Back-up music for your guitar playing

Subject: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: GUEST,Alley
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 09:05 AM

Does anyone, besides me, wish they had back-up music when they play the guitar? I sit and strum my songs every day, and after awhile, I get tired of hearing myself. I went to a Karaoke store yestersay hoping to find something, however, the CD's usually only have one song that you know or like. Sure would like some advice. The ultimate would be to have others to play with. I understand there is a large group in the Twin Tier's area of NY and PA. Trouble is, I moved from there to New Port Richey, FL when I retired several years ago. Any suggestions?????

Alley

Subject: RE: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: GUEST,Alley
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 09:09 AM

Sorry about that P.S. Thread. Guess I did it wrong. Just want to know why it keeps saying that I am a GUEST.

    Alley

Subject: RE: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 10:09 AM

Alley,
Check out homespuntapes.com . They have some "Play-along" CDs.

Subject: RE: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: Grab
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 11:48 AM

Solution: Find some people! ;-)

Maybe putting a note in the local music shop would work? Round our way they often have a "musicians wanted" board. Or ring round the local music teachers and ask them to put the word around.

Re the karaoke CDs, I guess it depends whether your strumming is at home for fun, or whether you're gigging. As something to do for a bit of fun, or to learn new tunes, of course they're fine. I don't think anyone should do a gig using them though, because there's a definite gap between live performance and a karaoke singalong, and for me backing CDs are on the karaoke side of the gap. That's just my opinion though.

Graham.

Subject: RE: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: Tootler
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 12:22 PM

If you don't know any other musicians locally, you can use MIDI to create your own backing tracks. Obviously a little mechanical, but it works.

Subject: RE: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 02:03 PM

I make my own backing tracks, using a TASCAM Dp-01 8 track, an Alesis SR16 drum machine, and an elcheapo bass that I have laying around here. Most of the tracks are just drum and bass, leaving it to me to do both rhythm and lead guitar chores live. I also sing. I've used the tracks for some solo gigs and it went over well.

I think a lot of backing tracks get overproduced, making it seem more like a karaoke tape than backup tracks. That's why I keep it to just the bass and drums. There are a few songs that I did include some light rhythm guitar on, but I try to keep that to a minimum.

Subject: RE: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: Tootler
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 07:21 PM

I did some on my computer using Cubasis as the midi editor. I agree with guest above, the secret is keep it simple. I play a wind instrument so wanted something to go with that. I mostly used either piano or harpsichord plus bass and sometimes drums. I tended to avoid guitar because I found producing convincing guitar with midi very difficult.

I never used it for gigs just for playing at home.

If you don't have someone to play with, it is very good for getting you to keep time and to keep going when you make a mistake. It is mechanical so it is probably not a good idea to become over reliant on it but it is useful and it is also quite good fun.

My daughter, when she was younger, had a friend whose mother sang on the local club circuit (not folk) and she relied entirely on pre-recorded accompaniments. She Plugged a minidisk into one channel of a vocal amp and her mic into the other. Made for a very simple set up that could quickly be set up and put away and carried around in a small car.

Subject: RE: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 07:35 PM

You might also have a look at Band In A Box. You can type in the chords for a song and give it a style to play in and instrumentation it will generate an accompaniment for you. (You can also put in a melody or have it improvise solos over the chord sequence).

Mick

Subject: RE: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 07:39 PM

I'll give you some Back-Up Music.


Beep - beep - beep - beep - beep...

Subject: RE: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 08:12 PM

Hi there Alley - Have you tried networking with the Friends of Florida Folk? I think the website is www.foff.org

It looks like they have something planned for the end of the month in New Port Richey. I live in Texas now but I grew up just south of NPR in Largo. Is Highway 19 still a traffic mess? Good luck.

Subject: RE: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 10:26 PM

I second the Band-in-a-Box--you select the style that you want, from a pull-down menu--and they now have hundreds of styles that you can get, from bossa nova to heavy metal to folk to nashville, and on and on--you can also select the instrumentation, and drop out voices that you don't want--like drums. You can play it back through your computer or connect a midi synthesizer, which you can plug into an amp or pa--at which point, it sounds like a real band--there are string voices, as well, and so you can have an orchestra accompaniment, if you want.

The chords and lyrics roll by, so you can follow along on whatever instrument you want--I have the songbook, which has hundreds of songs and lyrics already programmed, so you can just push aa button and play along, on any part you want. It is especially handy for guitarists who want to play single note melody or improvise--it is easy to record, as well, so you can make your own CD's--

You can convert whatever you're working with to a standard midi file that you can open up in a sequencer program, as well, so you can add parts.

I don't use it much anymore--when I was writing a lot, I used it to make Quick and dirty basic tracks for song demos--it wasn't always exactly what I would have played myself, but all I had to do was sing the lyrics and maybe slip in a guitar track and I had a listenable and slightly polished sounding recording of the song--

It is no substitute for real musicians, but it's easier than making your own multitrack back-up, and it beats sitting home alone--

Subject: RE: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: Alley
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 09:14 AM

Westley, Thanks so much for the web site for Friends of FL Folk. I did check it out and got some good leads. You're not missing anything on US 19. It's still a very, very dangerous road. After being out driving during the day, and then come home and enter my development, I say to myself: "You'll live to see another day".

Take care -    Alley

Subject: RE: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: pavane
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 06:59 AM

You can buy professional backing tracks (not Karaoke) in MIDI format, and then you can transpose, remove parts, and so on with a sequencer.

(But there are also 1000's of MIDI files available online, just that most of them are not very good!)

Subject: RE: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: PoppaGator
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 11:52 AM

For anyone interested in playing along with Irish/Celtic traditional music (wherein finding a guitar prt can be problematic), there's a website called "The Virtual Session" that offers a selection of reels, jigs, etc. etc., illustrated with "dots" and chords, with which you can play along.

Subject: RE: Back-up music for your guitar playing
From: Brakn
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 12:54 PM

Virtual session here.