From Simple Triads To Amazing Solos – How To Use Triads in Guitar Solos

Intro
Hi everyone, how’s it going? Today we’re going to talk about triads and how you can start creating lines with them. The first thing we want to do is put a few exercises into your muscle memory that will help you create lines and expand your horizons with soloing. Watch this video all the way through, and at the end, I’ll show you how everything connects.

Understanding Diatonic Degrees
So, the first thing I want to show you is that when it comes to triads, you need to be aware of the diatonic degrees in C major. That means C, D minor, E minor, F, G, A minor, B diminished, back to C. Those are our seven degrees.

The most basic way to see those is to be able to play them with free strings and just move up with those shapes of the triads. That’s the best way to start. You can take this C major example and start moving it up in the diatonic degrees.

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That’s your first step. Then you want to be able to also see that with inversions. For example, if I take this C first inversion triad, be able to also move that up:

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And of course, start creating arpeggios and lines with them.

Playing Triads on Two Strings
Another way to play triads is just on two strings. For example, if you only take the A string and D string, you can create these arpeggios:

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First degree, second degree, etc.

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If I take another inversion, let’s say the second inversion of C, this would be:

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Second inversion of C, this would be B diminished, A minor, G.

So you see, you can also play triads and observe them on two strings, not only on free. That’s something to think about in practice, as it’s going to influence the way you create lines later and the flow you have on the instrument, especially when playing over chord changes or creating different beautiful diatonic or out sounds on a one-chord vamp.

Limiting Yourself to One Position
Just before we move to the next idea, please make sure to like this video, subscribe, and hit that bell so you don’t miss any of my videos.

Another thing you can start doing to challenge yourself is playing within one position instead of going all the way over the neck looking for stuff. Limit yourself to one position. That is also good for soloing, by the way, but that’s another video which I’ll tell you about in the end.

All of this stuff is about being able to play the diatonic triads in one position. Practice your triads or any material for that sake in one position as well as horizontally. This is super important if you want to create freedom in your lines.

Adding Chromatic Approaches
Another thing you can start doing is adding chromatic approaches. Let’s take this A minor for example on two strings. Instead of just playing it, I can approach it from a half step below:

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Then playing it, and then I can also move that diatonically:

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String Skipping
Something that you can start practicing as well is string skipping. Check this out:

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This is just a C major arpeggio, but if I want to get a more legato sound, instead of placing this G note over here, I can play it on this G string and then skip a string:

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And I get this sound. I can move that and implement it all the way diatonically.

Combining Notes for Lines
Now, whenever we’re talking about creating lines, it’s not enough to just play those actual arpeggios. We want to start implementing and combining different notes. For example, I can play this arpeggio:

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But then I can add some movement, maybe like this:

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These are still notes within the scale, but they’re complementing my arpeggio because everything is about diatonic awareness.

Enclosures
If you’ve been watching this channel for a while, you know how much I love talking about enclosures. Enclosures for me are kind of like capturing a note with a “cage” before stating the fact.

So, in this case, if I want to play this C major arpeggio:

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With string skipping, I can approach it with that cage. This is the enclosure. You can see:

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This is my enclosure. I’m kind of aiming into that note:

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This is my cage around the note, and then the note, and then I can play my arpeggio:

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And of course, I can do that on any other degree of that C major:

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Galactic Modern Guitar Series
And that’s exactly why I created Galactic Modern Guitar, where I show all of the different core fundamental elements in order to solidify your harmonic and melodic awareness and control on guitar. You can learn all the most core elements of music and start putting them into your solos to create beautiful melodic lines.

You can check that out in the link in the description below.

Outro
Now, practicing all of this stuff will definitely give you a boost to your muscle memory and creativity, but if you want to start understanding how you can create actual phrasing with that, I invite you to check out this arpeggio lesson over here:

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