Practice tracks - Where's my band?

The start of this page focuses mainly on jazz and popular music practice tracks. If you are looking for classical rehearsal tracks please scroll down the page to MIDI files or Click here for information on 'minus one' CDs. (This page opens in a new window to allow you to compare the MIDI file route with the 'Minus One' route.)

A perfect piece of software for providing rehearsal tracks on both Macs and PCs is Band-in-a-box. This is perfect for practicing jazz, rock, pop and latin songs. In fact, it is great for music practice tracks in any popular style. I am currently using Mac V. 12 - which some may describe as a little 'clunky' - but it does the job admirably and has been doing so (without crashing) for a long time now.

All you have to do is select a style, type in your chords, decide which instruments you want to back you up and hit play! You can even program how many choruses you want it to play. I find this invaluable when practicing jazz on the piano since the bass line and melody is provided, meaning I can concentrate on practicing my comping and when I want to practice improvisation I just turn off the melody instrument! This is highly recommended to anyone who practices improvisation... or anybody who wants to learn! Talk to your local music shop about getting a copy or Click here for more information on Band In A Box from the PG Music site.

MIDI Files

There are several sites on the internet that offer Classical MIDI files. These can be very useful when you need practice tracks for a concerto, sonata or if you sing with a choir and you need to hear your part. Click here to go to the Classical Archives page and Click here to go to the Classical files at Midiworld. Both links will open in a new window and I have found the files here are generally of very good quality (well... as good as the General MIDI soundset allows!)

As far as pop and jazz MIDI files go... be warned, there are plenty of very bad MIDI files out there, along with the good ones. By the time you find a good one you could have put the chords into Band In a Box and practiced for a couple of hours... or played in the backing track yourself!

I tend to put the whole title of the piece I am looking for into Google in quotes with the .mid extension. That way I avoid all the lyrics pages coming up in the search. E.g., if I was searching for a MIDI file of Autumn Leaves i would put "Autumn Leaves.mid" into Google, including quotes.

If you find MIDI sites you think would be useful to others for practice please Contact Me and I will publish them on this page and in a future article on using MIDI in your practice for the Perfect Practice monthly e-zine. If you haven't signed up yet, please do so below for extra articles and tips on making your practice more efficient and effective.

Record your own!

Another option is to record your own backing tracks. This can be done either on a keyboard that has a built in sequencer or in a multitrack software package. Click here for more information on software packages if you have a PC, if you are an Apple user you already have GarageBand!

Using a keyboard or software you can either record all of the practice tracks individually, or use some of the automated features such as single finger chords on a keyboard or the loops in GarageBand to save a little time. If you are using the backing track for a performance I think this is the best option... but if you are only using it for rehearsal unless you want to practice your arranging or recording/editing skills I'd take the short cut and go with Band In A Box!

New! Comments