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Hedras is taking over the guitars for Sir Christopher’s new heavy metal album ‘The Omens of Dead’. After Sir Christopher had witnessed what young Hedras is capable of with his axe he went on quote to say ‘….He is brilliant’.

It seems that Hedras is everywhere at the minute, appearing in magazines and articles all over the world. We expect a very bright future for him and this extra publicity will only help raise his profile.

To check out Hedras Jam Track Central profile then click here

Ranging from £10 to £50 you can use the gift vouchers to redeem against absolutely everything available on the site. Just simply head to the Gift Voucher page, select the amount you wish to purchase and check out as usual.

Once purchased you will be emailed your unique Jam Track Central Gift Voucher within 48 hours. This voucher will contain a unique coupon code to the value you chose. This voucher can then be redeemed by putting the code into the ‘coupon code’ section of the checkout page on the site. Once used the coupon code will expire.

So get speaking to your friends and family right away and get yourself or someone else a Jam Track Central gift voucher.

The following is a guide to which famous tunes the Jazzy Jams series are based upon. This series is also progressive, so if you’re new to chord changes then ‘Night train to Chicago’ and Series 1 is where you should start and then work your way up to series 3.

If you are a more experienced player then choose any (or all!) of Alex’s Jazzy Jams Series and learn Alex’s Solo’s as well as trying out your own ideas. The idea is to try to memorize all progressions which will then enable you to play and jam with other Jazz musicians that also know and have memorized them.

So let’s look at which classic tracks Alex has based his series on with his own little twist. Here is the track breakdown (click on the track name to link to Alex’s Video):

‘Night Train To Chicago‘ -- ‘C Minor Blues/Equinox’ by John Coltrane

Jazzy Jams Series 1

‘So What Do you Say‘ -- ‘So What’ by Miles Davis

‘She’s Got Rhythm‘ -- I’ve Got Rhythm by George Gershwin

‘Brand New Bounce‘ -- ‘Billy’s Bounce’ by Charlie Parker

Jazzy Jams Series 2

‘Autumn Trees’ -- Autumn Leaves by Joseph Kosma

‘Blue City‘ -- ‘Blue Bossa’ by Kenny Dorham

‘All The Best Things‘ -- ‘All The Things You Are’ by Jerome Kern

Jazzy Jams Series 3

‘Inner Moment‘ -- ‘Inner Urge’ by Joe Henderson

‘Me and Miss T‘ -- ‘Misty’ by Erroll Garner

‘Joans Diary‘ -- ‘Have You Met Miss Jones’ by Richard Rodgers

Alex Hutchings’ Jazzy Jams Series 1-3 are available NOW!

1) Tell your friends about Jam Track Central.
2) If one of your friends joins and then goes on to purchase from us then we send you your free compilation package

Then, contact us with both yours and your friends email address and usernames and which compilation package you would like and we will send you a one-time link to your free package.

T+C’s

1) Your friend must have both joined and purchased after 08/12/11

2) Their purchases must be over the value of your free compilation package

3) Their purchase can be any guitar, bass or drum packages

4) You can refer a maximum of three friends and choose a new compilation package each time

BIGGER CHORDS

As we saw in the second Jack Thammarat example last time, the diatonic system can be applied to more than just major and minor chords. We’ll go back to G major, where the diatonic chords are…

G major, A minor, B minor, C major, D major, E minor, F# diminished

This time we’ll extend those chords to create the diatonic 7th chords. Once again, there’s a fixed pattern that works the same for every major scale!

That last chord might sound complex, but don’t worry… it’s used a lot in jazz and is sometimes called a ‘half-diminished’ chord. You can use all those new chords in just the same way as the straight major and minor chords. Invent some chord progressions, invent some melodies with the G major scale, put it all together, see what happens!

MODES

Let’s be honest, the major scale doesn’t really do MOODY or MYSTERIOUS, or even FUNKY. Fortunately, everything you just learned about the major scale also works for the modes: Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian (natural minor) and Locrian.

Let’s say you wanted to find the diatonic chords of A Dorian. The quick way is to figure out which major scale has exactly the same notes as A Dorian… this is G major. The diatonic chords for A Dorian are therefore exactly the same!

It’s as simple as that! The difference is that A is now the important root note, instead of G. Eventually, it’s good to learn the chords for each mode, but it’s fine to use this short cut at first.

MIXING IT UP

We’ve covered a lot in two lessons, and there’s SO much that we don’t have space for. Don’t be afraid to experiment and find your own sounds. Try adding other notes from the scale to any of the chords. What does that Bm7 sound like with an E note added?

You’ll find some great examples of this in Guthrie Govan’s Melodic Series, available in our store. All of the tracks are built using diatonic chords from a particular mode. Here’s an extract from ‘LA Acoustic’…

It’s in E Aeolian (natural minor) so the notes and chords are once again the same as G major. In that excerpt, there’s a selection of the standard diatonic chords, but there’s also a couple of ‘slash’ chords, D/E and D/C. What this means is that a D chord is played over an E bass note and then a C bass note. This is exactly what we mentioned above… be creative with the notes and chords, and mix them up in lots of different ways!

If you’ve already started writing melodies or riffs, you’re probably using a scale. Let’s use the G major scale…

Now, a scale isn’t just a bunch of notes for playing solos… it’s a whole MUSICAL WORLD! Every scale also has a set of chords that usually sound pretty good together. There are no guarantees, but it’s better than making wild guesses. The chords follow a standard pattern for every scale, and this is called the ‘Diatonic Sequence’.

Those chords only use notes from the G major scale. You could make up chord progressions using those chords and build melodies and riffs over the top using the scale notes (or vice versa). You might not get perfection right away, but the results shouldn’t sound too terrible.

Take note of that sequence: major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, diminished. It’s the same for EVERY SINGLE major scale. All twelve of them. Let’s take E major as an example. The notes are E F# G# A B C# D#, and the diatonic chords are therefore…

E major -- F# minor -- G# minor -- A major -- B major -- C# minor -- D# diminished

Or check out Jack Thammarat’s amazing instrumental ‘Tokyo Trip’, available as an exclusive download package from our online store. This song is in the key of E major, so Jack has used the E major scale for his cool melodies, and the chords from the E diatonic sequence for the chords. Here’s a section from the verse…

All the notes in the lead part and the chords are from the E major scale. The A/E chord just means you’re playing an A chord, but with an E note in the bass. Here’s another clip from later on…

Again, all the chords are in the list above, but as you can see, they’re all 7th chords. We’ll look at those in the next lesson, but for now, have a look at the whole video for Jack’s track. Remember, you can buy the package from our online store, and it includes high-quality video, audio, backing track and full Tab!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0a6mygDFpQ

But the word ‘swing’ means more than just a style of old dance music. It’s a whole approach to RHYTHM that can be applied to all styles of music. In fact, we’re going to show you how it works with reference to two very modern guitar heroes… our buddies Alex Hutchings and Guthrie Govan!

Start off by listening to the beginning of ‘March of the Machines’ from Alex’s Custom Fusion 2 package. Pay attention to the heavy riff shown in the Tab below…

Got that? Hear the drums pounding away, in 4/4 time? And the guitar riff is made up mostly of half-beats… ‘dubba-dubba dubba-dub ba-dubba-dubba-dub’?

Hold that thought and listen to this clip from ‘Tipsy Gypsy’, taken from Guthrie’s new Vintage Modern package. It’s a totally different style, but listen to what the guitar is playing in relation to the background drum beat…

OK, so we’ve got the drums playing in 4/4 again. And once again, the guitar is largely playing two notes per beat, but there’s no ‘dubba-dubba’ this time. It’s more like ‘shooby-dooby’. It’s lop-sided, with the ‘shoo’ and the ‘doo’ lasting longer than the ‘-by’. This, ladies and gentlemen, is SWING!

Here’s how it works. Without swing, we’re dealing with ‘straight’ time. The most natural way to subdivide a beat is to cut it into two halves (called 8th notes) or four quarters (called 16th notes). The halves and quarters are all exactly the same size…

With swing, the most natural way to subdivide a beat is into three equal parts (called triplets). Although we can still create lots of different rhythms by combining long notes and short notes, the whole sound changes because of the triplet feel. And if we play the first and third note of each triplet, we get that classic ‘swing 8th’ feel. Instead of splitting the beat in half, we have a longer note and a shorter note. Shooby-dooby!

One last thing. You remember how we started off cutting the beat into 8th notes and 16th notes? Well, you can have swing 16ths too. It’s the same principle, except a beat is split into a whole ‘shooby-dooby’ and not just ‘shooby’! Here’s a clip of Alex playing in a 16th note swing feel in ‘So What Do You Say?’, taken from his series Jazzy Jams 1…

The great thing about box shapes is that you can move them to different positions, to suit the song you’re playing. For a solo in D minor, you’d move to the 10th fret, or for G minor, you’d move to the 3rd fret. Lots of classic solos have used simple shapes like this. But why restrict yourself? By learning a scale over a wider area of the fretboard, you can create a lot more licks!

Here are three easy ways to expand your pentatonic playing, all using examples from our Jambusters 1 series…

The easiest thing to do is to drop down two frets on the low E and A strings. This gives you a little four-note mini pattern, and you can slide in and out of this pattern on the A string. That’s exactly what happens on this excerpt from ‘Spirited Blues’. We’re in E minor, so the basic box shape is at the 12th fret.

We can also stretch the box shape upwards, and there’s a great little triangular shape on the high E, B and G strings. A very common way of moving in and out of this mini shape is to slide up and down on the G string, as you’ll see in this example from ‘Reggae Blues’. This is in C# minor, and the basic box is at the 9th fret. You can also bend that top note (14th fret) to go even higher.

Let’s try something a little bit more advanced. So far, we’ve just been adding notes to the basic box shape to stretch it, but there are whole other box shapes all over the fretboard.

The one shown above has its root note on the E string… for instance, if you want to play B minor pentatonic, you find the B note on the low E string (it’s at the 7th fret) and play the box shape in that position. This shape has its root note on the A string, so the position for B minor pentatonic is at the 2nd fret…

So you now have two whole box shapes you can use! Making use of these two shapes means that you need to learn the notes on the A and E strings, but that’s worth the effort… the same system is used for locating barre chords.

Here’s the new shape in action, in an excerpt from ‘Bullet Blues’…