Ok, so, now that you’ve gotten familiar with the G triad and its inversions in my first guitar lesson on triads, we’re going to start talking about using the exact same chord voicings (major triads on strings 2-4) to play a chord progression. As an example, I will show you how to mix up the triad voicings to come up with some cool ways of playing a I-IV-V chord progression in the key of G. If you’re unfamiliar with the roman numeral system of numbering chords, that will be coming up in a future lesson! For right now, you just need to know that the chord progression will be: G-C-D.

By the way, in case you’ve come across this lesson from somewhere other than my website, you can find out more about me and my guitar lesson studio in Chicago here: Guitar Lessons Chicago.

Using the Triad Voicings to Play Other Chords
As I mentioned above we’re going to work on playing a G-C-D chord progression using the triad voicings that I introduced in the last lesson. First, let’s look at where all of the triads would be for those three chords. In the music below, I’ve written out all three voicings (root position + both inversions) going up and then down the guitar neck. For each chord, I started on the lowest inversion that you can play on the guitar. So, the C and D triads start on the 1st inversion. Play these chords up and down the neck until they are comfortable and familiar. Try using what we covered in the last lesson to be able to see where the individual notes are at in each inversion of each chord. Because there are 3 different options for each chord, it can be difficult to see where the inversions of each chord are on the guitar. Working on this exercise until it becomes easy to play and visualize will help with that and will get you ready for the next step, which will be using the triads to play the chord progression in a more musical way. Practice this until you’re able to play it smoothly and in time.

G, C, and D triads up and down the neck

Mixing it Up!
Once you feel comfortable playing up and down the voicings for each triad above, the next step is to be able to mix up the inversions freely. It will be most beneficial for you to explore these chords on your own and try to connect different triads while playing through a chord progression. To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, I’ve written an example of mixing up these triad voicings to play the chord progression G-C-D-C. As you’ll see, some of the chord voicings are an octave above what is written in the example above. Keep in mind that this is just an example to give you an idea of what’s possible. In addition to playing through it, make sure to experiment on your own with using these chords over this chord progression, or any other.

Example of mixing up the triad voicings

To Sum Up…
This second guitar lesson on triads concludes our study of the major triads on strings 2-4. Again, if you missed part 1 of the lesson, it can be found here: Triad Guitar Lesson Part 1. Try having fun with them and seeing what you can come up with. In upcoming lessons, we’ll go over the triads on strings 1-3, minor triads, some songs that use triads, and putting it all together.

Also, if you’re in the area and are interested in guitar lessons in Chicago, feel free to get in touch.

Have fun!