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6 Rock & Blues Play Along Backing Tracks [Premium]

6 Rock & Blues Play Along Backing Tracks (with full sheet music)

★ Over 30 PDF Files of Sheet Music ★ Over 60 MP3 Tracks ★ 6 Guitar Pro Files ★

Listen to the 6 tracks here:

tlmusiclessons · 6 Rock & Blues Play Along Backing Tracks

Blues in A (Sun Shines Through The Window) – Play Along Track 1

Grade 3 Lead Guitar & Barre Chords
Grade 1 Guitar
Grade 1-2 Ukulele
Grade 3 Bass Guitar
Grade 1-2 Drums
Lyrics for the Verses

Blues in E with swing – Play Along Track 2

Grade 3 Lead Guitar & Barre Chords
Grade 1-2 Guitar
Grade 1-2 Ukulele
Grade 3 Bass Guitar
Grade 1-2 Drums

Slow Rock in A Minor – Play Along Track 3

Grade 3-6 Lead Guitar
Grade 2 Guitar
Grade 3 Guitar (Barre Chords)
Grade 2 Ukulele
Grade 4 Bass Guitar
Grade 1-3 Drums

Alternative Rock in E Minor – Play Along Track 4

Grade 6 Lead Guitar
Grade 2-3 Guitar
Grade 2-3 Ukulele
Grade 3 Bass Guitar
Grade 3-4 Drums

Indie Rock in C – Play Along Track 5

Grade 3-5 Lead Guitar
Grade 2 Guitar 1
Grade 2 Guitar 2
Grade 2 Ukulele
Grade 3-5 Bass Guitar
Grade 3-4 Drums
Grade 2 Easy Drums

Funk Rock in A Minor – Play Along Track 6

Grade 5 Lead Guitar
Grade 2 Guitar
Grade 3 Guitar
Grade 2 Ukulele
Grade 5 Bass Guitar
Grade 6 Drums
Grade 2-3 Easy Drums

Written and self published in 2020 by Theo Lawrence / TL Music Lessons.

Introduction

When the UK went into lockdown in March 2020 due to Covid-19, I quickly moved many of my lessons onto Skype/Zoom online lessons. I decided to make some of my own songs for my students to play so that they had backing tracks to play along with when they had learned and practiced the songs. I wanted to make sure they were possible for them to play, whilst also being a challenge to learn them. By the end of June, I had written these 6 songs and they felt like they worked together as a set of pieces to share with the world.

My students are all at different levels. Many of my beginners pupils of primary school age have been having lessons for at least a year or several years, so I wrote the lowest ability parts at Grade 1-2, and sometimes elements of Grade 3. I also have some grade 4-6 pupils on Guitar, Drums and Bass, so I wanted to make parts for them too. With all those parts together, there is something for almost everyone in here – just not for complete beginners because they need to work on the basics before learning these pieces.

People that might find this book useful

Guitar, Ukulele, Bass and Drum teachers can use these resources in their teaching or for their student’s performances.
Guitar, Ukulele, Bass and Drum students can teach themselves to play the music if they are able to read the sheet music. The backing tracks can then be used to practice with.
The Backing Tracks could potentially be used for school performances, such as for GCSE (check with the music teacher at school for song choice suitability.

About the PDF Sheet Music

These are the overall ranges of grades that the instruments cover in this selection of 6 songs. There are separate PDF files for each instrument part.

Grade 3-6 Lead Guitar
Grade 1-2 Guitar
Grade 3 Guitar Barre Chords
Grade 1-3 Ukulele
Grade 3-5 Bass Guitar
Grade 3-6 Drums
Grade 1-3 Easy Drums

About the MP3 Audio Files and the Guitar Pro Files

There are at least 3 different speeds of backing tracks available for each song. With performances in mind (such as for school GCSE submissions, school performances, or Eisteddfod entries), I have also included mp3s for each song without Lead Guitar, without Drums and without Bass Guitar. There are also one or two extras in there, such as ‘Just the Ukulele Part’ for some songs where I felt they would be especially helpful. If you need backing tracks that aren’t in the download pack, I strongly suggest investing in a copy of Guitar Pro, because you can do so much with these files. You can make the pieces be any speed you want, you can edit the parts, you can change the sounds of the instruments, and you can make your own mp3s and pdf files with it. You can also turn on the metronome and loop sections.

Summary

During the last few months, I have noticed that my students that carried on with online lessons have seemed to progress more than usual. I’m not sure if it’s the extra time at home with less going on, or if it’s these songs with backing tracks. I’d like to think it’s a mixture of all of those things, and probably more. I can say for sure that these pieces have gone down well with all of my students and that the range of techniques and rhythms included in the songs have been beneficial for them. It’s also been a nice outlet for me – it’s been like songwriting again (I’ve had a substantial break from it), and even though I was purposely trying not to write things that were out of reach for my students to learn, I was also enjoying the creative flow, and at times really went for it. I got really into the lead parts and was quite creatively free with those mostly, and on the drum parts I added my own style and flair into them, especially on the last piece with adding in fast double strokes on the hi hats and fills.

I hope you enjoy learning / teaching with these pieces.

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Theo Lawrence

www.tlmusiclessons.com

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‘Sun Shines Through The Window’ – Blues Play Along Track – Rhythm Guitar, Lead Guitar, Bass, Ukulele, Drums and Vocals

Listen to the track at 90bpm:

70bpm:

60bpm:

Download the MP3 file – Sun Shines Through The Window (Full Speed)

Download the Guitar Pro 7 file – Sun Shines Through The Window

LEAD GTR – Sun Shines Through The Window – PDF Sheet Music
RHYTHM GUITAR – Sun Shines Through The Window – PDF Sheet Music
UKULELE – Sun Shines Through The Window – PDF Sheet Music
BASS GUITAR – Sun Shines Through The Window – PDF Sheet Music
LYRICS – The sun shines through the window – TXT File

This song has been written as an educational piece for Drums, Guitar, Bass and Ukulele. I made it for my students to learn and I am sharing it online for everyone else too. I created the piece in Guitar Pro 7, which is a great way to learn and practice this because you can mute insruments and change the speed and even change parts if you like.

This blues song is played straight, without swing. There are drum beats and fills in the piece in keeping with the blue style. You could solo the drums and bass on it’s own to practice locking in with the bass – making sure the bass drum syncs up with the bass guitar when ever they are played together.

12 Bar Blues

The pattern of the 12 bar blues usually follows a pattern of chord changes. The pattern of bars where the main chord changes are is this: 4,2,2,1,1,1,1.

The pattern below is clearer. It uses roman numerals to show which chord in the diatonic chord sequence that is being used.:

I / / /

IV / I /

V IV I V

Lyrics

I wrote this song originally for just the instruments, but I thought it would be good to write some lyrics in case there are any singers out there that would like to sing along too. I have a rough idea of how it would go in my head, but I’m no singer, so you’re on your own!

VERSE 1

The sun shines through the window
And I’m stuck inside the house
It’s half past 1 in the afternoon,
And the day is going fast

I’m tryin to make things work
I’m tryin to make things rhyme,
But there’s harder times ahead,
And I’m running out of time.

I can’t see when this will end
All my plans are on their head
But the sun keeps shining through
Takin’ away those blues

VERSE 2

The sun shines through the window
And I’m stuck inside the house
It’s half past 2 in the afternoon,
And the day is going fast

I’m tryin to make things work
I’m tryin to make things rhyme,
But there’s harder times ahead,
And I’m running out of time.

I can’t see when this will end
All my plans are on their head
But the sun keeps shining through
Takin’ away those blues

VERSE 3

The sun shines through the window
And I’m stuck inside the house
It’s half past 3 in the afternoon,
And the day is going fast

I’m going to make things work
I’m going to make things rhyme,
But there’s harder times ahead,
And I’m running out of time.

I can’t see when this will end
All my plans are on their head
But the sun keeps shining through
Takin’ away those blues

About the lyrics

This song and it’s lyrics were written during the Covid-19 corona virus and it’s about having your job taken away and having to rebuild and adapt before you get into financial trouble. Many people will be in this situation with governments being very slow to offer financial support. I hope learning and playing this song can give some enjoyment to people in this strange time of crisis.

Send in videos of you playing this song

I will add your videos to this page if you record yourself playing it. Please get in contact.

Drums

Head over to learndrumsrforfree.com to get the files for the drums.

Premium Download: 6 Rock and Blues Play Along Backing Tracks

This song is featured in the Play Along Backing Tracks series with Blues and Rock pieces. You can purchase the sheet music and backing tracks here:

(PREMIUM) – Grade 3-4 Ebook – Scales, Arpeggios, Barre Chords and Guitar Solo Exercises

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The Buy Now button will take you to the product page. There you can download a free 9 page preview by clicking the ‘Preview’ link at the top right of the cover image.

3. Contents
4. Introduction
5. Scales & Arpeggios: Grade 3 – Fretboard Shapes
6. Grade 3 Scales in G
7. Grade 3 Scales in A
8. Grade 3 Scales in B
9-10. B minor pentatonic scale exercises (8th notes)
11 . Grade 3 Arpeggios in A, B and G (major & minor)
12-13. Arpeggio Chord Progressions
14. Notes on the Fretboard for Grade 3+
15. Grade 3 barre chord shapes
16. Part 1 – grade 3 barre chord progression exercises
17. Part 2 – grade 3 barre chord progression exercises
18. 12 bar blues solo in G
19. Guitar Solo in Gm
20. 12 bar blues solo in A
21. Fallout Guitar Solo in Em
22-23. Grade 3 Chords, Scales and Arpeggios Exercises
24. Grade 4 barre chord shapes
25. Part 1 – grade 4 barre chord progression exercises
26. Part 2 – grade 4 barre chord progression exercises
27-29. B minor pentatonic scale exercises (8ths, triplets and 16th notes)
30-32. Grade 4 Chords, Scales and Arpeggios Exercises
33. Songwriting Cheat Sheet

Introduction

Guitar teachers can print the book or single sheets for their students.
Guitarists can teach themselves following on from a strong basic foundation in reading and playing
Guitarists that want to build up a foundation in the core aspects of Grade 3-4.

About the book

This Grade 3-4 ebook is a compilation of almost 9 years of preparation work teaching guitar. I have included guitar lesson sheets that I have prepared and revised many times over the 9 years to be the best they can be for use with my lessons.

To create the book I selected only the best sheets from my selection of many more that I created for teaching with. I printed them all out and arranged them into a coherent order. Finally, I created and modified a few more just to make the book run smoothly.

I have included only the sheets, rather than add lots of teaching text you might normally find in tuition books. This is partly to limit the amount of pages for those printing, and also to give teachers using the books freedom to put their own take on the lesson sheets. Personally when I get a tuition book for myself, I tend to go straight to the exercises. This will probably make it harder for self taught players, so to anyone getting stuck reading the book I would recommend giving it a go and if you get stuck, research how to read the parts you struggle with. There are plenty of youtube videos out there and help articles that you will find to help. Sometimes youtube videos lack sheet music and written parts, so you should be able to use this book alongside these popular methods of learning, if you are not learning with a teacher.

Guitar teachers can use this ebook as a guide for their own teaching. These are the core parts of grade 3-4 but it does not nearly cover every aspect of these levels, so you can dip in and out of this book with your teaching. Let the book provide a fundamental knowledge to the student and loosely give structure and a guide to your teaching and allow yourself to go off on tangents as you and the students move through the book. The key thing here is to tailor your teaching to the students, because they’re all different and will require different paths to explore their own style and learning experience.

Each topic in the book is briefly covered. There is much more depth you could go into, and this is encouraged. So far, I have already released another ebook that works more on rhythms with barre chords in chord progressions at grade 3-4 level called 10 Group Chord Exercise Sheets – Grades 1-4.

Free Preview / Buy Now →

12 bar blues solo in A – grade 3

This is a nice challenging guitar solo practice exercise for grade 3 level, which could be used in a guitar lesson, or for anyone learning on their own.

There are plenty of techniques, such as bends, legato (hammer ons and pull offs), vibrato, and other things to watch out for like staccato markings. The scale used is A blues.

This guitar solo was prepared as a practice exercise for learning to blues solo in the key of A. After a few exercises like this, students can then start to reuse the creative concepts and make their own improvisations and guitar solos.

As many blues songs are in the key of A, this could also help people more in general, or also provide a good practice exercise to anyone learning the blues. This guitar solo could be played with or without shuffle, and there are also suggested chords in the sheet music for an accompaniment.

6 Guitar Shredding Exercises – Fast Scale Runs and Soloing Exercises in G minor and F# minor – Lead Sheet – Rockschool

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About the Difficulty Levels

These are written for grade 8 level, but it wouldn’t hurt a grade 5-7 player to try them at the slower speeds. The PDF file in the key of F# minor is the one that fits with the song ‘Lead Sheet’ from the Grade 8 guitar 2012-18 Rockschool syllabus.

Guitar Tab and creative concepts for preparing the faster parts of the guitar solo for the 2012-18 Rockschool Grade 8 piece “Lead Sheet”

These exercises came about from preparing for the guitar solo in the 2012-2018 Rockschool Grade 8 piece “Lead Sheet”. They are not endorsed by Rockschool in any way, but they are designed to help players with ideas of the types of things they could do for this solo – which is entirely from my perspective, as a guitar teacher with 5 years teaching experience.

These 5 exercises are meant to build up your speed for shred style rock solos, which would also work with metal, as the Lead Sheet song is based on a lot of ‘Nu-Metal’ artists, as cited in the book.

You will need to remember that this is a series of 2 bar exercises, and for the “Lead Sheet” song, you will need to prepare an 8 bar solo. Please do not copy these exercises verbatim and stick them together for the exam, but you could draw inspiration from the ideas and make them your own. Remember to build an interesting guitar solo (one that will score the most marks), it needs to ‘tell a story’ rather than ‘filling the air with a thousand notes’, but it does need to show off a competant level of speed and techniques at this level. You need to be musical, and like the example on Track 5 of the CD, the guitarist makes it musical. It has plenty of the fast sextuplet shredding style, but it also has some slower 16th note groovy soloing, which sounds a little funky too. As a whole, the solo seems to be modeled on Tom Morello’s style (Rage Against The Machine), so for more ideas along those lines, go check their music out – they have plenty of guitar solos in their back catalogue.