Triad Powerup

TrueFire Foundry courses are independently produced courses presented by a hand-picked selection of top-notch artists and educators from around the world. Filmed in the educator’s own studio, Foundry courses bring fresh educational concepts and very effective teaching methodologies to TrueFire Students. Joe Pinnavaia’s Foundry course, Triad PowerUp will show you how to power up your triads to build hip lines and great solos.

Hello I'm Joe Pinnavaia — welcome to my TrueFire Foundry course, Triad PowerUp, which I produced in my own studio.

We will be discussing and implementing several different concepts related to triads. This will not only have you on your way to discovering ways to build fresher sounding ideas but will also build upon the way you view the fretboard. Triads are the building blocks for harmony and too many players overlook the importance of these and how it can take your sound from diatonic to intervallic in no time at all!

I’ll have you fleshing out chord tones from scales, viewing triads within scales and how to connect them together. When I listen to players like Allan Holdsworth Scott Henderson, Greg Howe I'm inspired by their command and how their solos flow over chord changes. After breaking down some lines it then becomes clear that the great players are not always "running scales" as they say but developing harmonically complex ideas by use of triads, passing tones as well as scales.

We will look at two string triad shapes and triad groupings on the same set of strings as well as in intervals of thirds. This gives you the lateral mobility with these concepts. Then we will discuss use of diatonic connecting notes. This will help you connect two string triad shapes and how to use them within scales, Triads can be used to extend harmony by stacking forms together which will result in you being able to build lines with harmonic content that flow. You will also implement these ideas overt backing tracks for practice and improvisation.

I will show you each of these concepts step by step. Once you have the concept down I will show you how to transpose these ideas and use them in different keys and feels like a A Dorian Groove, G Minor Groove, F Major Rock, D Dorian and G Mixolydian.

Triad PowerUp will set you up with the vision to see the fretboard in different ways you may not have thought possible. Ready to get started? Grab your guitar and let’s get dig in!

NOTE! Joe Pinnavaia organized the course into 8 weekly sections for those students that prefer to have a specified regimen of material across a specified time schedule. However, for those students who prefer to work at their own pace, or even skip around you are certainly encouraged to approach the course in that way as well.