Blues Triad Mastery
By Darrin Koltow

"As if there weren't enough articles and lessons on triads already! What...we need another one?" Nah, you don't need the Blues Triad Mastery (BTM) lesson. I created BTM because I wanted to learn triads in a way that was fun for both fingers and ears. I wanted something Bluesey. I wanted to play *music* and not a monotonous, "mah-ching up and down the fretboard" (Say with a Michael Palin accent) lesson as boring as cardboard. I couldn't find a lesson like this, so I wrote one.

What specifically is it?

Blues Triad Mastery is a set of 33 ii-V-I based chord progressions that illustrates each inversion of three of the four fundamental triad types using a melody soaked in the Blues. Here's a summary of the features of BTM:

• Blues-based melody
  
• Musical context: Two-five-one progressions
  
• Triads in all inversions
  
• Frets from 0 to 12, strings high E through D covered
  
• Two types of 251 progressions: target tone and scale-style
  
• 33 progressions, 2 keys: C and F
  
• Major, minor, diminished triads covered
  
• Some augmented chords included
  

If you need more info about BTM or about *any* articles on MaximumMusician.com, visit www.MaximumMusician.com, or send mail here.

How does it help me?

Blues Triad Mastery will enhance your playing so much, you'll have to slap yourself often to make sure you're not dreaming or in Guitar Valhalla. Here are some specific benefits that BTM provides:

• Builds facility with triads in all inversions.
• Shows you how to make triad practice engaging with the Blues.
• Provides the basis for understanding more complex chords.
• Grows your ears by conditioning you to the major, minor, and diminished triads.
• Enhances skill in playing the essential ii-V7-I progression.

Who's it for?

Blues Triad Mastery is intended to help beginning to intermediate level guitarists. But, even advanced guitarists might enjoy and benefit from BTM. Some of the specific skills you'll want to have before tackling this lesson include knowing the notes on the fretboard; understanding some music theory; and feeling comfortable playing shapes all over the fretboard.

Why triads?

Why bother learning triads? What benefits do you get from learning chords with just three notes, when you could learn bigger, more colorful chords? There are lots of reasons to learn triads. First, they make learning more complex chords easier. Visualizing a three note shape is easier than a four or five note shape, and visualizing the note *names* in a triad is also easier compared to chords with more than three notes. And, if you haven't discovered this yet, you will learn that visualizing the many shapes that music takes on the fretboard is a crucial factor in making music well with the guitar. Learning triads help you achieve this visualization.

Don't trust just one source to learn the importance of triads. In guru William Leavitt's vital guitar reference, Modern Guitar Method, Volumes 1, 2 and 3, Leavitt gives triad exercises even in the advanced volumes 2 and 3. This includes 8 separate exercises just in volume 2. That fact *alone* would make knowing triads seem important to me. On WholeNote.com, another important resource for guitarists, about 200 results come back when you enter "triads" in their search engine.

Triads are also important to know when you're reading slash chord notation. Once you know triad shapes well, these shapes will come readily to your mind's eye when you read "Cm/B" or a similar slash chord in sheet music.

The Blues Triad Mastery Approach

The progressions in Blues Triad Mastery are approached in two ways, so you'll be less likely to get stuck knowing just one way to play them. Even so, after you master these progressions, you'll want to write your own triad exercises using new approaches for greater flexibility.

First, we move along each of the top four strings. Starting with the high E string, each inversion of the major triad is played, ascending and descending. Next, we flow melodically, in the same musical phrase, from the major triad to the minor one. We do the same with the minor as we did with the major triad: playing each inversion, ascending and descending the string. After the minor, we flow into the diminished triad. Last, we flow from the diminished back into the major triad.

The second way we approach triad skill building is as follows: we focus on a particular note, which I call a target note; play a major triad with that target note in the top voice of the chord; flow into the minor chord, whose top note will be as close to the major chord's target note as possible; flow from the minor into the diminished, again staying close to the target note; last, flow back into the major chord, into its target note.

Confused? It's okay. Music was meant to be heard, not read about. Listen to an example of these phrases. There's one a bit further down. It appears with the tab.

Why the blues? Why ii-V-I?

In both approaches, a ii-V-I progression is used, and so is the Blues. Why a ii-V-I? It occurs in so many pieces of music, you might almost think you were hearing noise if you heard a tune without a ii-V-I progression in it. In other words, it's so common that you have to know it to achieve mastery of music. The ii-V-I is kind of like the eggs in a cake. You *could* make the cake without the eggs, but I'm not coming to your house to eat it.

Note that the actual progression used is not a ii-V-I, but is related to ii-V-I. We're using a ii-vii-I in these progressions. The V has been swapped out for the vii because the V is a major triad; we already have a major triad in the progression, via the I chord. We'd rather work another triad type, such as the diminished, to avoid using only two of the four triad types. With the ii-vii-I, we still get a ii-V7-I feeling, and we get three of the four triad types.

So, where's the fourth triad type? *What* is the fourth triad type? It's the augmented triad, which does not occur naturally in the major scale, though it does occur in the Melodic Minor scale. I wanted to emphasize the major scale here because of its relatively greater popularity in Western music. Also, learning the augmented chord is a piece of cake once you've learned the other triad shapes. Play the A augmented triad -- notes A, C#, and F -- through each inversion, with the top note on the high E string, and you'll see what I mean. Who says playing guitar is hard?

Why inject the Blues into Blues Triad Mastery? This one is tough to answer because it seems so natural to include the Blues in any kind of practice routine. Going back to the food analogy, the Blues is the butter in "bread and butter." Or, maybe it's the bread. I don't know. In either case, any music exercise becomes engaging the moment you add the Blues to it. I've said it before, but it's worth repeating: the Blues is how you get maximum emotional output of music from minimal physical effort.

Also, knowing where the Blue notes are in *anything* you play is just being practical. Popular music still has a lot of Blues in it. So, if you want to play jazz, rock, bluegrass, or pop, learn as much Blues as you can. More specifically, learn the "Blues potential" of those things you play that don't yet have the Blues in them: scales, chords, etc.

Now that we've outlined what's in the lesson, let's get on with the exercises themselves. First, here are checklists that summarize the main features of each progression. Use these checklists to gauge your progress in working through this lesson. In some cases, there's an extra progression, to cover notes located in open position. Since these notes also appear at fret twelve, an extra progression is written for them.

Here's the checklist for the scale-style or by-string approach.

F Major	String E
	String B
	String G
	String D
C Major	String E
	String B
	String G
	String D

Here's the checklist for the target note approach:

	F major
E string	Key F	Note F
		Note A
		Note C
B string	Key F	Note F
		Note A
		Note C
G string	Key F	Note F
		Note A
		Note C
D string	Key F	Note F
		Note A
		Note C
	C major
E string	Key C	Note C
		Note E
		Note G
B string	Key C	Note C
		Note E
		Note G
G string	Key C	Note C
		Note E
		Note G
D string	Key C	Note C
		Note E
		Note G

Here are two of the tabs. You can listen to the first one by clicking here. Remember to contact me with *any* questions you have about Blues Triad Mastery. Reach me here.

F major, ascending and descending, string 1

Here's an example of the focus note or target note approach. Click the pic to listen.

F, String 1, focus note A

You can find the tab for the remaining exercises on TrueFire.com. When you go to the True Fire site, enter "Blues Triad Mastery" in their search engine to bring up the article. The price is only one dollar -- but it's free when you buy the Guitar Chords guide. Click here for details.

It's important to play each of these progressions smoothly, in time, with a metronome. You can skip around from one progression to another. Each should have the same level of difficulty relative to another. But do complete them all.

If you have any questions about Blues Triad Mastery, contact me here.

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