String 1–3 Triads in G and A Major

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These are the final chords in our triad exploration, and they're crucial for a simple reason: most of the triad songs we're aiming at are in the key of D major, which means A and G are the chords that live alongside your D shapes. Under Pressure is D to A to G and back; Substitute by The Who works the same ground; Roxanne and half The Smiths' catalogue draw on the same knowledge. This is the level of fretboard understanding that took me years to figure out on my own — I'm genuinely trying to save you years with this material. And at the end, we set up the acid test: a jam track in the style of The Who.

What you will learn:

• Why A and G complete the set: the key of D major and the songs that live in it

• The A major triads: tonic, first and second inversions, plus the Pretenders sus moves

• A Cure-style jam: Boys Don't Cry and putting the A shapes to work

• The G major triads: two frets down, and the My Generation lead lines

• Where this leads: Roxanne, Grade 5 and the jam track acid test

Why A and G Complete the Set

Learn triads in C, D, G and A and you can play in the key of D major — which turns out to be where an enormous number of triad-based songs live. Under Pressure moves D, A, G, A with different voicings of each; Substitute is built on the same family of shapes. And this is how the higher-level material opens up: when you look at Roxanne or a Smiths riff and can already name the G and D triads inside it, you've crossed from copying songs to understanding them. If that still seems light years away, stick with me — this lesson is the gateway.

The A Major Triads

You know the open A chord, and you likely know A sus2 and sus4 moves in the style of The Pretenders — Brass in Pocket is the easy way in. On the thinnest three strings: the shape at the fifth fret is the first inversion (third, fifth, octave), the tonic triad sits with the root on top of the familiar open shape, and the second inversion follows further up as a D shape — which means you automatically know where its sus4 lives, because the sus4 is always in the same place on each shape. Run the cycle — tonic, first inversion, second inversion, tonic — and you've got the full ladder up the neck.

A Cure-style jam

To make the A shapes musical straight away, we jam something a little different — a groove based on The Cure. Suddenly you're doing what they did when they composed this stuff: small triad voicings, one added B minor colour, lots of space. Boys Don't Cry is the song to learn here, and a lot of classic Cure lines use exactly this kind of playing. It's also a good reminder that triads aren't just a U2 delay trick: they're a whole rhythm guitar vocabulary.

The G major triads

G is the gift at the end: every shape is simply the A material moved two frets down. G to Gsus4 on the thinnest three strings is literally what The Who's My Generation does — those lead lines are just a G triad rocking to its sus4. Then the familiar ladder: first inversion (third, fifth, octave), second inversion as a D shape with its sus4 in the usual place, and back to the first inversion up high. Loop a G root note underneath and work through them — tonic triad to sus2 and sus4 is just walking the first four notes of the major scale.

Where this leads

Check yourself against the songs, in order of difficulty: Hole Hearted first, then Substitute, then Under Pressure — trickier because things need to ring out cleanly the whole time — and then Roxanne, where the verse comping is pure triads and the full song reaches into Grade 5 and even Grade 6. That last one is just the G major and D major triads you now know, with some rhythm attitude. Next comes the real test: a jam track in the style of the legendary Who, where we consolidate everything from this triad series. The breadcrumbs in these lessons genuinely lead beyond Grade 4 — follow them as far as you like.