Guitar backing tracks

A backing track is a band playing just for you. Your job is to find the right notes and say something with them.

1. Read the title. EBT videos show the key (e.g. A Minor) and often the BPM.
2. Listen for 30 seconds without playing. Feel the groove, where the chord changes land, the mood.
3. Open the Scales section in the same key. On minor tracks start with the minor pentatonic, on major tracks with the major pentatonic.
4. Play fewer notes. Three or four notes with plenty of space beat a hundred notes in a row.
5. Record yourself on your phone and listen back: it's the fastest way to improve.

Key: the "home" note of the track. Minor sounds darker, major sounds brighter. # is sharp, b is flat.

BPM: beats per minute, the speed. Below 80 is slow (ballads, slow blues), 90 to 110 is funk and pop rock territory, above 120 is energetic.

Drumless: tracks with no drums, made for drummers who want to play along with the band. "No click" means there is no metronome in the track.

The scale of rock and blues: five notes that fit almost everything. In A minor: A, C, D, E, G.

• Position 1: starts on the root on the low E string (5th fret in A minor). It's the "box" everyone learns first.
• Positions 2–5: each starts on the next scale note on the low E string and locks into the previous one.
• The trick: learn to connect positions by sliding up a single string. That gets you out of the box.

The Scales section shows every position at once on the fretboard.

Add the flat fifth to the minor pentatonic (Eb in A) and you get the blues scale. Use it as a passing note between D and E, never as a note to rest on.

Try it on the channel's Blues tracks: a D–Eb–E climb with a small bend is instant blues.

Many EBT tracks show the chords on screen. Use them: when the chord changes, land on a chord tone, ideally the third.

• Over Am the third is C, over F it's A, over C it's E, over G it's B.
• First practice one note per chord, right on the change.
• Then connect those target notes with scale phrases.

That's the difference between "running the scale" and making the harmony heard.

• Dorian: minor with a major sixth. Funk and jazz-rock sound (Santana, the channel's Funky Groove in E Dorian).
• Mixolydian: major with a flat seventh. Rock, blues, country.
• Lydian: major with a sharp fourth. Dreamy, cinematic.
• Phrygian: minor with a flat second. Dark, metal and flamenco.

All of them are in the Scales section: compare them on the same root to hear the difference.

• In-tune bends: first play the target note (two frets up), then bend until the string matches it.
• Use more fingers: push with the ring finger, backed up by the middle and index.
• Vibrato: it comes from the wrist, not the fingers. Slow on ballads, tighter on rock.
• The Ballad & Cinematic tracks and the Gilmour-style ones are perfect for this.