Guitar Player Online - Archives file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Owner/My%20Documen...

>> ARCHIVES

Weaving Triads
By John Stowell

Sessions From Guitar Player, Sept. '99

You can create colorful lines by

superimposing arpeggiated triads over a
tune's harmony. Handled creatively,
simple major, minor, augmented, and
diminished triads become potent
improvisational tools. The trick is to link
them together in unexpected ways.

Try Ex. 1, a line composed entirely of

arpeggios derived from six triads -- C, D,
B, E, G, and F. Play this line against a sustaining C
chord, and listen carefully as your fingers jump around
the fretboard. Can you hear how this interval-oriented
technique generates distinctly different results from
scale-based approaches? To encourage you to
experiment with fretting-hand fingering, I've deliberately
not added any to this and subsequent examples. First
focus on the melodies; you can always refine the
fingering later.

Ex. 2 features D , Am, Dm, Fm, A, E , A , E, and G triads

played over Dm. Within four bars, you've arpeggiated 12
triads (or triad fragments) and introduced six altered
notes.

The eight different triads -- Abdim, D , G, E, B , A , A,

and Dm -- in Ex. 3 create tension-and-release against
G7. The melodic contour resembles a roller coaster, yet,
as with the previous examples, you end up on a totally
consonant "home" triad.

Ex. 4 shows how you can apply this technique to a

IIm-V7-I progression in G. Again, there are lots of triads
and unusual alterations, yet the fingerings will be familiar
to anyone who has practiced triads up and down the
fretboard.

Along with its sonic benefits, arpeggiating triads can give

your picking hand a serious workout. Try Ex. 5 slowly at
first -- the string jumps are tricky.

1 of 2 4/3/2007 3:10 PM
Guitar Player Online - Archives file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Owner/My%20Documen...

2 of 2 4/3/2007 3:10 PM