12 bars form and A minor pentatonic scale first position

Hi Mike,

I am still working on Wikd Horses Easy version but have a few questions on other topics please.

The picture below shiws the 12 bar form, I am following your course on this also. Are these chirds shown in 12 boxes played as dominant seventh chords A7  D7 E7 

According to this diagram we are in the key of A is this A7 or A major?
Do we play four downstrums per bar, does the above diagram refer to the seventh chords 

They are shown on the A and D strings 

What backing track would suit this, can I use guitar tricks jam tool to practice this and what speed should the metronome be set at.

in a separate question

how do I use guitar tricks jam tool to practice the A minor pentatonic scale first position starting at 5-8

if I play the second position of this pentatonic scale do I need a different backing track. Thanks for your time, really interested in this stuff. 

Hi Martin - thanks for the great questions!

Yes, you can play the chords shown in the boxes as dominant 7th chords (A7, D7, and E7). You could also play the chords as written (major chords) but it will not sound quite as "bluesy" as the 7th chords.

You are in the Key of A major.  When we say the "Key of A" - it implies that it's a major key, so you could also just say the Key of A.

The A riff you've notated with tab are 8th notes.  There are 8 of them, so yes that adds up to 1 bar of 4/4. If you are strumming down/up down/up throughout the bar, then yes, there are a total of 4 downstrokes per bar.  Sometimes you might choose to play ALL downstrokes, so then we would have 8 downstrokes adding up to a full bar.  

A bar of 4/4 contains 4 quarter notes which is the same as 8 eighth notes.

Any backing track that is a Blues backing track in the key of A will work for this. Choose the tempo of the track so that you can play along comfortably and not make many mistakes. It's okay to use a slow backing track at first and gradually increase the speed as you get more comfortable.

Any Blues backing track in the key of A will work for practicing ANY of the A Minor Pentatonic scale patterns.

Hope this helps! Let me know how it goes!

Mike

Hey martjor

Possibly to add to Mike's great exlplanation and advice and not sure if this will be of any help but Anders covers something quite similar in Rock Level 1 Chapter 6 there is also a play along song at the end of the chapter so the backing track may be of interest.

https://www.guitartricks.com/lesson/20869

Hi,

Thanks for replying to my question, this is very interesting.

Martin 

Hi Mike,

sorry I know this is a bit of a silly question I just want to check 

Is the A major riff a separate piece from the 12 boxes which are played as dominant seventh chords as follows

A7 four times

D7 twice

A7 twice

E7 twice 

A7 twice 

when playing the A major riff is the A string played open with a downstrum  then fret 2 played with a upstrum of the D string, then A string played open again with the D string fretted at the fourth fret, this is repeated to give one bar. 
based on the riff we are playing 

every note on the A string open ( because the root note for A major is here

On the D string we are playing E E  F#F#   EE  F#F#

but there is no F sharp contained within the twelve bixes and the D major is not shown on the riff.

why is the riff played this way could other riffs be done in this key of A major?

This particular riff is rooted on the open fifth string because it is an A major riff

If we were to do the following the following:

play the A string at the second fret instead of open string would this give a B major riff,

Would we then move the D string notes also up by two frets ? 

Can I use the Jamming tool provided by guitar tricks, how would I set this please.

you said in your last repl

Hi Martin!

1. The A major riff can be played instead of strumming the dominant 7 chords, but you would have to adjust the location of the riff to fit the chords since it is only shown for the A chord.  You mention later on in this post that you could move the location of the riff to get the other chords in the progression, which is correct.


2. When you play the riff, the idea is to play the A string and 2nd fret of the D string all at once, so each group of 2 notes is making a chord strum.  So you will have 8 strums to make a complete bar.  You could play all 8 strums with downstrokes, or alternate down/up strokes.


3. The riff is using “Power chords” which just uses 2 notes. So even though we are not playing the full A chord, we are still outlining that chord. It is just a musical choice.

I highly recommend you work through chapter 2 of the Blues Level 1 course to get more detailed instruction on this.

Hope this helps!

Mike