Tag Archives: Triads

Introduction to Triad Pairs on Bass Guitar – Bass Practice Diary 90

January 7, 2020 jccoxjazzbass 3 Comments

Introduction to Triad Pairs on Bass Guitar – Bass Practice Diary – 7th January 2020

This week I want to introduce some basic triad pairs exercises. The basic concept of playing triad pairs on bass is that you take two triads (three note chords) that don’t have any notes in common. Meaning that you have six different notes. And then you use those triads to makes lines and exercises.

Why use triad pairs?

Triad pairs are now a really common concept in jazz improvisation. But it’s not only jazz musicians that use them. You can apply triad pairs to almost any genre of music. They work particularly well for improvisation, but you can also use them to write bass lines.

This week, I’m only going to introduce the most basic form of triad pairs. Which is when you take two major triads that are spaced a tone apart. The reason for spacing them a tone apart, is because the triads function like chords IV and V in a major key. So you can use these kind of lines in any major key by transposing the two triads to the notes of chords IV and V in the key.

The exercises

All of these exercises are played using the triads C major and D major. Which are chords IV and V in the key of G major. But that doesn’t mean that you can only use these in the key of G major. There are all kinds of interesting and creative applications of triad pairs which I’ll try and cover in my future videos.

There are three obvious ways to voice a triad (inversions). You can put the root at the bottom, the 3rd at the bottom or the 5th at the bottom. This first exercise demonstrates those three different inversions, which you need to learn really well if you’re going to get good at playing these exercises. Bar 1 uses the root position triads for both C and D and then bar 2 uses the 1st inversion and bar 3 uses the second inversion.

Triad Pairs - Exercise 1 — Triad Pairs – Exercise 1

This next exercise uses a similar idea, but with triplets. So, you play three notes on each triad rather than four.

Triad Pairs - Exercise 2 — Triad Pairs – Exercise 2

Finally, here is a pattern that plays four notes on C and then three on D.

Triad Pairs - Exercise 3 — Triad Pairs – Exercise 3

The purpose of playing patterns like this one in exercise 3, is that it helps to make the exercise sound less like a pattern. If you’re playing triad pairs in an improvised solo, and you play three notes up and three notes down, like exercise 2. It will very quickly sound like you’re playing a repeating pattern. That’s ok if it’s the sound you want. But, if you want to make it sound less like a pattern, then a pattern with an odd number sequence (three then four) will create a less predictable feel when played as part of a solo.

PLAYING CHORDS ON THE BASS – PART 3 – TRIADS

Bass Blog

Triads Exercise on Six String Bass – Bass Practice Diary 60

June 11, 2019 jccoxjazzbass

Triads Exercise on Six String Bass – Bass Practice Diary – 11th June 2019

This is a triads exercise that I’ve adapted onto bass guitar from something that I saw the guitarist Pat Metheny play. The original version of the exercise came from this video.

He doesn’t start playing the triads until about 3 minutes into the video. And it isn’t clear if he’s improvising or playing an exercise that he’s previously practiced. But I thought it sounded great and it looked like a great way to practice triads and their inversions. So I adapted a short section of what he played onto my six string bass and I’ve turned it into an exercise.

Triads and their inversions

A triad is a three note chord. The obvious way to arrange a triad in root position is root, third, fifth. Then you can play two inversions, third, fifth, root and fifth, root, third.

But that’s not necessarily the best way to play them on fretted instruments like guitars and basses. In this exercise, when Metheny plays a root position triad, he skips the third and goes straight to the fifth. Then he plays the third up an octave, a tenth above the root note. So using this arrangement, the three inversions of the triads are root, fifth, third. Then third, root, fifth and finally fifth, third, root.

Below is an Ab major triad and a Bb minor triad arranged in this way on four string bass.

There are two other common types of triad, diminished and augmented. These are actually much simpler to play because they’re symmetrical. Meaning that they use the same interval over and over. Diminished arpeggios divide the octave up into four minor third intervals and augmented arpeggios divide the octave into three major third intervals. Which is why there are four inversions of the diminished triad below but only three of the augmented triad.

The Exercise

This is the exercise. It mostly uses the major triads and the inversions. But there are a few minor and diminished triads. There are no augmented triads in this exercise. I’ve written the chords on top to help you keep track of which chord you’re playing.

Bass Blog

Playing Chords on the Bass – Part 3 – Triads

February 21, 2014 jccoxjazzbass 1 Comment

Learn to Play Chords on the Bass – Part 3 – Triads

In this video lesson you’ll learn how to play triads on bass guitar. There are four different types of triad. I’ll explain what they are and then how to play them.

Triads, what are they and how do you play them?

In part 3 we’re going to look at how to play triads on the bass. They are simple three note chords that form a foundation for a lot of extended harmony. Before we can go on to explore chord extensions it’s really important to understand triads.

There are essentially four types of triad. Major, minor, diminished and augmented. So, example 1 contains an example of each triad. In this example they all have the root note C.

Of these four, major and minor are by far the most common and will be the ones we use the most.

Harmonising scales using triads

We can harmonise scales into triads. In part one we harmonised scales into intervals of a third. A triad is two intervals of a third stacked together. By which I mean, you take a root note, find a note that is a third above it and then another note which is a third above again. The three notes of a triad are often referred to as the root, the third(an interval of a third above the root) and the fifth (an interval of a third above the third and an interval of a fifth above the root).

You’ll find that when you harmonise a major scale into triads you’ll get seven chords, three major (chords I, IV & V), three minor (chords II, III and VI) and one diminished triad (chord VII). In example 2 there’s a G major scale harmonised into triads played in root position. Meaning that the root note is the lowest of the three notes.

In the previous example we refer to these chords as root position because we’ve arranged each triad in a neatly stacked order with the root at the bottom and the third and the fifth stacked on top of it. If we change the order of these notes to make either the third or the fifth the lowest note then we have what we call an “Inversion”. There are only two possible ways to invert a triad. First of all put the third at the bottom as in Example 3.

Triad inversions

Then put the fifth at the bottom as in Example 4.

Example 5 is an E major scale harmonised in first inversion triads.

Finally example 6 is a D major scale harmonised using the second inversion.

Harmonising minor scales

If you harmonise a melodic minor scale into triads you get two minor chords, two major chords, two diminished chords and one augmented triad. So, in example 7 there’s a G melodic minor scale harmonised using root position triads.

Now move on to Playing Chords on the Bass – Part 4 – Chord Extensions. You’ll learn how we can add extensions to the triads so you can make more interesting sounding chords.

Johnny Cox Music