free jam tracks - brought to you by nick cresswell

Chord Shape
Of The Week

E/G#.
Or E with the 3rd
in the bass.

E|--x--
B|--5--
G|--4--
D|--2--
A|--x--
E|--4--

This is not your standard E chord shape. It's a really nice variation on the E Major chord that will make your fingers stretch.

We'll fret this chord putting the basic E chord together first and add the 3rd at the end.

Fret the 4th (or D) string with you index finger. That's the E or Root note of the E Major chord.

Next play the 5th of the E chord by putting your ring finger on the 7th fret of the G (3rd) string.

Note that just playing those two notes gives you a Root to 5th chord. That's the most basic chord you can play. You can move it up and down the neck. If you are playing electric and add some distortion you'll be able to get a big sound just out of that.

Rock n Roll!

Fret the 2nd (or B) string with you little finger. This is the note E one octave up from the Root note you are playing on the 4th string.

Power Chords

Playing the above 3 notes gives you the chord made up of the notes E, B and E. These notes are the Root, 5th and Octave of the chord. Chords which use only the Root, 5th and Octave are also called power chords.

The above is a great chord shape to know just in itself. It's a movable chord which you can slide up and down the neck to play other chords.

If you move that shape so that your index finger is on the 7th fret then you'll be playing an A chord. If you move the shape up another 2 frets to the 9th fret you'll be playing a B chord.

If you play the E, A and B power chords you are playing the I, IV and V chords in the key of E.

Playing with another Guitarist

If you are playing with another guitar player and they are playing the standard E, A and B chords - it's a good idea to try playing the above chords. You will both be playing the same chord tones but in different positions on the neck. This will add additional flavor to the music than if you are both playing the same shape for each chord you are playing.

The Funk Brothers

If you want to study this concept and sounds you can get then check out The Funk Brothers. The Funk Brothers are the studio musicians who played on all the classic songs from the Motown era. The guitar players, Eddie Willis and Joe Messina, were masters of playing nice chord voicings and not getting in each others way. They did this by playing on separate parts of the guitar neck. A simple idea that is very effective.

Everyone should watch the DVD Standing in the Shadows of Motown. You'll learn more about being a musician from that than just about anything else on the planet.

Adding the 3rd in the Bass

Now for the big gun - instead of playing the Root note on the low E string, you are going to play the Major 3rd of the E Major chord which is located at the 4th fret.

It's easier if you angle your hand so that your middle finger pointing more towards your face than the sky when you fret the 4th fret. You are already fretting the 4th fret on the 3rd string with your middle finger. If you angle your hand towards your face a little, you will be able to get your middle finger right being the fret wire on the 4th string.

Once again you can move this chord shape up and down the neck to play any of the 12 Major chords. You just need to remember that the Root note is located on the 4th fret of for this chord shape. If you are playing the shape in 7th position, where you index finger is on the 7th fret of the 4th string and your middle finger on the 9th fret of the 6th string then the chord is an A Major chord with the 3rd in the bass. Because the Root note is the A located on the 4th string at the 7th fret. The 3rd in the bass (on the low E string) is the note C#. So you can write that chord as A/C#. Which means you are playing an A Major chord with the C# in the bass.

Using the same fingering as above, the guitar tab for this chord is as follows:

A/C#.
Or A with the 3rd
in the bass.

E|--x--
B|--10--
G|--9--
D|--7--
A|--x--
E|--9--

The A/C# chord is the IV chord in the key of E. If you want to play the V chord then you move the shape up another 2 frets to play the chord B/D#:

B/D#.
Or B with the 3rd
in the bass.

E|--x--
B|--12--
G|--11--
D|--9--
A|--x--
E|--11--

Jam on!

More Chord Shapes

Guitar Chords

Free Jam Tracks and Backing Tracks

Download free jam tracks and backing tracks and play guitar, bass or drums.
Music created for musicians, by musicians that you can download for free.

Free Jam Tracks is a website dedicated to providing play-along music to help musicians learn to play guitar, bass and drums. The backing tracks are music minus one and have been broken up for each instrument into 7 styles: country, blues, funk, metal, jazz, reggae & rock.

The guitar backing tracks mostly consist of rhythm guitar, bass and drums - so you can use them to play-along with guitar or any lead instrument. The bass backing tracks mainly consist of rhythm guitar and drums to allow bass players to groove with a band. The drum backing tracks consist of rhythm guitar and bass to give drummers music to play-along with without having to compete with any other drum sounds.

Whether you are starting out or are a seasoned professional, our aim is to help you become a better musician. As well as the free music downloads, we also add licks, theory, lessons and have added links to articles on music and general concepts that we publish. More is being worked on and added to the site daily.

...nuff said, it's time to jam!

Guitar Backing Tracks	Bass Backing Tracks	Drum Backing Tracks
Play Guitar Blues 01	Play Bass Blues 01	Play Drums Blues 01
Play Guitar Blues 02	Play Bass Blues 02	Play Drums Blues 02
Play Guitar Blues 03	Play Bass Blues 03	Play Drums Blues 03
Play Guitar Blues 04	Play Bass Blues 04	Play Drums Blues 04
Play Guitar Blues 05	Play Bass Blues 05	Play Drums Blues 05
Play Guitar Country 01	Play Bass Country 01	Play Drums Country 01
Play Guitar Funk 01	Play Bass Funk 01	Play Drums Funk 01
Play Guitar Funk 02	Play Bass Funk 02	Play Drums Funk 02
Play Guitar Jazz 01	Play Bass Jazz 01	Play Drums Jazz 01
Play Guitar Metal 01	Play Bass Metal 01	Play Drums Metal 01
Play Guitar Reggae 01	Play Bass Reggae 01	Play Drums Reggae 01
Play Guitar Rock 01	Play Bass Rock 01	Play Drums Rock 01
Play Guitar Rock 02	Play Bass Rock 02	Play Drums Rock 02
Play Guitar Odd Meters	Play Bass Odd Meters	Play Drums Odd Meters
Play Guitar Modes	Play Bass Modes	Do Not Play Modes!
All Tracks On One Page:
83 Jam Tracks for Guitar	79 Jam Tracks for Bass

More Backing Tracks

The backing tracks in this section are one track per page due to the additional information and suggestions for you to think about when jamming with the track.

I'm starting to go through each of the tracks from the pages above and expanding on the suggestions, adding theory, tab, chords, scales and anything else I can think of that I'm putting up with the track.

Jam on people!

Guitar Players	Bass Players
E Rock Groove C Wear It	Medium Blues Shuffle

Guitar Lessons for Beginners

If you want to play along with the jam tracks but don't know how to start then these lessons are for you. I'm starting with lessons aimed at the absolute beginner guitar player but there is lot's of theory and ideas in there for all musicians, no matter what instrument you play. If you are looking for more advanced music theory then you should check out the Modes, Pentatonic and Blues Scales page.

As you read through any of the lessons below you should start applying the ideas by playing along with the backing tracks from the Play Guitar pages: Play Guitar Blues 01, Play Guitar Blues 02, ... Play Guitar Rock 01 etc. The more you jam, with the backing track or with other musicians, the better you'll become.

Guitar Lessons - Home Page

Lesson 01 - The E Blues Scale in 10th and 12th position. Position shifting.

Lesson 02 - E Blues Scale Guitar Licks. Learn how to slide into and bend notes.

Lesson 03 - E Blues Scale in 7th Position. More position shifting, note tone and introduces the idea that music is a conversation.

Lesson 04 - E Blues Licks in 7th Position. 6 licks that form a compete blues solo in E.

Lesson 05 - Building Chords - Part 1. Learn to build chords using the E Major scale played on the 6th string. Root + 5th chords. Also discusses fingerstyle and hybrid picking techniques.

Lesson 06 - Building Chords - Part 2. Follows on from Lesson 05 - Building Chords - Part 1 adding minor and Major 3rds to each of the Root + 5th chords.

Bass Lessons for Beginners

Below are 11 lessons for beginner bass guitar players. Lesson 01 starts with just playing the Root note and then each lesson builds on the last lesson so that you will be able to play some good/solid bass lines by the time you finish lesson 11. Each lesson comes with the bass lines played just with the drums and there is a backing track without bass that you can use to play along with for all 11 lessons.

After you learn each lesson you can then use the bass lines to play along with the backing tracks from the Play Bass pages: Play Bass Blues 01, Play Bass Blues 02, ... Play Bass Rock 01 etc

Bass Guitar Lessons - Home Page	Bass Lesson 06 - Root 5th 7th Root
Bass Lesson 01 - Blues Bass in E	Bass Lesson 07 - Blues Up and Down
Bass Lesson 02 - Root Note Octaves	Bass Lesson 08 - Root 3rd 5th 3rd
Bass Lesson 03 - Root to 5th	Bass Lesson 09 - Root 3rd 4th 5th
Bass Lesson 04 - Root 5th Root 5th	Bass Lesson 10 - Root 3rd Root 7th 5th
Bass Lesson 05 - Root Root 7th 5th	Bass Lesson 11 - Root 3rd 5th 6th 7th 6th 5th 3rd

Gregory Hines and Stanley Clarke

This is a live performance from Gregory Hines did with Stanley Clarke on the Arseneo Hall show in 1993. They recorded two tracks for Stanley Clarke's solo album 'If This Bass Could Only Talk'. The intro track is the album title and the last track on the record is 'Basically Taps'. So they are just two pieces of music of Stanley Clarke playing bass and Gregory Hines doing what he does best. Too cool for school!

Stevie Ray Vaughan - Rude Mood

Rude Mood is a great guitar boogie from Stevie Ray Vaughan's first album Texas Flood. Steive borrowed the riff from Lightnin' Hopkins song 'Lightnin's Skyhop' and made it into his own powerhouse guitar instrumental. In his MTV Unplugged performance Stevie Ray Vaughan played Rude Mood on a 12 string guitar. Eat your heart out!

Lightnin' Hopkins - Mojo Hand

Lightnin' Hopkins was one of the best blues guitar players to ever come out of Texas. He played amazing blues guitar that grooved like no-one else.

Eric Johnson - Guitar Finger Technique

This video clip is from Eric Johnson's Total Electric Guitar, hotlicks instructional dvd. No matter what style of music you play, this is one of the all time best instructional dvd's for guitar players recorded. Lot's of great licks but more so than anything because of the techniques Eric explains.

Music Concepts and Instruction

Articles written by Free Jam Tracks for musicians.

Music Concepts - Home Page

Easy Guitar Chords for Beginners - Teaches you: G, C, D, E and A Major chords.

Backing Tracks - Learn to Play Music - An introduction to playing with backing tracks.

Easy Guitar Lesson - Learn how to play Knockin' on Heaven's Door (uses chords above).

Chords, Scales and Making Guitar Practice Fun - Take your playing to the next level.

Music Practice and Motivation - How a small amount of effort will give you big results.

Playing at Open Mic Nights - Nick used to run an open mike night and still plays at them.

12 Bar Blues Progression - The structure of, and how to play, a basic 12 bar blues.

12 Bar Blues in E: Easy Guitar Chords - Use 2 note chords to play a blues in E.

Triplets and the Shuffle Rhythm - Fundamentals of counting triplets and shuffle rhythms.

Blues Chord Progressions - The Quick Change - Looking at the 2nd bar of a blues.

Playing Through Mistakes and Going Unnoticed - Story of my life!

Bending the Blue Note - The Secret to Great Blues Guitar Revealed.

How to Tune Your Guitar Down Half a Step - Then Jam with 4, 5 & 10 on Blues Page 01.

Free Classic Blues Music Downloads

Classic blues tracks by some of the greatest blues players of all time that you can download for free. Right click on the track and select 'save as' to download the file to your computer.

Robert Johnson	Son House	Big Bill Broonzy
Ramblin on my Mind	Clarksdale Moan	Baby Please Dont Go
Sweet Home Chicago	My Black Mama	How You Want Done
Malted Milk	Blind Blake	Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie
Drunken Hearted Man	Diddie Wa Diddie	When the Levee Breaks
Kind Hearted Woman Blues	Lightnin Hopkins	Ledbelly
Little Queen of Spades	Goin Back Home	Where Did You Sleep Last Night
Me and the Devil Blues
Stop Breakin Down Blues

"All I'm gonna do is just go on and do what I feel." Jimi Hendrix.

FJT Latest Updates:

July 27th:
Stanley Clarke and Gregory Hines bass and tap solo. YouTube video home page.

July 5th:
I added four blues licks in the key of A using the blues scales at 12th position for jam track: 01 A Cool Jazz Blues Shuffle on the Play Guitar Blues 03 page.

July 4th:
A 12 bar blues bass line for track 8 from the play bass blues 01 page: Medium Blues Shuffle.

July 1st:
New guitar backing track in the key of C: C Wear It.

Modes, Pentatonic and Blues Scales:
Everything I know (how I derive): Modes, Pentatonic and Blues Scales. This is not for the faint hearted! Comes with an Excel summary that shows you how you can break down and derive the Major pentatonic and the blues scale from the Modes.

Free Jam Tracks
Pages of Procrastination!

Music Concepts

Guitar Heroes
Acoustic Guitar Players
Albert King
Angus Young
Derek Trucks
Eddie Van Halen
Eric Clapton
Eric Johnson
Jimi Hendrix
Joe Satriani
Michael Hedges
Randy Rhoads
Steve Vai
Stevie Ray Vaughan

Who is your music hero?

FTJ Shenanigans:
About the Jam Tracks
Meet Some Jammers
Meet A ROCKStar
Jam Tracks Shop
Latest Updates - The Jam Tracks Blog

Brother Russell's Page

Music Videos 01
Music Videos 02
Music Videos 03
Music Videos 04
Music Videos 05
Music Videos 06

Essential Drum Books

Past Chord Shapes

Guitar Chords

It's fair to say that we don't actually put up a new chord shape every single week.

This is because we have no concept of time!

Band Merchandise

Below are links to band merchandise for some of my favorite bands. They have a lot of cool items for sale and the prices are reasonable. It's not just t-shirts, stickers and posters - there are guitar picks and some other things on there as well. Most of the designs and prints they have are really cool.