Guitar Triads [Easy Guide]

To know how triads are constructed, we need to know a bit about chord construction.

For this explanation to make sense, you need to know about intervals. (In short: the distance between two notes). I’ll assume you’re familiar with the basics of intervals going forward!

We can build a chord by taking one note and placing other notes ‘on top of it’.

The distance between that first note and the other notes (a.k.a. the interval), determines what the chord then sounds like.

In that way, each chord has a ‘recipe’ with certain ‘ingredients’.

For example, the ‘recipe’ for a major chord is:

- root note
- major third
- perfect fifth

As you can see, this recipe consists of three ingredients, making this chord a triad. So this is also the recipe for a major triad!

Here’s an example of what a major triad looks like on the fretboard:

Now, you might be thinking: most of the chords I play have way more than three notes in them! Does that mean those chords aren’t triads?

Let’s check out a few open guitar chords to figure out the answer to that question.

Here’s the open A chord for example.

We hit five different strings, so you might think that that means we’re playing five different notes. But when we take a closer look, we’ll see that this chord actually has a few notes in there twice.

We’ll anaylse the intervals to see that, check it out:

As you can see, we only have three different intervals in this chord:

- root note
- major third
- perfect fifth

And that’s what makes this chord into a triad!

Let’s check that out for another open chord. But this time, you analyse it! Here’s an open D chord. First count the number of frets (or semitones) between the root noot and every other note. Next, determine which interval (a.k.a. ‘ingredient’) that makes that note.

Hope that went well for you!