1 4 5 Chord Progression Backing Track

[Rosalia Kemme]

Ive started improvising guitar solos over some backing tracks like this one, and the videos always start by stating the chord progression and then saying which scale you can solo in for it to sound good with the backing track. What I can't figure out is: what is the logic that lets you get from the chord progression of the backing track and to the scale of the solo, and vice versa? For example, if I have the chord progression Am-C-E-F, what pentatonic scales could I use to solo on top of it.

It is immensely beneficial to see this as the normal default situation. The vast majority of Western music culture assumes a diatonic scale on the home note as the default reference. In music notation, the default scale is indicated by a key signature, and deviations from it are marked with accidentals.

Here I've written out the chords of your example progression. As you can see, on the E major chord there's a G sharp note that needs to be specially marked, because it's a deviation from the default scale.

Pentatonic scales are used for two reasons. (1) they can sound bluesy and jazzy, and (2) you can "cheat" a little by restricting your playing to harmonically more ambiguous notes, and thus avoid having to know what's happening in the backing chords. And if someone says you're cheating, you can always say you do it because of the bluesy sound, not because it's easier.

The minor and major pentatonic scales actually have the same notes. In your example, they would be A minor pentatonic, or C major pentatonic. If your goal in music is bad ideas #1 and #2, then either scale will get you going.

As a basic, with Am and C in the sequence, Am pent. and C maj. pent would be a good choice. As it happens, they're exactly the same notes! The pents work well, as they leave out the two notes which can be awkward to fit in: the 4 and 7 of maj. pent., or the 2 and 6 of min. pent.

Now let's look at common notes between Am pent. and E maj. pent. A and E again. However, if a Blues tinge is needed, there's D (m7 of E) and G (m3 of E) that are available in Am pent. I'll let you work out what's common between Am pent. and F maj. pent!

We could go deeper, and say that just because a note isn't in an appropriate scale doesn't mean it can't be used. All twelve notes are available (and those 'in the cracks' for guitarists and sax players for a start), but you specifically ask about pents. And while some notes from one scale aren't oficially usable (!) they will add some colour to anyone's playing - used intelligently.

A pentatonic scale is just a normal 7-note one with the two 'wrong' ones taken out. What we used to call the 'avoid notes'. But restricting yourself to those 5 notes just means you'll play something that doesn't sound wrong, not something interesting.

Look at all the available notes (and that's ALL of them!) and think what their place would be over a C major chord. Obviously C, E and G won't jar. D and A are fairly neutral, there's no place they particularly want to go. But F and B are far from neutral - F has a strong tendency to move to E, B to C. So, if you want to emphasise the C major chord, stick primarily to C, E and G, also allow D and A, (Hey! We've found that pentatonic scale!) avoid F and B. (Another way to look at it is to avoid notes a semitone away from a chord note. Same result.)

Chord progressions are a series of chords used in a piece of music. The chords in a progression are shown by Roman numerals and are determined by key. The chord progressions determine how a piece of music unfolds over time.

The I - IV - V chord progression is one of the most common chord progressions in music. The I is the root note, followed by the 4th and 5th note of the scale. An example of the C scale:

Forget the guess work and use our helpful scale & mode recommendations for each music backing track. So you know immediately what guitar scales to use. With the combination of the key, tempo, chord progressions and scales suggestions to use, you will be making solo's in no time! Guitartonemaster.com - Your first choice for guitar backing tracks

Backingtracks with chord progressions Find the right jamtrack you want with our advanced backing track search! Use one of the search filters and choose the desired key, genre, ... and much more. Do you wish to find backing tracks with there chord progression ? No problemo

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Best of The Best Guitar Soloing JamTracks. Play incredible solo's that'll make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Guitartonemaster is an online Backing Track archive which makes learning scales, modes, licks easier. It accompanies the jamtracks with addional information such as the key, tempo, chordprogressions & scale- mode- suggestions.

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The vast collection of tunes featured on this website, are in various keys, tempos and time signatures, meaning that you will be able to improve your flexibility and your understanding of many different musical settings.

Create backing tracks with the piano, guitar, bass, and drums. Select a tempo and style at the top and enter chords by clicking the chord boxes or the "+" icon. Play your track by clicking the "Play" button or by pressing the spacebar on your keyboard.

Click the "Generate chords" button to randomly produce a chord progression from a list of common progressions in the chosen style. To add a new section of chords, click the "Add section" button. To switch instruments, click the "Instruments" button.

Drag and drop chords to change their order. To remove a chord, drag the chord outside of the gray box. To change the length of the chord, drag the right side of a chord box to the left or right. You can also change the length by clicking the chord.

List of common chord progressions in different genres you can use as inspiration to create your own progressions. A chord progression may be repeated or expanded with more chords to create a longer and more varied progression.

List of popular songs where the same four chords are repeated throughout the song. Each chord on the list is 4 beats long. Pop and rock songs often use simple chord progressions with a few different major and minor chords.

I wanted to elaborate more fully and develop a topic that I hope others might benefit from - simple steps to begin learning how to incorporate the magical art of targeting chord tones in lead guitar. You could also read this topic in conjunction with one I wrote on a similar theme here.

For your chosen chord progression / backing track, chart the chords as triads on a set of three adjacent strings. Visualise the five movable CAGED barre shapes and just mark the notes on your chosen strings. If you know your intervals, mark the root and the 3rd and 5th too. Definitely the root. Have these neck diagrams in sight when you are playing. I am going to do this work for you to begin and set up neck diagrams in several chords.

Put on a backing track and listen for the chord changes. Play along with the chords strumming or arpeggiating triads only. This will help you to become famiar with the structure of the progression in the backing track and the shape and location of the triads you need.

Play one note per bar, just one note, over the chord progression within the backing track. Start with the root note of each chord as it comes around. Just the root. Get used to where the root notes are and what they sound like.

Try to think of variations in the way you play these notes. Remember, you are practicing as a build up to playing solos. Add a little vibrato. Slide to a note. Slide out of a note. Play hard. Play soft. Let a note sustain. Mute to kill a note.

Try this for a few weeks over a variety of backing tracks in different keys. The sort of backing track that will work best with this will have only three or four chords, be fairly slow and perhaps hold each chord for two or more bars. I will post one for each example that follows. Each will be a good length and most use the famous and ubiquitous 4-chord progression I - V - vi - IV (as made infamous by Axis of Awesome).

See if you can find others, or use a looper to make up your own.

Spend time with these shapes. There are three different shapes for each of the major and minor triads. Six shapes in total on the G, B and E strings - the same number on the D, G and B strings. If you need to learn one triad shape at a time then that is fine. Play all the majors using just one shape and all the minors using just one shape until you can play and move between them freely. Then try a second triad shape for each of the majors and minors. Then, eventually, the third shape. The only thing to note if you follow that path is that you need to be prepared for a lot of sliding up and down the neck.

Hopefully, you have invested playing time with your guitar to exploring the shapes on the G, B and E strings, targeting the individual notes and even building upto playing some very simple, short phrases using the triads and just the 1, 3, 5 / 1, b3, 5 chord tones contained within.

The next step is to follow the same methods and processes transferred to triads on the D, G and B strings.

We now have another six different shapes to learn and play. As before, if you want or need to learn these one major shape and one minor shape at a time then do so.

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