Description
In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play a solo Blues composition that is built around Triads. This gives you a goal to work towards (a song), while learning how to find Triads all over the fretboard.
This approach works whether you’re improvising or creating your own solo blues arrangements, and it’s a good way to become a more musical guitarist.
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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Wow,😳. Soon to be a classic.
So good to be back you are an awesome teacher you take difficult sounding things and break them down .You play the lesson and I think that sounds like Chet Atkins and Eric Clapton had a son then break it down with tab I thank you.
Years ago I listened in awe to one of your wonderful videos on triads. I think that the printouts from that session are most most used ones I have – in fact I had to reprint them as I wore them out. This session is equally amazing and I think I know what my weekend will be spent doing. Thanks for returning to triads, they are a large part of my playing.
Brian I know you always ask if we learned something that caused our “heads to explode.” Today’s video was such an experience for me. I know I have heard you say something similar many times before, but my head exploded when you had the discussion on those listeners who were “super literal” about the chord serving as a B6 even though it was not actually that chord and, then continued by exposing us to the thought that …there is no literal in music, it’s all relative to something else. Finally, you helped me over a big roadblock as I often just can’t get where I want to go because I think that “no you can’t do that”, rather than just trying something unusual. Thanks very much.
The 51, then the 251, then the 6251, then the 36251. Such a powerful and useful concept! Someday I hope you’ll do another lesson on the various ways of following those progressions and teasing out the harmonies they make available. There’s a lot of it here and it seems to have endless possibilities. Thank you so much!
i love this lesson the tune is great and your explanation is always great
This is so beautiful, I cannot wait to learn how to play this. Outstanding!
Really like this one. Triads voiced closely together sound very cool. Gonna have fun with this one.
I have to say, this composition has now topped my list of favorite ‘stand-alone’ pieces.
Not difficult to play, but my back porch is going to love it, especially a somewhat slower version I plan to learn.
Thanks Brian.
Love the sound of clear acoustic triads. Especially with a fresh set of strings. Both Part 1&2, lots of material, vs the Micro Lessons. Thanks for all your hard work. Much appreciated.
Love the sound of clear acoustic triads. Especially with a fresh set of strings. Both Part 1&2, lots of material, vs the Micro Lessons. 45 Bars, Wowza! Thanks for all your hard work. Much appreciated.
Excuse the over posting, thought I could edit the original 10:33pm comment without making a Reply to myself at 10:37pm. Anyways, 45 MEASURES of licks, triads and melody is ALOT of work in the week of a composing guitarist along with all the other responsibilities and comment reading, site map study etc., so big thanks!
Thank you, Brian. Love these stand-alone compositions sprinkled in every now and then amongst your lessons.
Wow! So glad I joined your website Brian….. not only is this a great acoustic composition to learn but I like the way you break your guitar lessons down for all your students to follow along.
My guitar skills are finally getting to the next level that I’ve been searching for.
Please keep on sharing your talents with all of us!
Mike R
So, I haven’t delved deeply in to this lesson yet. But going forward what do people think is the. Best way to approach it. Obviously sound splice section by section is one way. Does anyone just go through and learn the chord progression first. At first glance seems like a fairly long composition. Thanks for your thoughts.
What key am i playing in? (E) That’s the most important question to note first.
What kind of scales fit in with this key? You can run through those scales first as a warm-up before doing anything else.
Are there any special transition chords being used? Yes, in this case there are secondary dominates being used all over the place. If you don’t know what that is. Do a search on it, Brian has several good lessons on it.
I like to know the basic structure of the piece first, so I make notes on it and if there is a backing track, I listen to it and call out the chords as they go by. You might have to slow the track down to give yourself more time to think through it. The idea is to get to know the song structure. In this case, there are secondary dominate chords that are added into the basic structure, so being aware that this can be simplified even more and knowing how any simple progression can be expanded to include these types of chords is really beneficial to get right in your head up front.
First eight bars are the intro part. Then it basically bounces back and forth from I to IV chord. Then in bar 22 the major II chord is used again going to the V chord. Back to I IV I IV and then something interesting happens. The four chord is encircled by G# (same as A flat), and the A#dim7 is half step above the four chord! So those two chords encircle the IV chord. If you don’t know about diminished chords, then you will have to look that up in other lessons.
Learn the song or play the progression as you see fit. There is no right or wrong way to do this. Taking notes and discovering things along the way is very rewarding. If you find a particular lick or bar hard to play, just make note of it, but don’t get hung up on it. Move on to the next part and learn the rest of the song to it’s completion. Now go back and either tackle that hard part or just simplify it such that you can play something easier in it’s place. There is no shame in doing that. It’s better to learn the whole song and play it in time well than fumbling through the hard part.
When I listen to Brian playing it, I can hear and identify the parts of the song after having analyzing it previously. Like the walk up or walk downs are fairly easy to pick out. You should be able to pick out that interesting section (Ab) starting at bar 32 every single time you listen to it. Hope this helps.
This piece is quite complicated to understand fully if you never gone through one of these and picked them apart. If you just want to play the piece and forgo all the analysis, go for it. That’s what I did in the beginning because I was too impatient and I just wanted to play it.
I enjoyed reading your approach to practicing this lesson and found it to be very helpful.
Thanks for that write up, i do know a little about secondary dominate chords, from Brian of course, I’m going to try working through your approach. thanks again
It should be dominant, not dominate, chords, shouldn’t it? I’ve not been getting this wrong all these years!
This is very much a chord-based piece, so learning the chord progression is handy. Just playing it through multiple times with simple chords with maybe a few little improvised embellishments.
On this occasion, as a test for myself, I tried transposing it in my head.
What would that be in, say, the key of C? F – Fm6 – C – A7 – D7 – G7….
By doing this, you’re not just memorising a one-off chord sequence – you’re understanding patterns and relationships that carry across to other pieces. For example, the ‘trick’ of going from the fifth chord of the fifth chord of the fifth chord…(C#7 is the fifth of F#7 which is the fifth of B7 which is the fifth of our tonal centre…E) once you ‘see’ that, the progression becomes simpler to understand.
Hope that helps
When it gets to learning the actual piece in detail – yeah, splitting it into two or three sections is good practice. Normally, I start by dropping the speed right down – maybe 70% or even 60% – to make sure I’m learning it correctly. Then up the speed gradually until 90%. After that, I’ll up it to 120% – or way beyond my capabilities, but getting my brain used to higher speeds. Do this for a few runs then drop it to 100% and it feels a bit more manageable.
Once I’m confident at the piece, I’ll often try and switch back to ‘creative’ mode – trying to come up with my own version.
Love it Brian! Caged system, triads, it’s starting to make sense. I can’t play it fast yet but it’s great! Thanks
Sweet little tune Brian. I will copy down the chord progression; then work on “seeing” the fretboard working through those triad shapes. Thanks, always learning something new!🎶
Can’t get enough of triad and chord tone lessons. Thank you, Brian.
The B6 is also the G minor pentatonic scale (relative minor of B) /
great lesson as usual Brian. even if you talked about traids many times it’s always different and eye opening on new ideas and ways of playing them.
I’ve never saw you with that guitar…it looks like s martin by shape but i cant read the headstock.
Excellent! I sub-titled in my notes “How to add the 2 & 6 ( or 5 of the 5 of the 5 ) to your Blues. Thank you Brian.
Just a fabulous, doable way of looking at things.
I can’t get the 1st position B7/slide through 4th fret A shape/G shape/resolve to the C shape E @ 4th fret, out of my mind.
(Takes a lot longer to write than to play!)
Great lesson! I will be spending a lot of time with this to learn this tune and then a lot more figuring out how to use these concepts in my playing. Hearing a bit of San Francisco Bay Blues in there. Definitely would like more of this type of lesson. Thanks
You know I thought the very same thing.
Love this triad lesson. I reminded me how to look at every triad differently and see all their uses. Such a great lesson. Thanks Brian.
I really like this lesson, the ragtime vibe is great.love it. Also packed with so much in formation,like all your lessons. Thanks for another great opportunity to learn.
I liked the way you navigated through the chord changes.
Hi Brian. I’m a new premium member and truly enjoying all of your lessons and the way you approach continued learning for guitar players. All of the resources add so much to the learning process. I’ve been playing for 5+ years, but I feel like I’m headed towards a new level of playing where I understand some basic music theory and can do more competent soloing. Thanks so much for all the time and effort you put into these lessons. Thanks Again, Tim
That’s really great to hear. Welcome aboard and start showing us your current playing level skills on Showcase your Playing forum section. It will be fun to see your starting point and how much you progress over the next few years. If you have any specific questions about anything just let us know.
Great lesson! Clearly explained and makes so much sense. Its’s nice to come across a lesson where every note and chord is easy to figure out yet really cool sounding. Thanks!
Another excellent stand alone composition! And constructed of triads. Love the Chord structure behind it all.
Every lesson finds yet another way to think about the concepts you bring every week.
Remembering that triads and other chord fragment voicings will represent different chords relative to the chords they are accompanying.
Big Thanks!!
And did I mention that this is a lot of fun to play…….
What a great lesson. I love the mix of blues, jazz, and ragtime style here. At least to my ears. A style I’ve always wanted to become more knowledgeable and experienced with. I’ll be practicing this for quite some time. Thanks!
I agree with Victor and the others, awesome and fun composition! It is so simple in theory, put a bunch of chord triads together, pick a few, strum a few, tie a few together with some runs and wow! Your composition skills are unreal, and what a great piece e to learn from, thanks so much!
Hi Brian,
Thank you so much for your lesson. It’s another one of your signature lessons that works perfectly—for me, at least. I find it very helpful and important when learning anything to first get a broad, general overview, just as you do with the song’s chord structure at the beginning. From the general to the specific. After you introduced the chord structure, you move on to show which “neighborhood” makes sense, sounds good, and is efficient for playing the tune. After that, you go into the fingerings. You also explain the connections between the chord and the corresponding scales (major scale, minor scale, major pentatonic, minor pentatonic, etc.). By now, I understand these connections very well.
Anyone who works through your lessons over time will have you show them these concepts again and again from different perspectives. This time, because you illustrated the secondary dominant chords so clearly at the beginning, I understood that these are also the major chords of the minor chords of the key in which the tune is written. When you’re just starting out, the whole system seems complex. But if you stick with it, with your help you make it easy to understand.
For me, another thing this time was that I especially like your pieces that have a touch of ragtime or jazz. You’re a great teacher.
Georg
I want to sit by a beach and play songs like this all day. I love this sound. I think the minor chords here and there the 6th notes are a big part of it.
And the great thing is once I had a go at playing it, I realised how accessible it is to play, thanks to all the clear instruction I’ve had from this website. What a discovery that this tune isn’t too hard to play even though it sounds so sophisticated.
Very grateful member of Active Melody.
Thanks Brian
Great Lesson Brian! Opened up a whole new light bulb for me! Thank you!
I Love it ,,,he Brian,,,,,,,, little buy little ……….. thanks to you ,i will become a good guitarist., it is so fun
Huub
The meat on this weeks composition is like a big tender pork shank with meat that falls off when you touch it with a fork!
What year and type is your guitar in this one? Really like your lessons and your collection. Would like to hear a little about them. The Odell?
Thanks Brian, the lesson has opened up my eyes to seeing triads. differently. Your lessons and teaching style help me to have those light bulb moments.