Playing Double Notes or Thirds
Source: Guitar Chords
Playing Double Notes – Also Know as Thirds:
Up until now we have been just playing single notes with a chord thrown in now and then. I think the time has come to teach you what thirds on a guitar are and how you should play them.
Actually thirds are basically 2-note chords or another way of saying this would be the are small 2-note portions of chords.
What We Mean by Thirds:
If you have not read the article on Half Steps and Whole Steps, please do so right now. You need to know this information before we proceed. In this article we learned that a half step is one fret and a whole step is 2 frets. So a third would be going from the first step to the third step in the scale or 2 steps or 4 frets.
Let’s Look At Some Thirds:
In the two diagrams above notice that we are playing thirds in the Key of C Major. This means we will not have any Accidentals and all of these notes will be on adjacent strings (string right next to each other). The first diagram will be the hardest for you to understand because we are playing the bass notes and they extend below the staff.
What is more important to you right now, so you can play these quickly is to play by the TAB staff. That will give you the string and fret information quickly. Once you have mastered the TAB move on to the Notation Staff.
How To Play Them:
Thirds are quite easy to play. Many times they are a fretted note with just an open string added either before or after the note you are fingering or fretting.
Play them with a quick stroke of the pick. Lay the pick tip on the first string of the third and use one quick arm motion to play both this string and the next string. It takes practice and strength to be able to stop from playing any more than the 2 strings – work on that.
How Thirds Are Used:
Thirds can be used in just about all songs. Some songs even sound good played with all thirds. Some sound better with a few thrown in here and there.
Thirds are just 2 notes. One of these notes would be the lead note and the other would be the accompaniment note. The lead note is almost always the higher note, or the note of the song we are playing. The third is then added to the lead note and it is on the next lower string.
Look at the upper diagram. Notice that the higher note in the C on the 3rd fret of the 5th string – remember this is the first note of the C scale? So that is the lead note. The second note of the third is the A on the 5th fret of the 6th string. Oops – isn’t the A the open 5th string? Yep it is, but we can’t play it there because we are fingering the 5th string already, so we have to find another location to play that A note – and that would be on the 5th fret 6th string.
Confused? Don’t worry it will come to you in time.
Tags: double notes, guitar theory, how to play thirds, Kids Guitar Lessons, playing thirds
