THIRDS. A Quick Start Guide To. The tasty interval. By Jonathan Boettcher PlayGuitar.com

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1 A Quick Start Guide To THIRDS The tasty interval By Jonathan Boettcher PlayGuitar.com This guide may not be copied in any form. It is for personal use only.

2 Disclaimer And Copyright Information Copyright 2017 Jonathan Boettcher PlayGuitar.com You do NOT have permission to re-sell or re-package this guide in any way, shape or form without my written consent. You DO have permission to freely share this guide via print or electronically with friends, family, or other musicians whom you believe may benefit from it, as long as it remains unaltered. Disclaimer Individual results from the Guitar Scale Patterns course vary depending on the player s skill level and commitment to learning the material. Any testimonials or success stories reflect the actual results realized by those individual players, and will not necessarily reflect your own experience with the course. Non-legal disclaimer: This is just common sense folks! If you apply yourself and make an effort to learn the material, then you ll do well. If you don t, well Neither me nor anyone else is going to be able to help you there. I ve got your back However, all my guitar lessons come with a complete No Weasel Clauses money back guarantee. If for any reason you re not fully satisfied with the course, I ll give you a full refund (within 60 days) so there is no risk on your part. This Quick Start Guide is intended as a primer to get you quickly working with the fretboard in ways you haven t done before. It is not the complete Secrets of Tasty Riffs & Solos course, that is much broader, and much more indepth, and is primarily video-based. For more information on the Secrets of Tasty Riffs & Solos course, please visit my website: 2

3 THIRDS: The Tasty Interval Some time ago I became interested in the topic of using thirds on the guitar. Why? Because I kept on seeing them used all over the place in different and unique ways and I realized I really liked what I was hearing. I heard them in Fortunate Son by CCR... not to mention Susie Q, Green River and others. Brown Eyed Girl, Into the Mystic, Domino and other Van Morrison songs. I heard them in Gravity, Your Body Is A Wonderland, Slow Dancing In A Burning Room and lots of other John Mayer tunes. I saw Joe Bonamassa using a really unique and fun twist on thirds in the blues that I swiped and applied to my own playing... I saw a clip with Keith Richards rockin' some fearsome acoustic blues... featuring some thirds in prominent places. I heard them used by the Los Lonely Boys in their song Heaven, and by Buddy Guy in Feels Like Rain. I heard them used by the Beatles, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and the Eagles. In fact, once I got "clued in" to thirds, I started hearing them just about everywhere. And every single time, they sounded great. That interval was used to add a sweetness and tastiness to the song that simply wouldn't have been there without it. And they're applied in many different ways too... not just in a single riff, but in hundreds and hundreds of ways. I began to realize that mastering the use of thirds would be a great way to improve my own guitar playing, and so bit by bit, I began working them in. Soon I started getting comments from other musicians, like "hey JB - whatever you played on that last song sounded really tasty!" Any guesses as to what was being played? Yup - thirds. That s the reason I ve dubbed the third as music s tasty interval. 3

4 In the end I decided I just had to create a course to help others discover the beauty and power of this amazing interval, and that's exactly what happened. Secrets of Tasty Riffs & Solos is all about how to apply thirds to your guitar licks and solos, and how to chase chords with your soloing, creating real tasty guitar parts. If you want to take your solos in a new direction, build your confidence and learn to approach the fretboard from a completely fresh perspective, that course is for you. In the Quick Start Guide you re reading right now, we re going to take a quick look at thirds hopefully enough to get you starting to work with them in your own playing - today. Q. What is a THIRD? Let s start by addressing the elephant in the room. If you don t have much music theory under your belt, you may be wondering what in the world are these thirds that I keep talking about?! A third is a musical interval, and an interval is simply the difference between two notes. There are two kinds of thirds: major, and minor. A minor third is the distance of three semitones, and a major third is the distance of four semitones. Let s do an example. We ll start with an A note. The note by itself is not an interval, we need a second note to create the interval, to create distance. If we want a minor third, we go up three semitones from the A: A#, B, C. Therefore, A to C is a minor third. We can do the same with the major third, but this time we go up four semitones from the A: A#, B, C, C#. Now we find that A to C# is a major third.! If you don t understand how musical scales work, and you re not following all this talk of semitones and intervals, at this point I would highly recommend that you backup a few steps and start by establishing that foundation. An excellent place to start would be my Foundation Course in Guitar Theory. It s completely free, and you can access it here: 4

5 Okay, moving right along here hopefully you re still tracking with me on this and now understand that a third can be either major or minor, and that it requires a pair of notes to form a third. Thirds are very important to music, so important, that you will find that all the basic chords are built using two pairs of thirds. Check it out: Major chord: Minor chord: Augmented chord: Diminished chord: major third + minor third minor third + major third major third + major third minor third + minor third Let s look at an example. The G major chord has the notes G, B, D. Well, G-B is a major third, let s count it out: G - G# - A A# - B. We count four semitones, for a major third. Now, count out B to D: B C C# - D. We find three semitones a minor third. Finding The Sweet Spot The point I m getting at here is that although a third is a nice sounding interval just on it s own, if we want to play a solo, that means there s a chord progression happening that we re going to play over top of right? And if there are chords in the background, then we can t simply pick ANY old third, because it could sound absolutely horrible. Instead, we want to laser target the thirds that we choose so that they sound incredible when played over top of the right chord. So, in our example we looked at a G major chord. If the song is playing a G major chord, any of those three notes (G, B, D) would be excellent choices to start working with, because they re already found in the chord! They re going to naturally harmonize with the rest of the song, because that harmony is already present. This might sound counterintuitive, because if you re trying to make your solo stand out, why would you choose a note that s already in the chord? The answer is that you don t necessarily choose the same octave or position where that note is being played. For example, if another guitar is playing an open G chord, you can pick a G further up the neck, and it will naturally stand out, simply because of the pitch you ve chosen. Because that note is already present in the chord, it will naturally sound sweet and tasty over top of that chord, especially when you play it somewhere else on the fretboard. 5

6 Now, the fun starts happening when we use thirds to build our solos. There are many, many different ways of doing this, but to over-simplify things, I ll break them all into two categories: you can either play a third simultaneously, or sequentially. Two notes sounded together, simultaneously, is called a diad, or a doublestop. Chuck Berry made the doublestop famous in classic rock n roll, in songs like Johnny B Goode and No Particular Place To Go. When we play an interval sequentially, it simply means we might play a G, and then play a B separately, right afterwards. Our ears still hear the major third sound, because the G provides the context for the B which follows it. Takeaway: The sweetest intervals you ll find to use in your solos are already present right in the chords of the song itself. Learn to utilize those, and you will discover the secret to making your solos more melodic, more tasty, and more customized to the song. Okay, that s the super-fast bird s eye justification for WHY this stuff works. I d really prefer to spend much more time on the theory and explanation, because once you connect with that, it becomes truly powerful and versatile in your hands. But I ll save that for the Secrets of Tasty Riffs & Solos course; today my main goal is to get you using this stuff as quickly as possible. Just wanted you to know that I just finished some head work laying out thirds in the key of A. The sheet I had handy already had previous work on charting the A major pentatonic. So, I used that and kept going. I did 2 sets of thirds, one on the third string and another along the 4th string. Then I grabbed my acoustic and just let it rip. I messed with the pentatonic and then layered in some as you say tasty thirds and some transition runs. What a hoot. No very good yet, but what an improvement. Thanks for your best series ever. ~ John Yates 6

7 Thirds on Strings 1 and 2 From here on out, we re going to get practical with these thirds, and begin applying them to the fretboard. On the guitar, if you want to play an interval, you can play those two notes on the same string however it s usually quicker and more convenient (and sometimes, more melodic) to use two different strings. That s the beauty of how the guitar works. So, we re going to look at one pair of strings, and find all the pairings of thirds that we can use on those strings in the key of A minor. The diagram to the right uses the 2 nd string as the root note string, and then pairs up all the major and minor thirds with each of the notes on that string from the key of A minor. Root notes are red squares. The first third you see at the top is C major, it is a C and an E. From there, we move to D minor, and so on up the fretboard. At this point I would really encourage you to checkout the video I made that demonstrates working with these same pairings. You can find it here: Another excellent reason to visit that link is that you can download a jam track there as well, which you can use to practice improvising with these thirds. Music is all about context, that s why practicing your solos with a jam track to provide context is so important. 7

8 The idea here is to play those pairs indicated by arrows together in some way, shape, or form, over a related chord in the jam track. Remember how chords are made of thirds? Well, the A minor chord uses an A minor third, as well as a C major third. (A-C, and C-E). So either of those thirds are directly related to the A minor chord, and are good options here. You can play the notes in the third one after the other, in reverse, at the same time there are NO RULES here in terms of how you arrange the notes, the main thing is that you work on selecting a third that is related to the chord in the jam track. As you re probably starting to recognize, this form of playing involves a lot of movement around the fretboard. Perhaps that s different than you re used to, especially if you re accustomed to simply playing in a single scale pattern for your solo. Sometimes we call this chord chasing, because we re always chasing the chords around, playing something out of each one. Once you get familiar with the patterns, it actually becomes a lot of fun to chase the chords, and you ll find that your solos naturally follow the flow of the song better as well. For more examples of what these sound like, and how you can use them in your playing, please refer to the video I mentioned earlier, as video is a much more practical format for demonstrating these things. You ll find it here: Thanks very much for putting this course together! I ve now been through the whole course once and, as you say below, I do plan to go through it at least once more. The course is really well done and has been very helpful to me. I ve heard these sorts of riffs/fills/lines/solos before (as you ve mentioned, they re in lots of songs!) and I always thought they sounded great, but I never really thought through how to play them. How did those guitar players know what pairs of notes would sound good? It was a bit of a mystery to me After seeing your Tasty Riffs and Solos course, it all makes so much sense now. Thank you for introducing me to this world this is something that I have started using already and will definitely continue to use in the future! ~ Carlisle Adams 8

9 INVERTED THIRDS: Strings 1 and 3 Before I wrap this up, I couldn t resist throwing one more musical term at you: the inverted third. This one is really simple it s just reversing the order of the notes in the interval we re inverting it. So, previously we said that A to C is a minor third. Typically the root note of the interval is the one that is lowest in pitch, and in fact, in the diagram using strings 1 and 2, in all the pairings you see there the root note is lower in pitch than the other note in the pair. But what if we made C lower in pitch than the A? Our ear still enjoys the harmony the same way, however this greatly expands what we can do with that pair of notes. If C is lower in pitch than the A, we can call that an A minor inverted third. Some folks simply call that a sixth, in which case it is not inverted. Either way is correct, but because we re all about thirds here, I chose to use the term inverted. With that said, take a look at the diagram on the right. You ll see all the same thirds present, and the notes on the first string are the same, but now they are the root notes. You can use these inverted thirds in exactly the same way as you used the last diagram, on strings 1 and 2, and I recommend using that same jam track to take them for a spin. Have fun with it! On the next page I ve put both diagrams together in a cheatsheet format for easy reference. TIP: Print the cheat sheet and keep it handy in your guitar case! 9

10 CHEAT SHEET: Thirds in A Minor To learn more, visit PlayGuitar.com/courses/trs/ 10

11 The Next Steps This short guide has only barely scratched the surface of the tasty world of thirds. I ve left much of the application to the video I referenced, because honestly I believe it to be far more valuable for you to see and hear at the same time, rather than simply putting a couple of tabs on a page for you. Beyond that, I hope you ve enrolled in my free series that would be most likely how you found this guide. If so, you will be receiving several other videos demonstrating different applications of thirds. Pay close attention to those, as each one goes in a different direction! Thirds is such a RICH subject, the more you study them, the more your playing will be transformed. I know it will, because it has mine. Ultimately, if the sort of riffs and licks you see and hear in the videos appeals to you, and you d like to make them a part of your own playing, I encourage you to consider my Secrets of Tasty Riffs and Solos course. Guitar players that have taken the course are loving the new sounds they re able to access, and now that their ears are attuned to thirds, they re finding them in even more songs than I ve mentioned. The best part is, they ve figured out how to access that iconic tastiness and apply it to their own playing. The truth is, thirds will always be used, because our ears point us in that direction. The question is, will you choose to master their use and apply them to your own playing? Click here to learn more about Secrets of Tasty Riffs & Solos: Above all, I hope you have FUN on your journey into thirds! 11

12 About The Author Jonathan Boettcher has helped thousands of guitar players understand and play their instruments better. You can signup for free weekly video guitar tips from Jonathan at as well as check out his other lessons at the links below. Unlocking I IV V Understand how and why chords work together! Learn the simple rules that govern which chords belong in each key, and ways that you can quickly them all. We ll also take a look at how you can build your own chords, so you ll never have to rely on chord charts again! Grab the free Foundation Course here Guitar Scale Patterns This guitar lesson builds on the concepts taught in Unlocking I IV V, and takes them much further into a deeper understanding of scales and how they relate to the fretboard. You will learn how solos come directly from the scales, and how you can play a scale or solo in any position you want on the fretboard. Specific scale patterns are demonstrated in close-up detail and taught in a way that will truly make your fretboard come alive in your hands. Learn more about Guitar Scale Patterns here Dynamic Rhythm Guitar If you want to take your rhythm playing seriously, and learn to make playing rhythm so much fun you don t even need a solo, then this is the course for you. It s in depth, and covers everything you need to truly establish your rhythm skills, from picking and strumming to theory and slipping riffs in between your rhythms, it s all here. Learn more about Dynamic Rhythm Guitar here Secrets of Tasty Riffs & Solos Discover the secrets of creating guitar riffs and solos that are laser-targeted to harmonize perfectly with the chord progression. Learn a completely new approach to working with the fretboard that doesn t rely upon scale patterns! This course is a nice blend of theory with a heavy dose of practical application where you ll learn not only numerous written solos developed specifically for four custom jam tracks, but you ll also learn improvising techniques as well. Learn more about Secrets of Tasty Riffs & Solos here 12

13 30 Blues Jam Tracks & 30 Rock Jam Tracks These two collections of 30 backing tracks each will seriously spice up your practice time! Playing over jam tracks is an excellent way to develop your ear as you learn to listen to the music and fit your own playing into it. Timing, fluidity and speed all improve as a result. This is a great way to work over new riffs you re learning, or simply to practice your scales! Bonus video guitar lesson included with each pack. Grab a FREE blues jam track here Grab a FREE rock jam track here Bar Chords Made Simple Bar chords got you down? The approach you ll find in Bar Chords Made Simple has helped many guitar players break through the bar chord barrier and finally begin using the rest of their fretboard. Learn more about Bar Chords Made Simple here Decoding The Bass Guitar Bass players prepare to play like never before! Decoding the Bass Guitar takes the concepts that are covered in Unlocking I IV V and Guitar Scale Patterns, and applies them specifically to the bass guitar. You will learn how you can truly cover the entire fretboard using only two scale patterns, and furthermore you will learn how you can use the intervals in the scale to create riffs and fills like never before! Learn about Decoding The Bass Guitar here 13

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