What is the Difference between a Triad and an Arpeggio

by Ari 17 Jun 2021 2 minute read

I love questions. They reflect the state of understanding of our course participants and students.

And I love watching the answers come in on our Facebook Group when the question is posted there. Some spot-on, but others adding more to the confusion revealing why precise and careful instruction is needed.

After an epic thread that contained some answers that were on top of it such as the one from our friend Mark Smith, we also had plenty of other answers that weren’t quite as accurate and may have muddied the waters a bit for our questioner.

Particularly this one, which we had in several versions:

If it is a triad, it’s three notes. If you play an arpeggio, you always add the seventh on top. (fact-check: not so)

So I made this quick video to clarify things:

Notation:

difference triad and chord

Both are C major triads.

First one is played as a chord.

The second one as an arpeggio (you can also say it is “arpeggiated”).

Many ways exist to play a triad as a single chord (voicings, order of notes, inversions, what octaves… etc) and many ways exist to arpeggiate a triad, but the principle as shown above, remains the same.

Keep the questions coming!

Interesting notreble Talking Technique post on Triads

Learn about the two essential triad grips here!

More about Triads: This really clicked with my students


Our questioner is part of our Cohort Course. Learn more about this unique learning experience!

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Hi. I'm Ari.

As a bassist, I have toured/played/recorded with a variety of rock, Jazz, and funk bands, I have worked with some incredible producers (Keith Olsen) and musicians (Paul Hanson, Muriel Anderson) and I toured Brazil with Stu Hamm as a duo.

 

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When I started playing bass, I excelled very quickly because I had an amazing teacher who taught me using a powerful method. This method transformed my playing so quickly that I passed a bunch of high-level university auditions and even tested out of entire classes at university even though I had been playing for only a very short time.

 

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I started teaching online in 2009 and have embraced technology as a powerful learning tool since then, never losing sight of the importance of providing feedback and personalized guidance to learners.

 

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