Stop Memorizing Triads. Do This Instead.

[00:00:00]Stop memorizing triads. It's the fastest way to hit a wall on the guitar. I wasted years trying to memorize every major, minor, augmented, and diminished triad shape, and I was still getting lost. Then I had the aha moment and I stopped looking at triads as shapes and started seeing them as a formula. And it's much simpler than you'd think. All you have to do is master your major triads. That's it. Once you do that and apply this simple formula, you'll already know your minor, augmented, and diminished triads as well. You don't need to memorize a bunch of new shapes.

[00:00:34]You just need to understand this simple triad formula. It's the exact system I use to turn the entire fretboard into a logical map. And real quick, if you want to dive deeper into the ideas I'll be covering in this video, I have an entire course built around this idea. It's linked in the description below. All right, so let's break down this insanely simple triad formula. Now, the secret here is truly mastering your major triads. Now, what I mean by truly mastering them is I don't care if you just know all of your triad shapes on all of the different string sets. That's fine, but you need to understand what's going on inside each one. And I'll get to why in a second. So, for example, what I mean by saying I want you to truly understand what's happening inside your shapes is I want you to know where the root, third, and fifth is in each shape. And there's a really easy kind of cheat code to figuring this out, right?

[00:01:28]Like for example, let's take a C major triad root position on the top three strings. That's G, B, and E strings. 53.

[00:01:38]Now, if I know root position means the root of the chord is the lowest note, well, I already know where my root is.

[00:01:45]There's my root. So, now all I have to do is figure out where my third and my fifth are. And it's going to be one of these two notes, right? And if we know root, third, fifth is 1 3 5. I can count on my fingers. C is 1, D, E is two, F, G is five. So, C, E, and G. Root, third, fifth. If I know the names of the notes on my low E string, I know the names of the notes on the high E string. So I go, oh well, when I play a G chord, I know G is the root. And guess what? G is also on the high E string, third fret. So if I know, okay, I don't know how to figure out the intervals in this. Well, I go, okay, root position triad means the root is lowest note. We said G is the fifth cuz we counted up five. Cde E, F, G.

[00:02:32]Easy. And I know where G is from my low E string. So that means here's my root, here's my fifth, which means E, the third is the last note. So here I have root, third, fifth. Now, why is this important? Well, check this out. Let's say you wanted me to play a C minor chord. Instead of going, "Oh crap, I never really learned my minor. I can't do it." I go, "Wait a minute." The difference between major and minor is you take the third from a major chord and lower it one fret or a half step, right? So I go, oh well, let me apply that formula to my major triad here. So root, 3rd, fifth for my major. And if I want minor, I just take my third one fret down and everything else stays the same.

[00:03:21]Weird. Okay. Wait. Well, what if you said play a C diminished triad? Well, I go, oh, the only difference between major and diminished triads is you take the third down a half step and the fifth down a half step. So, I go, oh, okay.

[00:03:35]Well, here's root, third, fifth, and you're saying the third and the fifth each go down one fret, and the root stays the same.

[00:03:46]Oh, wow. There's my diminished triad.

[00:03:48]And what what about augmented triad?

[00:03:50]Well, that's got to be really hard, right? Well, wait a minute. All augmented means is sharp five or raise the fifth of the chord up a half step.

[00:03:57]So, here again is my major triad. Root, third, fifth. I find my fifth and put it up one fret higher. Everything else stays the same. So, yes, we're using a teeny tiny bit of theory. And if you know zero theory at all, check out my course, Back to Basics, the complete system. There is an entire music theory 101 section that will take you from knowing literally nothing all the way to all your dietonic triads. How to build triads. You'll know everything. Um it's freaking great. Today's lesson is sponsored by my flagship course, Back to Basics, the complete system. Inside this comprehensive course, you'll master what I call the core five. It's going to be your triads, scales, arpeggios, seventh chords, and inversions. Now, these are the fundamental building blocks that most guitar players struggle to truly understand. Most importantly, I'll show you exactly how to apply each of these concepts in real music. You'll play through tons of guided jam sessions with me so you can hear these ideas in real musical context instead of just memorizing patterns. We'll also dive into many of my proven systems such as the pentatonic triad system and the anchor technique and so much more. If you're serious about finally understanding the fretboard and taking your guitar playing to the next level, check out Back to Basics, the complete system. It's going to be linked below in the description. So that being said, if I know my major triads, right? For example, here's my root position. Maybe we move up to first inversion. Again, those top three strings. Here I am at 988.

[00:05:24]Well, if I know first inversion means the third of the chord is the lowest note. I already know there's my third.

[00:05:32]Great. Now I just have to figure out where my root and my fifth is. And I'm going to again gravitate towards that high E string because I know the names of the notes on the low E string. And I go, "Oh, wait a minute. Well, that's C.

[00:05:43]So if this is my third for first inversion, this is my root. That means my fifth is right here." So here I have third fifth root. Okay. Incredible. Now tell me to play anything. Oh, you want minor? Okay. Well, I just take my major triad, find my third, which I know is right here because first inversion again means the third is the lowest note. And I just lower that third one fret.

[00:06:08]Easy. Oh, you want diminished? Let me lower that fifth as well. Fifth down one fret.

[00:06:15]Easy. Oh, you want it uh augmented? I'd find my fifth and raise it one fret.

[00:06:21]There it is. Now, this will work anywhere on the neck. It doesn't matter where you're playing your triads. If you know your major triads, you will know all of these as long as you know where your intervals are. I cannot stress enough, knowing your intervals is going to change your life, specifically in your major triads. And again, you already know 33.3% of the intervals already just because if you know root position means the root is the lowest note, first inversion means the third is the lowest note, and second inversion means the fifth is the lowest note, right? So, you already have like most of the information at hand. So all you really need to do, especially if you already know all of your triad inversions, going back and assigning the mental image of these intervals is going to change your freaking life. Okay, so again, what I used to do is I'd say, "Okay, here's my major triads." And then I spent like the next month trying to memorize like, okay, like all my minor shapes. Oh no, like where is it? And it took so much time. And then I was like, I still have augmented and diminished to do. This is so overwhelming. Real quick, we're less than 5,000 subscribers away from 100,000, which is insane. So, if you haven't hit that subscribe button, please do. It's a great free way to support the channel and keep more videos like this coming at you. And then I said, wait a minute. If I if I know the crap out of my major triads, then everything else stems from the major triad. I just move one or two notes, right? And you might say, well, this is going to take forever and it's going to be so impossible. But as soon as you visualize it, you can see it, right? For example, if I say, "Close your eyes and picture the A minor pentatonic scale right now." Right? You can close your eyes and you can literally see.

[00:08:09]Right? Now, what if I said, "Okay, visualizing that scale, when you play the fourth note, I want you to play it one fret lower." You go, "Okay, easy.

[00:08:18]Well, 1 2 3 4. Here's the fourth note, and I'll play that one fret lower." So I just get, see, we're taking something we know and we're just manipulating it ever so slightly. Right? So the great thing about knowing your intervals is a you get the superpower of being able to literally play any triad quality, major, minor, augmented, diminished at will.

[00:08:40]You can instantly do it and you don't need to spend all these hours learning these shapes because to me that's just a trap. I remember there was a time when I was at Berkeley where I was spending so many hours, thousands of hours memorizing all these triad shapes and I was killing it in the practice room and then as soon as I'd get on stage or in my ensemble or just jamming with people, we'd be in a new key, we'd be in the key of F sharp or E flat and I would just all of my knowledge would go out the window, right? So once I made it much smaller and said, I just have to worry about major triads here. Done. Easy, cheesy, breezy, beautiful covergirl.

[00:09:16]Super simple, right? So, the last one I guess we didn't really look at was second inversion up here, right? And this is again top three strings. 12 13 12. Second inversion means the fifth is the lowest note. So, I just have to find my root and my third now. And if we use that high E string, well, there's E, which is our third, which leaves the root to be that last note on the B string. So, here I have fifth, root, third. And again, I want to make this minor. Uh, let's make that third one fret lower. Everything else stays the same. We want to make it diminished, we take that fifth down a half step. We want to make it augmented, we go back here, second inversion. The fifth is going to go up one fret.

[00:10:02]Right? So, the beauty here again is this will work on any of the string sets. So, it doesn't matter which string set you're playing your triads on. It could be absolutely anywhere. And you're going to be able to go, okay, well, here is my C first inversion. I want to play C minor. Lower that third.

[00:10:21]And it's right there. Right? And again, the more you practice this, the faster your brain will just go done. Got it.

[00:10:27]Easy. You're going to visualize that major shape and calculate which note has to move up or down. And you're done. And you know them all. And there you go.

[00:10:35]That this is not only going to help your rhythm playing tremendously, but it's also going to help you play way better lead lines. Okay, if you've seen my lesson on the pentatonic triad system, which is where we superimpose our triad shapes over our minor pentatonic box, for example, knowing how to manipulate maybe there's a four minor in that song and you're like, well, I don't know that minor triad inversion, but I know the major.

[00:11:04]Oh, well, guess what? Now you can solo, right? It's all the same stuff, guys.

[00:11:19]Triads are so freaking awesome and so freaking important and they will change your life. So, put the work in here.

[00:11:25]This is really worth your time. Yes, it's not the sexy like you're going to be able to do this in five minutes kind of guitar lesson, but if you put a week, a month, you know, two, three months of practice into this, you're going to be rewarded for the rest of your life.

[00:11:38]Okay? This is something that I truly wholeheartedly use every single time I pick up the guitar and I'm very happy to share it with you. If you liked it, please leave a like, subscribe to this video. Again, we're so close to 100,000 subscribers. Maybe if you're seeing this video and there's 100,000 subscribers now, hell yeah, we did it. I can't wait.

[00:11:55]Um, thank you for being here and I'll see you next