For those about to jam, we salute you.
Playing along with recordings is an effective way to learn new techniques and to try out your musical ideas. It can be annoying, though, to try playing your own lead guitar part right over what the lead guitarist on the recording is playing. Luckily, this problem is neatly solved by playing along with “jam tracks”, which are recordings that purposely leave out the lead guitar and provide just the backing tracks of all the other instruments.
Sometimes these backing tracks are computer-generated MIDI sequences, and sometimes they’re studio recordings of actual musicians playing their parts. The studio recordings are the best option because they give you the most realistic feeling of playing live with other players. But the MIDI tracks also serve the purpose well.
Jam tracks can be purchased on CD or on iTunes, and they can also be found for free online. One good website is JamCenter.com.
JamCenter provides MIDI backing tracks in every key. Choose your key and you’ll get five different styles to choose from. The Jam Machine tells you what chords are in the progression you’re hearing for guidance. It even comes with its own tuner with a pluck your own string feature (like the new iPhone application) and a metronome.
[photo: Hryck.]