Ideas for starting to target chord tones in lead guitar (Triads)

[close2u]

Holding

[close2u]

Following on from this post which was specifically in response to a comment by Balamuthiah, I thought some other members might benefit from these simple steps to learning how to incorporate the magical art of targeting chord tones in lead guitar.

Soloing with the approach of targeting chord tones.
First, you need to know the notes (triads will work) of the chords in the progression. These will become your target notes, comfortable landing places when the chords are changing. So for your chosen chord progression / backing track, chart the chords as triads on the top three strings. Visualise the five moveable CAGED barre shapes and just mark the notes on the G, B & E strings. If you know your intervals, mark the root and the 3rd and 5th too. Definitely the root. Have these neck diagrams in sight when playing.

Here are some examples.

1] Triads for a progression using the I V vi IV chords in C [chords C G Am F]

2] Triads for a progression using the I V vi IV chords in G [chords G D Em C]

3] Triads for a progression using the I V vi IV chords in D [chords = D A Bm G]


The sort of backing track that will work best with this will have only three or four chords, be fairly slow and perhaps hold each chord for two bars. Here are three lengthy backing tracks following the famous and ubiquitous 4-chord progression I - V - vi - IV (as made infamous by Axis of Awesome).

Backing in C [chords C G Am F]


Backing in G [chords G D Em C]


Backing in D [chords D A Bm G]

To begin, play just one note per bar of the progression.

Start with the root note of each chord as it comes around. Just the root. Play the root of the chords on just one string at a time to begin. If there is a repeat above and below the 12th fret play both. Then mix it up and start to play the root on any of the three strings. Get used to where the roots are. Practice to the point where you can play the roots of each chord in turn without making large jumps up or down the neck, allowing your hand to stay in position.

Then repeat but with either the 3rd or the 5th.

Then repeat but play any two notes per bar over the chords, root & 3rd, root & 5th, 3rd & 5th.

Then repeat and extend the idea. Make up a little run of 3 or 4 notes that either start and / or end on the root note of each chord per bar. You could progress to runs, licks & phrases. For now, still limit your choice to notes that are only from the triads – the root, 3rd and 5th.

Note – for minor chords, the 3rd is a b3rd.

Try this for a few weeks over a variety of backing tracks in different keys.



 

[Balamuthiah]

Thank you Close! Just the motivation I need!

[close2u]

You're welcome Bala. I have made a couple of amendments (paragraph concerning root notes).
 

[Garfield]

Thanks for this close. I've been practising triads but not like this. I'll give this a whirl with these backing tracks.

Sent from my [device_name] using JustinGuitar Community mobile app

[tobyjenner]

Richard

This looks a really useful exercise. I've been working on Blues Lead 1 reasonable intensively the last 5-6 weeks and I think this will also help me considerably, as I get more into exploring Lead.

Definitely going to add this to my schedule, even for just one or two spins of the BTs to start with.

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers

Toby
 

[close2u]

@ Garfield @ Toby
Thanks. Let us know how you get on.
 

[close2u]

The major focus in using these practice ideas to begin with is to identify and play the all defining triad notes of each chord in a progression. By definition these chord tones will bring a harmonic quality to your playing. It is more than just the notes, you also need to be thinking about the attack on each note, the phrasing etc.

To help develop further, you will want to add spice to the recipe. Chord tones are wonderful, and their beauty is enhanced further when accompanied by additional ingredients. So you want to slowly start to bring in these spices in the form of notes from an appropriate scale.


If you are looking at playing bluesy, this would involve using notes from a simple pentatonic scale. So you would mix and match between playing a short phrase using some chord tones in with some notes from a pentatonic scale and add to that some out-and-out blues licks.


If you are looking at playing pop / rock / melodic music this could involve using notes from a full 7-note scale. For the progressions above the Major scale works great. So you could continue playing short phrases with lots of attention on hitting those target notes, the chord tones, and add in some extra spice by playing quick runs, phrases, licks using small sections of nearby notes from the Major scale.


In all of this work, it will benefit you to also think about your phrasing - bending, sliding, hammer-ons, pull-offs, attack, dynamics etc.


I have made up an additional neck diagram to complement those linked on Dropbox above. This shows the four triads for G, D, Em and C as before, but now with the notes from the G Major scale also shown alongside all of those triad shapes. It is here


[edit - I have now made new diagrams relevant to all three keys used as examples - see down below in the thread]

[DavidP]

Good vibes to you, Richard.

Much food for thought here.  Reminds me of the posts you wrote some time back inspired by Maggie's post of the Chet Atkins video ... chord tones in C using open to 4th fret.

Thanks again for taking time to help us all out.

[Edwin010]

Great, tnx!

[tobyjenner]

Thanks for those diagrams Richard, they are a useful aid. I'm pretty comfortable with notes on the neck and more importantly their positional relationship (5th over R/1st, 3rd 1 down 1 back, adjust for B) etc but having these visible while doing these exercises will be beneficial.

If you are looking at playing pop / rock / melodic music this could involve using notes from a full 7-note scale. For the progressions above the Major scale works great. So you could continue playing short phrases with lots of attention on hitting those target notes, the chord tones, and add in some extra spice by playing quick runs, phrases, licks using small sections of nearby notes from the Major scale.

For me this will be the next step to focus on after the Blues Lead courses. But an additional 5-10 minutes of this Major scale work should help me mix things up in the future. At the moment my biggest issue is speed, as I make Slow Hand Clapton look like a super shredder!! 

[DavidP]

At the moment my biggest issue is speed, as I make Slow Hand Clapton look like a super shredder!! 

LMAO ... classic Toby 

[close2u]

Update:

I have now created new charts to complement each of the three sets of triad groups in the keys of C, D and G that show the triads (chord tones) surrounded by the notes of the respective Major scales on the G, B and E strings only.

key of C

key of G

key of D

[close2u]

Reminds me of the posts you wrote some time back inspired by Maggie's post of the Chet Atkins video ... chord tones in C using open to 4th fret.

Thanks David. Here is that thread should anyone not have seen it or lost its whereabouts.


@ Edwin. You're welcome.

@ Toby. It's not how fast you play or how many notes you squeeze in. It's what you do with the notes that you do play. Tour expressiveness, your phrasing, your style.

[CT]

Cool beans!

What is the reason for not including (at least) the D string in the charts? Some of the most useful and easy to learn triads are the A shaped chords up and down the neck. You would pick up the 5th just by adding the D string, instead of having to (always) pick up the 5th on the high e two frets lower. Having both voicings under your fingers is a good thing to have.

[close2u]

Cool beans!

What is the reason for not including (at least) the D string in the charts?

I will come to those in the fullness of time ... or sooner!
I agree, the triads on D, G and B strings are wonderful too.
The idea here though is to make easy beginner steps without overloading and giving too much too learn all at once.

[edited with additions below]
I could have chosen the D, G, B strings rather than the G, B, E strings.
I suppose I  could have made it way simpler too by restricting the first step to learning just one movable triad shape to use. This could have been an A shape on D, G, B strings or a D shape on G, B, E strings.

That sort of restriction would have made the very first steps on this route even easier to navigate.
So, for those still struggling to make use of more than one triad shape at a time when you're starting, limit yourself. For a major or minor chord, play just the D-shape major or minor triad. And prepare to make big jumps as you move around the neck on the chord changes.
Then do similar with a different triad shape.

[tobyjenner]

Richard

Thinks this is going to be a lot of fun. Wife's not too good this evening, so guitar's taking a back seat, as even unplugged she can hear me banging away on the electrics.

So fired up one of my PC Virtual Keyboard/Pianos apps and Youtoob.

As I am not an organist and playing via the 'puter keyboard, finding the 3rds and 5ths took a while but this immediately shouts "good note" hey it shouts "very bad note" even louder.

Spent a few minutes in each interval and then intuitively started adding climbs in 3rds and semitone walk downs. Found me some music, even if it was a rough as a lump of 4 by 4 round the back of your head.

Looking forward to pluggin in and cranking up with the phones tomorrow. Will keep it simple for starters but then try some of the non chord tones to see what fits, what doesn't and how it changes the mood. For example whenever I accidentally fall a 2nd interval over most chords, it sounds like a serial killer.

So basics first then experiment.

Cheers

Toby
 

[close2u]

@ Toby … that's right, simple to start.


Before spending time on these practice exercises, you can prepare a little with some warm-ups that will benefit in a specific and general sense too.

If you're going to play, for example, over a backing track in D (triads D, A, Bm, G).

a] Find and play all the root notes of the I, IV, V and vi chords on all 6 strings using the '1st-finger only technique' as taught by Justin. You will be learning to find the notes all over the neck. This will set you up to be able to more easily locate the root notes of the triads when targeting chord tones.

b] Play the D Major scale up and down using alternate picking in each of the five CAGED positions. This will give you an immediate connection between the triads you're going to play, the other D Major scale notes that link them together and an overview of the key you're playing in.

c] Play the triads through several repetitions of a short progression, as mini-chords either strummed or arpeggiated, changing the position and fingering freely at will ranging across all parts of the neck. This will help familiarise yourself with the entire triad shape as a whole before you begin targeting and playing individual notes from them.

Additional ideas.

Start each session of targeting the chord tones over your backing track of choice by going back to the very first exercise of playing the root note only over each chord when it comes along. Use this to reinforce the root note sound and positions. Also use it to practice your single note vibrato technique.


When playing short runs and phrases around the target notes, try to develop a motif for the tonic chord (of say a handful of notes including the target note root, 3rd or 5th) and repeat it, or small variations of it, on the other chords. In this way you will be starting to play lead lines that have connecting themes and ideas that are telling a story and connecting back to each other.
For example:

R  *  *  R  *  3rd

where * are other notes drawn from the Major scale not in the triads.

[close2u]

Also remember that although I have given these triads as sitting within Major scale progressions starting on the I with the related Major scale notes all along the G, B and E strings, you can just as easily think of 4-chord progressions staring on the vi minor chord and view the notes from the Major (Ionian) scales notes as notes from the Minor (Aeolian) scales too.
(All the grey notes on my neck diagrams)
C Major notes = A minor notes
G Major notes = E minor notes
D Major notes = B minor notes

[tobyjenner]

Richard

You asked for feedback/progress. Spent about 15 minutes with the Key of C progression this evening. Earlier in the wet and windy day I'd quickly knocked up some Arpeggios tracks in Guitar Pro - All 5 patterns for major and minor shapes in A, then 3 tracks containing the Arpeggios for each of the backing track chord progressions around the 7th to 10th fret, as it seemed like a comfortable place to start. Plus Justin's Arpeggio lessons focuses on M7 m7 Dom7 m7b5 and Dim7, so thought I'd create my own for M and m.

So before starting the exercise here, I picked out the arpeggios for the Key of C track ( C G Am F) without the backing track, just simple 4ths E to e to E, then just G B e B G for a few cycles to get a feel for what was to come in the backing track.

Then over the BT I tried just hitting the chord roots as the progression rolled round and then moved onto some simple picking patterns before ending in emulating some 16th note strumming patterns. All very vanilla with just the root but it shouts loud that these notes are right to play over the chords.

Then did the same with just thirds for a bit. Need to check Am as the C sounded off over the BT, sure I was on point but to my ears it sounded a little off. But the other 3rds were cool.

Next session I'll check and repeat the 3rds and then play just the 5ths. And see how that pans out. After that the next session I'll play a mix of I-III-V again just on G B e. Then I'll look to messing with other 3 string combos.

Despite being in the middle of the Blues Lead 1, I've just started looking at arpeggios as a follow up to Master The Major Scale. So the GP7 tracks I've created can not only be converted to a PDF for visual reference, they also show me the I-III-V and I-bIIII-V combination on the other 3 string clusters or across strings if I want to complicate matters. So its a visual aid for the future and I suspect, from your additional comments, the direction you are heading in, with this thread.

A good level of distortion and gain helped the exercise by increasing the sustain and allowing notes to ring out over the chords. But I also found that the 16th note RUST patterns help my picking speed, all be it on single strings'

So all in all the thread has been beneficial and looks like it will boost my lead and impro "skills".

Looking forward to the next instalment.

Cheers

Toby
 

[batwoman]

Richard ... such generosity. Thankyou for the time you've given, for your generous sharing of knowledge, for solid methodology.

Sent from my [device_name] using JustinGuitar Community mobile app

[close2u]

Thanks for the thanks batwoman.
It is time consuming creating all these neck diagrams and writing what I hope is a useful and clear resource to study and learn from.

[close2u]

Small update:

I have edited post 1 and intend indexing the various key aspects / resources.

I have edited the neck diagrams to extend up to the 18th fret. The links to dropbox are the same as before.
This might seem an arbitrary cut-off given most guitars have at least 21 frets - but who plays beyond fret 15 eh!

Given the patterns repeat from fret 12 I considered stopping there but thought it might be useful to see the actual repeats visually on screen (on paper if you print out).

[Sweed77]

This is really great stuff close.  Thank you so much for sharing 

Good vibes!

[close2u]

Next steps …

Triads on the D, G and B strings.

As before I have limited the selection to just three keys and only the triads for the I, IV, V and vi chords of those keys.

[ I will post generic triad diagrams for the six most commonly used chords soon ]

As before, the first step will be to familiarise yourself with the shapes of these triads, especially where their root notes are.
So follow a similar process to the earlier suggested steps:
playing the triads, targeting the roots, targeting the 3rds, targeting the 5ths, playing simple 2-note phrases, playing longer phrases of only triad notes, playing phrases incorporating scale notes in addition to the triad notes etc etc.

Here are the diagrams.

First - just the triads on the D, G and B strings.

1] Triads for a progression using the I V vi IV chords in C [chords C G Am F]

2] Triads for a progression using the I V vi IV chords in G [chords G D Em C]

3] Triads for a progression using the I V vi IV chords in D [chords = D A Bm G]

Second, the triads on the D, G and B strings surrounded by notes from the Major scale the four chords belong to.

1] Triads for a progression using the I V vi IV chords in C with notes of the C Major Scale shown[chords C G Am F]

2] Triads for a progression using the I V vi IV chords in G with notes of the G Major Scale shown[chords G D Em C]

3] Triads for a progression using the I V vi IV chords in D with notes of the D Major Scale shown[chords = D A Bm G]

Try this for a few weeks over a variety of backing tracks in different keys.
And again - take your time developing this. It is not a race and slow, deliberate use of the techniques will help them become an easily found tool in your bag of tricks.