Guitar Backing Tracks

One of the things that's most important in practicing guitar is learning to play in time.  If you're not in a band, that can be tough to do.  Playing to a metronome gets boring very fast.  There are a handful of amps and headphone amps that have generic blues and rock backing tracks, but what do you do when you want to learn a specific song?  Playing along to CDs or MP3 files is a good start, but it's hard to hear how well you're playing when there's already a guitar track. 

That's where backing tracks (also called jam tracks or music-minus-one) come in.  The idea is to play along to the music that has the guitar parts removed so that you can fill in.  You can buy backing tracks from outfits like LickLibrary.com and online at sites like Playing with the Band.  These are high quality recordings by professional session musicians that re-create classic rock and blues songs with room for you to add rhythm or lead guitar.   Playing with the Band has downloadable professional backing tracks for $1 each.  Or you can buy a sampler CD pack  Classic Rock - Vol I with with 50 tracks for $17.99.  This includes classic rock songs like Pink Floyd's "Money," The Beatles' "Revolution," The Who's "Pinball Wizard" and seven others.  There are 10 songs with 5 different variations: full song, without rhythm guitar, without lead guitar, without any guitars, etc. 

I've also discovered a new site called GuitarBackingTrack.net that has hundreds of free backing tracks created by amateur musicians.  These aren't necessarily perfect re-creations, nor do you get the variations of with and without lead or rhythm guitar parts, but they are good enough to help you practice a song from a book or tab file.  I found dozens of interesting songs here ranging from classic blues pieces ("The Thrill is Gone," "Still Got the Blues") to relatively obscure new wave songs ("Watching the Detectives," "Anarchy in the UK.")  Since these are put together by fans, you'll find plenty of classic rock music from U2, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, AC/DC.  And you can play the songs from the web site or download the MP3 files for personal use.  My only complaint is it would be helpful if it indicated the key for each song.

If you're into the Blues, you might also enjoy Guitar Center's backing tracks from their King of the Blues contest.

• Links: Playing with the Band, GuitarBackingTrack.net 
• GuitarVibe: Portable Headphone Amps, Gary Moore DVDs
• Guitar Center: Main site,  King of the Blues backing tracks

Comments

[Retro Hound]

This is some great useful information. Thanks.