Spanish minor in Am

Jam track · Andalusian cadence · Pop · A natural minor

Now

Am

Next

Am
  1. Am
  2. G
  3. F
  4. E

A natural minor · box 1

Orange dots are A, the home note.

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Over the E chord, raise every G to G sharp. That one note gives it the Spanish sound.

104BPMJam tempo

Spanish minor in Am backing track

A andalusian cadence in Am at 104 BPM, with a pop groove on drums, bass and rhythm guitar. The loop is 4 bars long and uses 4 chords: Am, G, F, E. Solo over it with the A natural minor box shown on the fretboard.

The chords

  1. Am
  2. G
  3. F
  4. E

What to play

Over the E chord, raise every G to G sharp. That one note gives it the Spanish sound.

The orange dots are A, the home note. While the band plays, the notes of the chord playing now light up. Ending a phrase on one of them sounds settled.

Learn the box firstScale drill

How to practise with it

  1. Play the box up and down once with the band, one note per beat, to hear how it fits.
  2. Make up a two-bar phrase and repeat it. Change one note each time round.
  3. Leave gaps. A phrase, then a bar of rest, sounds more like music than notes all the way through.
  4. Turn the guitar off and play the chords yourself, or slow the tempo down to learn the changes.

Drums: Sonic Pi sample library from freesound.org, CC0. Bass and guitar: MusyngKite soundfont by Benjamin Gleitzman, CC BY-SA 3.0.