Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Hi Tomo

I am having a hard time soloing with triads because it’s hard for me to know what notes in the scale to play with the notes on the triads. (In my humble opinion this can use a lesson onto itself)
I appreciate you and your style immensely!

hey jack, to break down the problem a little further...

in order to apply triads, you need to know how to play triads in root position, 1st inversion, and 2nd inversion for various keys. start with c, then add on f, b flat, and e flat in the major key.

as you're playing the individual triads, you can practice understanding each note of the triad in terms of whether it's the root note, 3rd note, or 5th note of the key you're playing in, and it helps to know this for each inversion of the triad. this is what tomo means by understanding the character of each note.

you'll want to practice playing triads up and down the neck, across the neck, and be able to play all the same inversions around the guitar neck.

as you start developing your knowledge of triads, learn how to form minor triads (taking the 3rd note and moving it down half a step to flat 3).

once you know major and minor triads, you can practice playing along to songs by only playing the triad version. so if the song's chord progression was g, c, e minor, and d, then play the triads as the chords change.

the reason it's hard to apply triads into your solos is because the foundation required in order to apply them isn't quite there yet. keep practicing this stuff, and then slowly start applying triads in chord progressions, then step up to short phrasing, and finally start incorporating triads into your solos.

i'm personally still learning triads and i'm barely just getting better at applying them in my solos. sometimes you might play 2 of the notes in a triad, or you might slide into a triad as a way to start a solo. but i wouldn't be able to do this if i didn't practice what i mentioned above for a couple of weeks.

i still practice it daily, so keep practicing. learn the fundamentals first, then slowly start applying it once you get the sense that you're starting to understand the notes, character of each note, and different inversions and how they're found across the neck.

anyway, hope that helps! :)

all the lessons to help you with this are in guitar wisdom. to put it in one video might be overwhelming for new players. one of the best advice tomo's given to us is to go back one video if something doesn't make sense. every video is done with intention and purpose, so trust what tomo's put together. i think there's something to learn from every video, no matter how good you are, or how long you've been playing.

Here is Tomo's comment:

"Thanks so much for subscribing to my Guitar Wisdom. You're right -- it’s not easy! So, first you need to study 3 things: 1) Learn the C Major scale on each string, with the name of each note, and attention to each interval. 2) Learn C Major triads in 3 ways: vertical, horizontal, same inversion. 3) Please watch the Foundation Test videos in the Q&A/Proficiency section.

"Do not memorize shapes. Learn the notes and intervals. You can do it!"