
In his Theory and Improvisation series, Brendan Burns looks at triads, chord voicings and usage across the circle of fifths.
Lesson 1
Brendan Burns provides an overview of the topics that will be covered in his chord voicing lesson series.
Length: 4:17 Difficulty: 0.5 Members OnlyLesson 2
Brendan demonstrates the tiny triad shapes derived from the form 1 barre chord.
Length: 13:12 Difficulty: 1.5 FREELesson 3
Brendan Burns demonstrates the tiny triads derived from the 3rd form of the CAGED system.
Length: 12:51 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 4
Brendan demonstrates the 2nd form tiny triads.
Length: 20:57 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 5
Brendan demonstrates the tiny minor triad shapes derived from the form 1 CAGED shape.
Length: 4:41 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 6
Brendan demonstrates the 3rd form minor triads from the CAGED system.
Length: 6:09 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 7
Brendan burns demonstrates the 2nd form minor tiny triads.
Length: 20:21 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 8
Brendan Burns demonstrates the tiny triad shapes for augmented chords.
Length: 6:30 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 9
Brendan Burns demonstrates the grips for the diminished tiny triads.
Length: 7:35 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 10
Now that you've gone through all the tiny triad lessons, Brendan offers some closing statements and insights that will help you with incorporating them into your playing.
Length: 2:00 Difficulty: 0.5 Members OnlyLesson 11
Brendan takes a more in depth look at extensions that can be added to the tiny triad forms.
Length: 12:07 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 12
Brendan demonstrates the addition of the 6th extension to the tiny triad forms.
Length: 7:54 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 13
In lesson 13, Brendan covers the extensions for the minor form tiny triads.
Length: 13:24 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 14
Brendan Burns demonstrates the Sus 4 forms for the tiny triads.
Length: 6:13 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 15
To get you setup to start learning more tiny triads, Brendan talks about what he'll be covering next and provides a review of the previous material.
Length: 5:45 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 16
Brendan Burns takes a look at extensions that can be added to major triads.
Length: 16:47 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 17
Brendan discusses and demonstrates how to add the 6th extension to your major triads.
Length: 11:36 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 18
Brendan takes a look at the extensions and embellishments that can be added to the minor tiny triads.
Length: 22:51 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 19
Brendan Burns demonstrates and discusses the unstable or "ambiguous" triads that result from altering the 3rd.
Length: 19:48 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 20
Brendan Burns demonstrates and discusses how to utilize spread voiced triads in your playing. In the first lesson of this mini-series, he discusses major spread voicings.
Length: 19:37 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 21
Brendan demonstrates spread voicings of minor triads.
Length: 14:15 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 22
The first lesson in Brendan's triadic improvisation lesson series covers the major triads and the combinations of their extensions.
Length: 24:51 Difficulty: 0.0 Members OnlyLesson 23
Continuing on with triadic improvisation techniques, Brendan discusses and demonstrates how to utilize the minor triads.
Length: 27:22 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 24
Brendan demonstrates and discusses how various tiny triads can be applied to bass notes to imply larger, more complex chords. He also explains how these concepts can be used in a melodic context.
Length: 18:26 Difficulty: 3.0 Members Only
About Brendan Burns
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Brendan has been passionate about music since childhood. He began his studies on trumpet, in elementary school, and then moved to guitar as a teenager. He holds a Bachelor's Degree from Berklee College of Music, and has studied with Norm Zocher, Joe Stump, Bret Willmott, Bob Pilkington, Jay Weik, Tim Miller, & Charlie Banacos.
While at Berklee, Brendan was a member of the Music Mentoring Program, teaching private lessons to gifted high school students. He is currently teaches, and is chair of the guitar department at Brookline Music School. Brendan also teaches guitar for Tune Foolery & privately at his home in Cambridge, MA.
Along with educating, Brendan plays out often as a Solo Guitarist, performing standards, pop, and classical repertoire. He has recorded and played with the chamber-fusion band Ra Quintent, and as well as Vessela Stoyanova's Eastern Stories Under Western Skies Project. Brendan also performs as a leader, director and sideman for various Boston art-rock projects, and is former member of MIT's Gamelan Galak Tika.
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Member Comments about this Lesson
Discussions with our instructors are just one of the many benefits of becoming a member of JamPlay.Brendan thanks for the lessons. Question, does knowing the caged system helps to understand these lessons vs not knowing the caged system?
If you know the CAGED system, this info will be streamlined for you (if not redundant), but it is not a prerequisite. Tiny Triads sit right on top of the CAGED grid. In my opinion the Tiny Triads are sleeker and more practical than CAGED, but really it's the same info: Triad Inversions.
Brendan well done and thank you. I have been trying to break down the mechanics of CAGED, chord progressions, scales etc...This series is allowing me to practice, have fun and improve at the same time!!! excellent stuff!!!!
This is fantastic. I've been looking for someone that would actually teach this in a musical fasion. Top marks mate.
This seems like important info however, I'm not clear about what the ultimate goal is here? Is it to be able to improvise or just to increase chord knowledge? Can you give some examples of what you can do once you've mastered these skills?
The "ultimate goal" is to be able to access the information of triad at anywhere or at anytime on the guitar. Check out this lesson's overview, it explains this concept in depth.
Hi Brendan! Very useful lesson. Could you perhaps include the music notation as well as the tab? What about adding info about inversions and their resolutions? Just a thought.
This lesson doesn't work well with tab or notation. It's about the chord blocks and seeing/hearing your way through the inversions. This is very much a grip-based workout lesson. Understanding the the theory, notation and function would be in a different lesson set. Coming soon is a new set that focuses on tensions!
48 G-chords?! That doesn't make any sense? There are only 12. I apologize for my poor math skills.
Dont apologize, I dont need math, I need to learn how to play guitar and this is a great lesson series. Thank you!!
no you are right 4 grips for each form times 12 keys gives you 48 G chords. I will start working on hearing and thinking about the 3rd and the 5th great lessons.
Thanks for the positive supportive, but I'm afraid my math is confusing. There are 3 big grips that divide into 4 smaller grips. If you take the each big grip, divide it and throw it through cycle 5, you'll end up with 48 chords (4 for each key). Doing that for all three "big" shapes will give you 144 chords. Either way, it's a simple idea that has lots of possibilities. Let me know how grips are affecting your playing and/or if you catch any other guitarist using these grips.
Great series of lessons. Its really great to look at the chords I always use in a different way and getting new sounds out of them. Will the lessons eventually explain how to use triads to expand chords into 9ths 11th and 13ths ect?
EAndy, Yes, the extensions come after this lesson set. I honestly can't remember if I've recorded that series yet, but it's definitely on the agenda. If you already got a good handle on the grips, the next step is to start to look, think and hear the individual chord tones (root, 3rd & 5th). Once you know where everything is, you'll be able to sub them out easily.