Looking for backing tracks to practice on

[hellogoodbye]

In the beginning of the eighties I had access to a big library which had lots of cool stuff. Amongst others: play along LP's! You could get LP's with complete piano concerts MINUS the piano! So you could play along with a complete symphonic orchestra! Cool! There were also guitar LP's: a lot of blues stuff. The LP's came (in that case) with a simple booklet with the main melody in music notation, and the chord schemes. I remember trying one or two of them. The recordings were real nice (just as if a band was playing with you!) only I didn't really know (yet) how to improvise and use it all at that time.

So... I didn't really use these LP's. But I'd really wish I had them now! That's why I liked to know if there is similar stuff on the internet today! Or on cd (although I'd rather have mp3,'s because they are cheaper and I can get them NOW, while a cd might take ages to arrive...)

I am practicing alone and don't have any friends or so to jam with... When I improvise for fun (to learn the fretboard better and better) I just do it on my own, without any music to back me up. But I'd really like some professinal backing tracks (I heard they are also called jam tracks...?) with various rhythms and chords and scales. (So not just straight blues in C major...!)

I could use some MIDI things on my computer, but 1. that always sounds very awfull (fake) and 2. I'd have to sit by my computer which is quit inconvenient in my case.

A while ago I searched for jam tracks on the net but only found some expensive stuff of which I didn't know if it was usuable for me... So I'd really like to get some tips on this!

The styles I'm looking for are rock and blues. I'm focusing more and more on (pretty straightforward heavy) rock (Speed Mechanics!) but when I practice my patterns to learn the fretboard better, I always end up playing relaxed, rhythmic blues and (simple!) jazzy stuff (though I seldom listen to blues and jazz myself! But it just plays so nice! ;) ). What I don't need are jazz tracks with thousands chord and scale changes...!

Tips anyone?

Thanks in advance!

[flathead]

http://www.ibreathemusic.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1517&highlight=backing+tracks

Check this thread out for a bunch of links

and also this one http://www.ibreathemusic.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1043&highlight=backing+tracks
Ericv made a couple of nice tracks to jam over in that thread.

Oh and you can also go to www.soundtrek.com and download a free trial version of jammer pro 5 and make your own jam tracks using any key or chord progression. I use that and it sounds 'ok' IMO. The only thing is you can't save the songs you create unless you purchase the product, but it only takes a minute to create a chord progress so for me its no big deal

[EricV]

We´re planning on providing even more backing tracks... some of them can be considered additions to our articles... example: I´m gonna write an article about some unusual scales one day, and it´s gonna come with a jamtrack for the Hirajoshi-scale... I harmonized that scale, took the chords I got out of that, and made up a backing track from those... I like that one a whole lot, and you don´t HAVE to use Hirajoshi over it...
I might also provide backing-tracks of some of my tunes sooner or later.. most of them are rather straight rock-tunes...
Eric

[hellogoodbye]

Cool! The links to the threads were helpfull (schould have used the Search of course...) and a special 'iBreathe jamtrack page' would be absolutely great! I can hardly wait. (And I'm mighty glad I don't HAVE to use the Hirajoshi over it... ;) )