Modal Triads on Guitar
A triad is traditionally defined as a set of three notes that are stacked in thirds. By this definition, there are only four triads: Major, Minor, Diminished, and Augmented. If we include diminished thirds in these constructions, there are more possibilities, including Major-flat-5 (which is a half-diminished chord without a third). Recently I have been inspired to approach triads from a modal perspective, thanks to Rick Beato's video The HIDDEN CHORDS You Don't Know . Rick's list of diatonic triads includes Major, Minor, Diminished, Phrygian, Locrian, and Sus. As these are all derived from the major scale, there is no augmented chord. These chords each contain a root, second/third/fourth, and fifth: Major: 1-3-5 Minor: 1-b3-5 Diminished: 1-b3-b5 Phrygian: 1-b2-5 Locrian: 1-b2-b5 Sus: 1-2-5 or 1-4-5 You might notice that sus4 and sus2 are the same sonority. For example Gsus4 has the notes G-C-D, while Csus2 is the same tones spelled C-D-G. Similarly, the modal tr