Triad Chord Connections - Short Guitar Tutorial With Free PDF

What's A Triad?

Triads are made of three notes stacked together. They consist of a root (1 or R) with two other notes (basically the third and the fifth) a third away one from each other.

These notes can be played one by one or together. Knowing triads is very important because they are the backbone of chords, the simplest form of a harmonic structure in music.

What Are The Main Types Of Triads?

There four most important types of triads corresponding to the four main families of chords are :

• Major triads built with root (1), major third (3), perfect fifth (5).
• Minor triads built of root (1), minor third (b3), perfect fifth (5).
• Augmented triads made of root (1), major third (3), augmented fifth (#5).
• Diminished triads built with root (1), minor third (b3) and diminished fifth (b5).

Two other types of triads are also important to know. They are called Suspended Chords, the third is replaced by the second (2) or the fourth (4) :

• Suspended second triads (sus2) are built with root (1), second (2), perfect fifth (5).
• Suspended fourth triads are built of root (1), perfect fourth (4) and perfect fifth (5).

Here below you'll find four exercises with some movable close position triad chord shapes to illustrate this.

Triad Connections

Here are four easy exercises to practice the six types of triads previously discussed. The principle being to move only one note (when possible) from one chord to the other.

That gives the following sequence Augmented ⇒ major ⇒ minor ⇒ diminished ⇒ suspended second ⇒ suspended fourth ⇒ major. This sequence is repeated on four different string sets that are :

1. EBG
2. BGD
3. GDA
4. DAE

Exercise #1 - Strings 123

Here the triads are voiced with the tonic on the top of the chord, so on the first string (E) of the guitar. It's what gives chords with the third in the bass except for the two suspended triads (sus2 and sus4) that have the second and fourth in the bass.

The triad chord progression is Gaug/B, G/B, Gm/Bb, Gdim/Bb, Gsus2/A, Gsus4/C and once again G/B to end it.

Notice that bass names (slash chords) are not mentioned in the tab. 

Exercise #2 - Strings 234

Here are the same triads voiced differently, on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th string. The root note being now in the bass and on the fourth string. Thus giving Gaug, G, Gm, Gdim, Gsus2, Gsus4 and G.

Exercise #3

Herein the triads all have the fifth in the bass, on the fifth string, giving the progression Gaug/D#, G/D, Gm/D, Gdim/Db, Gsus2/D, Gsus4/D and G/D.

Exercise #4

In this last exercise, the bass note of the triads is the third, except for the suspended chords. The chord sequence is Gaug/B, G/B, Gm/Bb, Gdim/Bb, Gsus2/A, Gsus4/C and G/B again.

You are now normally able to play the six main types of triads on the same location on the guitar. You can now try to transpose all this chords anywhere on the guitar neck without forgetting to name them.