How Triads TRULY Unlock The Fretboard (Ft. Ariel Posen)

so this is something you would practice like sitting at home okay here's an a major chord oh yeah and I did that exact reaction yes dude [Music] foreign [Music] who just played a short segment of his piece after the rain thank you for being here it's amazing to have you my name is Aria Posen Canadian singer-songwriter guitar player you have this one record 45 minutes of just solo guitar it's amazing check it out and it captivates you from beginning to end thank you how do we do that so I want to pick your brain a little bit yeah let's do it you were playing four chords in the bass that's what I got first let's maybe get to the courts and then we go from there absolutely so it's just Four Courts we're in the key of E so the first chord is e an F sharp minor can we have that yeah and then it's a d chord but I I play it as an add nine because that's the melody you could also go I don't Chestnut and then to an a and that's it um I think of everything in numbers that just helps me transpose things faster so if you said hey could we play it in G instead [Music] I just thinking numbers in terms of the one chord and then to the exactly the Nashville number system yeah it's beyond guitar it's like more thinking of the music side than um you know oh shoot what fret or what this so one thing that amazed me already is like you play these chords as if it's super standard but the way you fret these chords make sure you've got a lot of fingers left to play sort of add-ons because you played the F sharp minor you did this right yeah something in this yes we're taught exactly we're taught to play as full chords as possible but there's a lot more Beauty and not that I'd call myself sophisticated but I think there's some more sophistication in smaller chords and I think Triads simple one three five most of the time you know whether that's root position first inversion or second inversion that's my basis um everything else if a chord needs to be bigger then it'll be bigger but I I typically like to think three notes at a time and then add on everything from there that's cool yeah so the three notes in this chord progression e f sharp minor d a r this yep can I do a D cell yeah I called it a d at now but you're right it's a four at nine yeah whatever yeah it is major but we add the nine and then yeah it makes sense because it's clear it's a very strong Direction it trims the fat like if it was just like there's nothing wrong with that but it's a lot more meat on the bone than might be necessary you might want to build up to that you can grow to like a bigger core but just to start off I talking about build up where can we go from these simple Triads where can we go how can we add some Melody maybe in there yeah well I would start with the melody of the song which okay again maybe I should just quickly preface and say that like this whole record was just uh they were just improvised ideas so I just sat down I I had these chords and I just looped them over and over again and tried to tell a story with it and take it somewhere so when I decided or I you know essentially I landed on this idea it really felt like the melody was following the thirds for the most part okay so the third of each chord is a great place to start so you know in E it was the G sharp an F sharp it was the a the minor third and then the D is obviously the the nine or the two but if for the sake of consistency it's the F sharp for the third and then the C sharp to the a that's kind of the melody it couldn't be simpler that first step is maybe the most important step because you should be able to identify and find whatever interval so we're picking the third right now yeah you could do the fifth the root you should be able to visualize them everywhere so just because we're going [Music] you want to make sure you know what if you wanted to play it on the low string foreign [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] exactly and then go through every string you know it's the same notes [Music] et cetera Etc it's nice you know yeah I heard something very pretty yeah and with every string like you saw on the E string that I played the F sharp down here you could play it past the 12th fret you would get that that we had on the a string but it there's some beauty in going low like that [Music] foreign that's getting more advanced but it's basically taking the simple Triad 135 and inverting it and being able to invert it every you can even do it in three string clusters so like you know the first three strings and then the next three string sorry from the a then the D yeah and then the G so this is something you would practice like sitting at home okay here's an a major chord oh yeah like and I did that exact reaction yes dude so that is maybe the most important kind of practicing like as important as it is to play to a metronome and build up your Technique and your phrasing and your speed and you're this and that absolutely knowing the fretboard kind of inside and out with simple little Triads like that people always ask me and I know they ask you maybe a million times more how do I learn the fretboard better yeah yeah and there is no real cheat code or secret it's just time it's just putting the work in yes and I find that if you just understand what it is you're trying to find then it makes it a lot easier so if even if you break it down to a simple like okay um E major let me find in the three E major just root uh first inversion second version and then you just find those those shapes and you're going to find that there's so much repetition Yeah Yeah the secret is that all we're doing is repeating ourselves and if you think of it as the intervals then it's you know you're either going uh one three five and then you're going three five one you know what I mean so it's like it's always that same thing could we get an example of how you would play Discord progression not on the first position or yeah position it's a little bit higher or sure so you know if we do there that would be first root position on the a string and e but if I take away the E here this would be first inversion that's three five one so let's do that so we can go [Music] there's barely any movement you know [Music] and you can get more a bit more interesting with it beautiful and then last one of course laughs something about when chords are so close together they sound really kind of cohesive yeah you know because sometimes when you if you're gonna go like [Music] that's weird it doesn't it's weird because it's not a natural harmonic movement and in terms of voice leading I try to think of exactly I try to think of you pick one node in your chord so for example back to the first one I did it kind of sounds like the top note is the melody [Music] yeah two notes basically yeah or you could take the middle note yeah or of course [Music] that one's a bit more basic but that's the idea and that's how you start building that's three options right there to just take a Melody somewhere else and and play around with it and hopefully find something that sounds natural to your ear and like I'm I'm always just trying to think outside of the technical like what I hear it in my head like am I singing it I'm trying to just play what I'm hearing yeah yeah I promise you it won't take as much time as you think but it just requires some patience and like thinking big picture now we want to introduce some I want to hear some leads yeah if you if you want of course I do want it yeah so the way I would approach it I would think about it every chord is Just Happening Under the Umbrella of e major e is the key yeah so you know if we're thinking diatonically a d would make this key um dominant you know you would think mixolydian mixolydian yeah and I and I don't think modes really I think simpler than that okay I just would still think major [Music] ah and now we just play it when the chord happens so this this kind of technique it's you know it's essentially just Target notes and targeting chords as they happen while staying in the key and what that does it you know if you weren't accompanying me right now and I just played Melody essentially you should be able to hear the chord changes these are just Roots thirds [Music] and then fifths even [Music] oh man that is so good yeah yeah but the third is your best friend the third will be the one that just highlights the chord the best yeah yeah that's the most like harmonic information exactly yeah exactly so I would think E major the whole time really if I was thinking leads and on the recording on this record mile end I I wanted to establish let's you can call it a head if we're thinking like in like jazz standard terms it's like the head is just those chords a few times and then I just try to embellish the melody in different ways and just try to take it somewhere and then come back to it at the end yeah and hopefully not screw it up that's that's essentially what I was I was going for you are always like having the four bars in your head that's the form exactly maintaining the form because I I think that's very important and a lot of people yeah than to lose that if they play by themselves they tend to just go all out and they stop counting they stop that's a very good point because so many people yeah they think oh I missed the court I'll go back and play it that's not how music works really it's like if you're playing with people or if you're playing to a track the song keeps going without you yeah so if you miss it it's it's really important to to just latch on to whatever exactly yeah exactly and if you're with the band that's pretty easy because you hear the bass player where you keep player go yeah but if you're playing all by yourself with no like you can lose it if you don't watch out so that's also why playing very basic in the beginning really will help you out playing just like landing on the one on the first beat for example always playing at root note maybe on the first beat just to give you some sense of that's actually in a chord progression exactly it's very useful yeah so I mean for for this I would really just lean on E major or E major pentatonic if that helps I think of it as the same thing because there's no four and there's no seven essentially yeah but sometimes it you know to think of it as a shape it does help to go uh as opposed to so I get it yeah I get it yeah all the good notes are in a pentatonic yeah it's true yeah I would just try to like [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] so taking something like a cord movement [Music] I'm repeating it but in a the next key kind of building a motif I think those kind of things are even more important than the technical side of what notes to play with scales to play because like what you're how you're playing it comes across and connects with people I think at least when I listen to music and the biggest thing that has nothing to do with the key the notes or anything is Dynamics and I I feel like I still feel like Dynamics is something that people don't talk about enough and so for those of you that don't know it just it's just it's your level it's your like you're playing quiet playing loud you know we tend to just play at home and we practice and we're just [Applause] [Music] if we only play at one volume all the time we know we have nowhere to go dynamically so like I like to tell a lot of people just work your way up the neck start low okay wait one second yeah what was that what you play because the D chord looks very interesting yep so it was it was the same Triads we did first uh I guess second inversion e starting from the fifth oh you don't play the E I didn't play the e no okay I think that's maybe why it was interesting yeah so it was technically an e over B F sharp minor over C sharp and then I just went up [Music] to a over C sharp first so now the a string is sort of leading or it feels like it's exactly voice leading on those levels [Music] yeah exactly oh man I'm digging this kind of you could sit there like oh [Music] so right there bringing it in it has so much more impact because we save the the low if you finally hit that low he's like oh yeah especially if you're tuned in to see it's like go yeah it's big but it's just such a simple thing and we we as guitar players we just let's just play Everything let's not think about it but if you strip it back and simplify yeah and just uh don't just play something to play it but play it because there's like purpose behind it or because you mean it it makes everything have so much more impact yeah I saw you play with fingers yeah I tend to hybrid yeah I always do this I know I'd say most people do what you're doing yeah I do this yeah I think it's important to just do whichever makes you not think about it ever yeah and that's what this has always been oh it is fun like between the index yeah I lose it if I do it like this same with when I play slide I I'm I'm holding it there and it helps me use these fingers I would try thumb and your index and middle finger and you could go like [Music] oh that's one good thing we should talk about too is because in this chord progression e f sharp minor d a D to a is essentially an a sus chord um so you could you could really build tension yeah exactly yeah and you could actually even do it on the E if you didn't want to treat it as an F sharp minor you could make it like a [Music] almost like a one two minor over one or a four over one [Music] it always reminds you of Albatross the song from Fleetwood Mac Oh Yeah totally yeah um this may be my favorite key like change like every on guitar just oh yeah I said yeah whenever you have those especially in the key of E when you have all those open notes on the top yeah and that's the reason I love open tuning but you still really get them in standard tuning yeah yeah just using but [Music] just have fun with it I just get creative like I don't know I can get lost and just kind of living around the the two middle strings the D and the G string [Music] foreign you know in this progression you could use the a open the E open yeah you could even do the D but one question for the viewers at home who really want to practice this stuff but need a very exact like concrete exercise yeah so I think two things one is fun and one is not as fun okay let's start with not fun and we end with the fun one okay so the not fun one is what we talked about at the beginning is taking a major and A Minor triad okay so just to keep it really simple let's start on the a string and let's just go through the the three Triads in three inversions so root position one three five and E and then first inversion three five one and then five one three we gotta do down here okay yeah you memorize those and then you do them on every string ah okay so for example the reason I started on that string is because I wanted to start from the root but if you're in on the low E your first available one is first inversion yeah you know what I mean yeah if it's a close try it yeah so I would do this yeah these are just closed tries I would do this on every string except the B and the E because we can't yeah you do that in every key just test yourself go okay uh C okay so my first one okay it's the second version and then and like I said you're gonna realize wait a minute I'm just playing the same thing over and over again and that's the point you know so you do that hit major and then do it minor okay I would do the same thing One Flat three five yeah so that's the not fun stuff okay but it's very useful so probably do it first that's the big picture practicing that I well just helped so great so yeah um for practicing the song I would maybe put a metronome on oh yeah or just some maybe a drum track that feels inspiring to play to um record yourself so either your your phone if you have a fancy setup it can be anything but I find personally the only way to grow is to dissect what you're already doing if you don't if you're not documenting what you're doing because you're never really going to know if you're improving or not good point yeah oh you know I yeah I tend to uh I play on top or like I rush things right you wouldn't really know that so that's my fun one because it's just have fun with it and play yeah players listen back and then dissect it and then say what's good what's not so good what can be improved and then work on that and record that and keep the cycle going and you'll really be it's like it's like just it's the mirror it's the musical mirror and also recording yourself often for me it's a great way to to make sure I practice before I actually record because you have to do it right especially for these videos you know especially for your videos and for your shows I mean yeah you don't want to be on stage uh half-assed like ah it's almost there yeah no you gotta get it right so you practice 10 times as much to make sure you hit it on the nail exactly you showed us a few things but I'm immediately inspired to go just try all this out all the links to uh to you are just below in the description box everything you want to know about it Ariel boson thank you so much for being here thanks Paul good to see you thanks for having me yeah my pleasure and uh [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Paul Davids

Views: 1,203,733

Keywords: ariel posen, mile end, paul davids, guitar, triads, unlock the fretboard, learn the neck, navigate the neck, using triads, triads on guitar, how to use triads, inversions, inversions on guitar, masterclass, schooled, teaching, lesson, guitar lesson, voice leading

Id: rh6HEF5Dy2I

Length: 23min 33sec (1413 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 31 2023