E Blues Triads made easy
For some guitar players the following article, tab and notation could be some of the most useful material that you have got their hands on in a long time. Don’t be fooled by the simpleness of it. When the penny drops and the light comes on it will open up a whole new way of playing and enable you to relax as a guitar player.
A lot of guitar players think that jazz guitart is hard. Well it’s only hard if you’ve got someone making it that way for you, it’s really quite simple when it’s all broken down and taught by a sensible human. Often it’s what you leave out in music that makes it sound better. It’s very easy to overplay, to use everything you know in the one song, lots of players do that.
I wasn’t planning to write this article today but somehow, I found myself lying on the couch and I was contemplating anything but music, whilst I was lying there a thought came into my head that there are lots of players that could use this bit of information that I’m about to share but don’t know how to go about it or probably hadn’t even considered it.
Now I’ll make this clear, YOU DON’T NEED TO PLAY JAZZ to use the information that comes out of that style of music. The great guitarist / guitar teacher Ike Isaacs used to stress that. He’d often asked me to play my open-tuning guitar compositions for him that I had written.
What I used a lot when working with other players was TRIADS, these are three note chords that contain the general sound of a chord. Triads are useful because they have a lot of bounce in them, it’s very easy to move from chord to chord, and the main thing is when you play you aren’t hogging all the musical frequencies. It’s nice to create space so the other players can be heard, also it’s easier to add little fills and move from one chord above or below.
So, what I’ve done here is I’ve taken a simple twelve (12) bar blues chord pattern and played only three note chords (triads) . There’s nothing fancy here, just one chord played on the first beat every bar and held for 4 beats.
E.G. Chord 2 3 4 Chord 2 3 4.
I play this sort of thing fingerstyle, but that’s not so important, you could use your thumb, pick or chopstick if you wanted to. Just avoid the open strings or deaden out any string that gets in the way by gently laying a left hand (lefties use the other other please) finger on it or gently bump it with a spare finger.
If you are not used to using triads, get used to it. a friend of mine was runner up in a guitar competition when he was about 20, this guy is a very scary player, the competition had Jeff Skunk Baxter on the panel; a year or so later when I showed him how to use a number of triads it blew his brain and revolutionized his playing. I have the philosophy that you can learn from everyone.
To download the free printable pdf file click the link >>> E blues guitar triads made simple
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