John Mcganns Guide To Mando Triads printable pdf download

John McGann’s Guide to Mando Triads

Knowing, hearing and seeing chords on your fingerboard will help you

understand harmony, get to know the instrument better, and lead you to better

melodic and harmonic improvisation. You will see and hear theory in action!

When we spell triads with the notes in sequence as close as possible from the root

(i.e. the notes in a row next to each other, like 135, 351, 513), we are spelling a

‘closed position’ voicing.. Some closed position chords are long stretches.

Easy: DF#A (740x)

Hard: Eb G Bb (851x ouch)

A good way around that ‘ouch’ is to voice them as 'spread' voicings. The middle

note in each closed position chord goes up an octave.

Closed voiced root position A major: A C# E (unplayable in lower octave)

Open position voicing: A E C# (the C# has been raised an octave).

Of course there ARE other ways to voice triads on the mando, but this is a

relatively easy to follow and effective set of voicings.

Note that as long as the root remains in the bass, it is still ‘root position’ and not

an ‘inversion’. An inversion has a note OTHER than the root in the bass.

Any triad can be “inverted”, meaning a note other than the root can appear in

the bass. The 3rd in the bass is also called “first inversion”; the 5th in the bass is

called “second inversion”. Each of these inversions has it’s own unique character,

which can be best heard with the bass note doubled on another instrument.

These inversions are used extensively in classical music as well as jazz and pop

music; you will also hear them in certain roots music such as Texas fiddle and

Irish/Scottish music.

The four triad spellings:

MAJOR 1 3 5

MINOR 1 b3 5

AUGMENTED 1 3 #5

DIMINISHED 1 b3 b5

The chart below gives you the graphic for each triad. The notes in parenthesis

are optional doublings; we will play these as three note voicings. You can

practice connecting through all 3 inversions for each chord type, and learn them

not only from the root, but also starting the pattern on the lowest available note

(i.e. E major would start with the first inversion on the low G#).

John Mcganns Guide To Mando Triads