How To Use 3 To 7 Triads In Jazz Guitar Solos

As I was coming up and learninghow to play jazz guitar, I had many teachers tell me that triads were an important
tool that I should know inside and out, especially in my improvised solos.

Though I tried and tried, I could never get triads to sound right. They always came off as bland and boring,
too many roots and not enough interesting notes.

That was until I discovered 3 to 7 triads, then everything changed and I was able to use the same triads I
already knew in a new way to produce some very cool sounds during my solos.

Have a question or comment about this lesson? Visit the3 to 7 Triad Exercises thread in the MWG
Forum.

What Are 3 to 7 Triads?

3 to 7 triads are three-note chords, just like any triad is, but instead of starting on the root of a chord and
containing the root-3rd-5th of that tonality, we start on the 3rd of the chord and play the 3rd-5th-7th of that
tonality.

Lets look at Cmaj7 as an example. Here are the notes of the arpeggio:

C-E-G-B or 1-3-5-7

And the notes of the 3 to 7 triad would be:

E-G-B or 3-5-7 or Em

Simply put, 3 to 7 triads are arpeggios minus the root, which allow us to outline chords changes in our
solos while focusing on other notes besides the root, both in passing and as points of resolution.

How to Practice 3 to 7 Triads

So now that we know what 3 to 7 triads are, how to we apply them to our practice routine in order to spice
up our playing?

Here are some of my favorite ways to practice and use 3 to 7 arpeggios in the practice room.


Pick a tune

Play the 3 to 7 arpeggios ascending and descending for each chord

Do this with 6th, 5th, 4th and 3rd string roots for each triad

Do this with root, 1st and 2nd inversions for each chord on each string set

Improvise using only 3 to 7 triads for each chord in the tune

Doing all of these exercises is a ton of work, so dont try to cram them all into one day. Instead, maybe
today run ascending triads in 1st inversion with 5th string roots and then improvise over a tune using just
those shapes.

It is always better to focus on one thing at a time then try to overdo it with ten things at once, both for our
retention of the material and to prevent burn out in the woodshed.

You can learn more about these ideas in my in-depth article Jazz Guitar Chords: 3 to 7 Triads.