Major triad arpeggios on guitar
Root, 3rd and 5th across the neck — the chord tones to aim at when you want a line to sound like it belongs.
- Notes
- A · C♯ · E
- Formula
- 1 · 3 · 5
- Notes in the scale
- 3
A major triad is three notes: the root, the major 3rd and the 5th. Those are the notes of the chord, so they are the notes that always sound resolved over it. Learning them as an arpeggio, separately from the chord grip, is what lets you target them mid-phrase instead of only landing on them by luck.
The productive way to practise them is on string sets rather than as one big six-string shape. Three notes on the top three strings, then the same three notes, in a different inversion, on the next set down. That way you can see the triad inside whatever position you happen to be in, which is the point.
Once you can see them, phrasing changes: scale notes become the route and chord tones become the destinations.
Where it sits on the neck
Three notes have three inversions, so on any one string set there are three shapes and then the first one again an octave up. On the top three strings in A they are these: C♯ at the 6th fret of the G string with E and A at the 5th of the B and high e; then E at the 9th, A at the 10th and C♯ at the 9th; then A at the 14th, C♯ at the 14th and E at the 12th.
The first of those is worth a second look, because it is already under your hand. The E and the A are box 1 notes at the 5th fret. The only addition is the C♯ at the 6th, which is the same single dot the major and minor blend adds. An A major triad is not somewhere else on the neck. It is inside the shape you are standing in, one fret away.
- Root on the A string — the open strings to the 3rd fret.
- Root on the G string — the 2nd fret to the 5th.
- Root on the low E string — the 5th fret to the 8th.
- Root on the D string — the 7th fret to the 10th.
- Root on the B string — the 10th fret to the 13th.
What to play it over
A, A7, A6 and Amaj7 — anything with an A underneath and a major 3rd in it. In a blues in A that means the I chord and only the I chord, since neither the D7 nor the E7 contains a C♯.
It is still usable over the others, it just stops being resolved. Over a D7 the same three notes are the 5th, the major 7th and the 9th: a colour, and a slightly abrasive one. Knowing which of those two situations you are in is the whole reason to learn arpeggios rather than trusting a scale to cover everything.
The common mistake
Only ever finding it in root position. A player learns the arpeggio from the root upward, so the shape acquires a bottom, and mid-phrase the triad under their hand becomes invisible because the nearest note is a 3rd or a 5th rather than an A. Two of the three shapes above start on something that is not the root. Practise entering them from the middle: play the E at the 9th fret of the G string, find the A above it, then the C♯ above that. A triad is only worth what you can pick up anywhere, and that is only true if you have practised picking it up anywhere.
Licks that land on these notes
Nothing here spells the triad out as an arpeggio, which is what would make it an exercise. What the licks do is arrive on its notes.