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Originally Posted by kris
I say this because I can tell you for a FACT that if I practice too much with tracks, I can hear all sorts of problems coming up in my playing when I listen back
Or maybe that IS me getting something out of playing with tracks (head explodes)
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05-04-2022 11:47 AM
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Originally Posted by voxo
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
i don’t care too much what people do if they aren’t reliant on it.
if you are jamming with a backing track and killing it I don’t care. If not it covers up a multitude of problems that are best addressed away from backing tracks in lessons and practice.
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Originally Posted by kris
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
If you wanna be the next Pat Metheny, then yeah, make it hard for yourself and don't use any crutches. But backing tracks will be useful to the greater majority of players, all styles, all levels. And yes, they may cause some unwanted habits (all addressable down the track). But they'll also get into the very desirable habit of practicing! Which easily forgives all sins.
Honestly, I can't fathom why there seems to be such a pushback by some guys. Jealousy perhaps (that they never had it so easy?)...
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Even our Virtual Jam subforum has been eye opening. I've followed the guidelines to lay down unrehearsed takes of the tunes of the week, and the results have been educational to say the least. But moving away from what I'm accustomed to playing has been beneficial in many ways (once I learned to live with the smell of bad clams). Yesterday, I took a pass at playing the jam song of the week (Gerry Mulligan's "Cat Walk") gypsy style. I've always loved listening to guys like Joscho Stephan and Birelli Lagrene (yes, and Django), but I'd never actually tried to do it myself. Oy vey!! But there are a few licks hidden in my poorly disguised and quite ordinary jazz runs that are truly in the gypsy style. So I'm motivated and will hopefully improve with time.........lots and lots of time!
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
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I'm definitely not anti-track. What I'm saying is, if I spend a lot of time playing with them, I do notice that I can start "coasting" a bit more than I want to...playing around key centers too much and not highlighting enough tension/resolution. Getting "noodley."
Of course, the opposite is playing without any kind of backing and over-chasing changes because you're trying to force the harmony to be heard clearly. I do that do.
Damn, I need a few extra lifetimes for this jazz shit.
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I'm sort of trolling here, but Charles Mingus re-recorded his bass for the Massey Hall recordings with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and Max Roach. That's a hell of a backing track.
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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I think everything has its place. Practice alone with just a metronome, so you get a feel for supporting changes and perfect time. Play with drum genius, so it resembles a drummer. Play with backing tracks so it's like a band introduction, minus the interaction, record with a looper, practice with CDs so you jam with the masters feel and language, play with other people. To mix everything is the best solution.
The weirdest i've heard is something David Liebman used to do: to work on concentration, he used to practice with irrelevant music on, he would have a CD playing and practice something else over it!! I guess his book on chromaticism makes sense now!! Haha i think i have played a gig under these conditions, a brazilian music date in a multi-room club, i remember a frustrated singer asking us to do the second set instrumental..!
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Originally Posted by kris
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Apparently Glenn Gould used to practise Bach on the piano with a vacuum-cleaner running in the room, he said it helped him concentrate (!).
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Originally Posted by grahambop
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Originally Posted by John A.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
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Originally Posted by emanresu
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Originally Posted by Alter
Practicing and playing with distractions...now there's a topic I'm actually an expert on
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Originally Posted by John A.
is it the same model that Elvin Jones or Oscar Peterson were using ?
And Keith Jarret seemed to have a good one too.
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Originally Posted by wzpgsr
It's funny how many people questioned the intentions of that project...it was just a way to hear a bunch of people play the same song, and it was spawned from pandemic burnout...not being able to go see live music or play with other people. I literally got private messages from people--who never participated-- saying "how can you call that a jam? There's no interaction" and worse. I mean...of course there was no interaction...maybe I should have called it the virtual not a jam.
It was, however, during the initial run of that project that I found myself using tracks more than usual, and there were some things I started to hear in my playing I didn't love. BUT, I also learned a bunch of new tunes, got better at my "internalize a tune quickly" method, and forced myself to put some rough early takes out there as a learning experience, so overall, I felt the good FAR outweighed the bad.
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As a newcomer to the forum, it's been my favourite set of threads.
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Part 2 Secrets to McCoy Tyner using 4ths,...
Today, 07:31 PM in Improvisation