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Caribbean

Bachata on guitar: chords and rhythm.

Dominican bachata is often in minor, A minor, D minor, G, E7, with a seventh on the dominant for tension. The rhythm guitar strums on beats 1 and 3, and the requinto, the high lead guitar, slips in its arpeggios and a flourish at the end of each bar.

i – iv – ♭VII – V7Level · Advanced

The progression

Pick a key: the charts change right below. "Listen" plays the progression with its rhythm; a click on a chord plays it alone, the arrow opens its page.

Key

In A minor · 126 BPM
  • Am
    A minor×231
  • Dm
    D minor××231
  • G
    G major213
  • E7
    E 721

The rhythm

One bar of the strumming hand, beat by beat. While it plays, the stroke being played lights up.

1
·
2
·
3
·
4
·
  • strum down
  • the high strings, cut short
  • up, cut short

From the same world

Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and the French Antilles: simple chords played on the offbeat, over the clave or the tresillo.