free jam tracks - brought to you by dylan de graaf and nick cresswell

Chord Shape
Of The Week

B Dominant 6
also written: B6

E|--x--
B|--9--
G|--8--
D|--7--
A|--x--
E|--7--

This is a really nice sounding blues chord that has a bit of a jazz sound to it as well.

To play this B6 chord place your index finger on the 7th fret of the 6th string (the low E string). Place your middle finger on the 7th fret of the 4th string (the D string). Your ring finger plays the 8th fret of the 3rd string (the G string). And your little finger frets the 9th fret of the 2nd string (the B string).

Muting

You can mute the 5th string (the A string) with the underside of our index finger. The 1st string (high E string) can be muted with the underside of your little finger as it frets the B string.

If you mute the string properly then you can just strum all 6 strings and only the 4 strings above will sound out.

Chord Tones

W are using the Root, 3rd, 6th and b7th chord tones from the B Major scale.

The B on the 6th string is the Root of the B6 chord. The A on the 4th string is the b7 (flat 7th) of the B6 chord). The D# on the 3rd string is 3rd of the B6 chord. The G# on the 2nd string is the 6th of the B6 chord.

If we were playing a B7 chord then we'd be using the 5th instead of the 6th. There is only one note different but it gives this B chord a whole different sound. That one note gives the chord more of a jazz sound to it than just a straight blues chord.

Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan used 6th chords a lot. Especially in some of the really nice instrumentals they wrote.

Hybrid Picking

You can also 'grab' the chords with your right hand fingers. If you using a pick you can pick the 6th string and pluck the 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings with the middle, ring and little fingers on your right hand. This is called hybrid picking as you are using a pick and the fingers on your right hand. Eric Johnson and Danny Gatton are two great examples of master hybrid picking guitar players.

Finger Picking

If you aren't using a pick then you can play the 6th string with your thumb and pluck the 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings with the index, middle and ring fingers on your right hand. Playing without a pick like this is called finger picking.

You can use this chord shape when playing any chord in a standard blues progression but it works best a the V chord in an E blues progression as it turns the progression around nicely from the V chord back to the I.

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!

New! More Backing Tracks

The backing tracks I'm putting up here are one track per page due to the additional 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	tracks coming soon

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

Crossroads Guitar Duel

This has to be the greatest moment in cinema history. If you haven't seen the movie Crossroads you should go hire or buy it. The whole film is pretty cool but the guitar duel at the end of the movie (shown above) is too cool for school. Steve Vai is playing his parts and Ralph Macchio guitar parts were played by the great Ry Cooder. They had the awesome guitarist and music educator Arlen Roth on site when they made the film to help Ralph out with his guitar playing. Great movie with great playing all the way through it - go check it out.

Blues Guitar Lesson - The Land of A7

This is a really good instructional clip put up by a really good guitar player and teacher. Great for electric and acoustic guitar players. Watch the entire clip and play through the shapes he shows you and you'll walk away being able to add some really nice color to a blues progression. Basically what he's doing is harmonizing the blues scale by playing notes that fit well with the A7 chord all up the neck. If you want to take this to the next level you should learn how to do the same thing using an E7 chord. Then you could plan an E blues using the concept with the E7 and A7 chords (the I and the IV chords). It's a little bit of work but will make you sound like a real pro. More importantly you'll enjoy your guitar playing a whole lot more than if you only know the basic shapes. Highly recommended.

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:

February 4th:
New guitar jam track with chords and music theory.
E Rock Groove

Video clips that were on the home page moved here (the Darth Vader playing blues harp is still making me laugh).
Music Videos 05

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