Quote:
Originally Posted by s0cks
How did you relate that to your melody playing?
I spent a solid few weeks on triads and voice leading. I could see the potential, but then I came to conclusion that I really needed to start just learning more songs, building a repertoire and (along the way) building my left/right hand technique (I was getting mighty bored of the songs I already knew).
I also found that moving between triads was cool, sounded good, but lacked melody, because the melody often separates itself from the triad. It seemed more useful to me to understand the intervals across all six strings for the chord of the moment, as limiting myself to 3 or 4 adjacent strings was... well... a limitation. Often I wanted a lower bass note, or even an open string involved.
Don't get me wrong, triads are freaking cool, and it's still been complementary to my fretboard knowledge but for fingerstyle solo arrangements I didn't see them quite as useful. They seem more useful as an accompaniment to other instruments/vocals or as a tool for soloing.
I'm probably totally wrong here, so please correct me!
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I'm sure I can't correct you on anything.
I can only say how it's working for me. I'm a songwriter/composer, so I'm not particularly devoted to learning other people's songs to the level that I'd need to in order to perform. I do other people's songs, but really just to learn techniques and to satisfy my friends and family at a sing along.
So, I primarily use this for improvisation as well as to give me a very solid feel for how the chords fit together. I mean, I really didn't see before how closely related/overlapping Cmajor/Em/Fmajor/Am are until I saw them played in triads all in the same 3x3-fret space. (I've only been studying guitar a year.) What's happening now is that I am developing new chord progressions and melodies in this small space that then carry over across all 6 strings. After all, the shapes are the same, they are just portions of the larger chords. And most of the time, when we play chord/melody, the melody notes come from these higher strings, I think.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't see melodies in this area. The whole scale is there repeated 3 times in 12 frets and the shapes fit together all down the neck, so... yeah, I don't know about that part. I think of this smaller space as sort of a sketchpad for doodling on. It's opened up all sorts of ideas, new fingerings, new insights and it's given me a solid knowledge of that section of the fretboard that I really didn't have before because I'd focused on notes on the three low strings, as most of us do when we begin, I think.
Oh, one other advantage. These strings are the same tuning as a baritone uke. Now I want one.