As a guitarist, it is essential that you learn chords within the scale to produce more harmonious sounds.
To demonstrate this point, take one of your powerful chords and play a scale over it – the top notes in the scale will match up perfectly with those found within your chord.
Major Triads
Triads can be created on each note of a major scale by stacking roots, major thirds and perfect fifths together – producing closed chords which can be inverted; this type of chord is usually labeled with its letter name as well as whether its quality (major, minor or diminished).
Understanding triads is integral to learning chord theory. Acquiring this knowledge will enable you to better comprehend other forms of chords such as dominant 7#5 chords or dominant 13th chords.
One key thing to keep in mind when learning major triads is their perfect fifth intervals, so familiarizing yourself with how they appear on the fretboard will be essential in identifying these intervals easily. Luckily, their shapes repeat up and down the fretboard; similar chord forms appear in CAGED system guitar chords; once familiar with them it should become easier than ever to learn major triads.
Minor Triads
The minor triad is the next step towards learning more complex chords. Like its major counterpart, it contains three unique notes that comprise one chord; making it an excellent place to begin studying more intricate ones.
Create a minor triad by beginning with the tonic note of any scale and adding its third and fifth degrees, making it easy to remember and quickening chord construction.
Minor triads differ from major triads in that their individual intervals can either be major or minor – this determines their chord quality and so it is crucial that all minor triad shapes up and down the fretboard are regularly practiced.
Keep in mind that even though diagrams display which string groups each triad resides on, it is equally essential to practice playing them across all strings. This will allow you to develop fingering patterns as well as move these triad shapes around the fretboard with ease.
Dominant Triads
The fifth degree of a major scale is called the dominant because it gives chords a strong sound, as well as co-occurring with major triads which creates natural resolution to their tonic chords.
A major triad is composed of a root note, major third note and perfect fifth tone. While it can be found in any triad shape, C7 is the most frequently seen example. Note that C7 may also be played using D triad but with B as the voicing.
Learn the CAGED system chord shapes so you’ll be comfortable moving them up and down the neck, using their root notes as visual anchor points and developing an awareness of progression between chords and scales – this will enable you to match melodies, licks and improvisations effectively. To test this theory out for yourself, play a chord progression then play its scale back again to check how well they match up.
Sus4 Triads
If your melody focuses heavily on tonic notes, which could cause them to clash with chord thirds, a sus4 triad (Gsus4) may help alleviate that conflict by replacing its third with a flat 5. By switching out third for flat 5, this approach removes clashes while complementing melody more efficiently.
Sus4 chords are a staple of jazz, funk and soul music. Easy to form on the fretboard using both open and closed chord forms, these versatile chords can even be moved around by adding additional notes for spread triads.
V-position chord progressions use V chords to build tension before returning back to the tonic of a key; for instance, Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love uses an ascending sequence of Dsus4 and Dmaj7 chords before building up energy in its chorus before returning back to its tonic chord; similarly, The Who’s Pinball Wizard begins with such chords before progressing downward into sus4-maj7 progressions.