You are a serious guitarist who has spent countless hours taking lessons, working on your technique, and practicing your playing. In your journey to becoming a better player, you may wonder if there is something that can give you an extra edge, something that can take you from good to great. Is there a secret weapon available to you? Yes! Guitar backing tracks are an outstanding way to improve your playing. They are an indispensable tool to mastery. Let’s have a look.
What are backing tracks?
If you have ever been to a karaoke show, you are familiar with the recordings used. They feature all of the instruments and vocals except the lead vocal. The same kind of product is available to the guitarist! Backing tracks offer tracks including drums, bass, and keyboards – but missing lead guitar. Some of them have rhythm guitar to allow you to practice your style. These are available for many popular songs and genres. Now you have an entire backup band at your fingertips, against which you may improve your playing. How fun is that?
Why use backing tracks?
Guitar backing tracks can help you to grow in your ability to improvise solos and lead work on stage. By having a rhythm section behind you with all the spots open for you to solo, you can work on experimenting with improvisation and creating your unique solo style.
For the serious musician, improvisation is an important skill to learn with any instrument. These backing tracks allow you to experiment with different notes, fingering and playing styles without worrying about making a mistake. You may find yourself playing a riff or sequence that you like better than the original! This lets you feel free to not only improve your technique, but to expand it.
One of the best reasons to include backing tracks in your arsenal is that you will begin improving your timing and rhythm. These backing tracks are performed by professional musicians and are usually in the same key and pitch as the original recordings. With some hard work, you can become more and more competent, not to mention confident, with your playing and eventually be able to play on a professional level.
How else can it help? Many guitarists at your level have yet to discover backing tracks, and this puts you at the advantage. You can also play gigs with guitar backing tracks. This will help you to gain experience playing live, which is invaluable in developing your skills as a musician. It may even bring in some extra income.
Go ahead and play!
Mastery of the guitar can be aided in a number of different ways. Guitar backing tracks are an often-overlooked tool that can rapidly help you improve your timing and rhythm and can assist you at becoming better at improvisation. Your confidence level will increase, and soon you can be jamming like the best of them.