and your new-old guitar sounds great too.
Thanks Brian
Ray P
your improv at end of lesson part 1 is fantastic…..any chance of a tab?
Hi Brian, I caught a typo on the tab. At the beginning of measure 18, the third string should be 12th fret, not 9th. At least, to match what you play at the video 🙂
A great lesson with beautiful explanations as always.
Thank you Brian.
This is a comment about last weeks lesson: “When the Saints Go Marching In”. The song came together for rather quickly and I loved the arrangement but was struggling with a couple of things. Then I watched your midweek missive and two of the things you said hit home about my struggles with the song: relaxing and practicing fast. I love the triplet run in the second half of the song and was using the practice slow and work up to speed and it wasn’t getting it and I was struggling getting a free, bouncy feeling to the song. So I relaxed a bit and practiced that run fast and in a very short time I had the run and the feeling of the song I wanted.
Thanks. These lesson have made playing so much fun and my improvement has amazed me.
Bob
Brillant lesson brian. This is will be a Great breakthrough lesson for many of us..thanks
Man, I love these lessons. The problem I’m having is that my knowledge is now way ahead of my technique… in the dark, I couldn’t find the right string with my pick hand to save my soul… I just can’t seem to feel where the strings are.
Anyway, I also just started to go back to your first lessons… from ten years ago. It’s kinda fun because you don’t describe the theory back then, but because of your current lessons, I know what you’re doing there!
As for this week’s lesson… how cool… I thought I knew what a dominant-7th chord was, but I never sat down and drew it out… I was wrong! Very cool to now know it. And love the variations… they all make sense.
This is another great lesson to understand and uncover the many possibilities on the fretboard. Thanks so much Brian!!
I instantly got hooked on this sound and I haven’t past the 8th bar yet and I’m wearing it out.
I know it’s simple, but that’s the beauty of it. This really can be branched out
I’ve been fascinated by your depiction of Dom7 and Dim7.
Thanks a heap..
Superbe lesson once again ! We are blessed to have Brian as a teacher with a gift to continuously impart relevant knowledge and is also a great motivator.
Hi Brian,
This is a great lesson. Concepts may be old hat to some but it’s exactly the sort of breakdown which helps me. I love watching Josh Smith play but his level just makes playing rhythm and lead with chordal variations seem so far out of reach. This is a step in that direction. It just injects a lot of fun into playing rhythm.
Besides, it’s extra fun to play on my old 1953 Epiphone Zephyr. Not a spectacular guitar but fun to play.
Greg
p.s. Playing triads really helps my right hand control. I’m relatively new to playing electric and used to play more cowboy looking chords or chords using all six or five chords and that seems to have made my right hand lazy or clumsy. At least for me, playing a combination of rhythm and lead, as well as focusing on triads, greatly improves my right hand.
Bryan, could you add a chart showing only the triads?
Can’t wait to try this out!
I really admire the rythmic quality of this composition. So much going on and still everything played with perfect timing 🙂
Wow! Wow! Wow! So many light bulb moments from this lesson. Thank you Brian, top draw. Keep them coming. 👍🏻😎👊🏻
Great lesson Brian i loved it it would be good i think to have a chart with just triads . thank you Brian
Hi! I noticed you seem to often add a little bit of vibrato/ tremolo to your amp, is it on board or outboard? Keep on pickings!
I really like how you added the tab to the video, super helpful. As always, great job Brian.
Hey Brian, I’m a big fan. Thanks!