I don’t know about you, but being a full-time wage slave, husband, blogger, cancer caregiver, and general all-around nice guy, I don’t get time to jam with my friends nearly as often as I’d like––I do, however, find time as often as possible to sneak into the back room for some quality time with one of my favorite jam tracks.
No, it’s nowhere near as rewarding as jamming with my best buds, but there are some solid benefits––with a decent quality jam track you can be relatively sure your rhythm section will always be tight, your horn player won’t hammer down too many Singapore Slings, and your bass player will actually show up to practice on time (with his gear!)
Of course, there are as many styles of jam tracks as there are styles of music, but as a long time blues & old-school R&B player, I suffer from what I’ve come to call CPS (Chronic Pentatonic Syndrome.)
Yeah––you know what I’m talkin’ about.
I admit it, I’m a solid 12-bar junky, and while I tend to avoid the blues like the plague when I’m actually writing my own stuff, when it comes time to let loose with some wailin’ & screechin’ I always return to the blues. I guess it’s in my veins.
Anyway, I recently happened onto a truly high-quality source for Blues Jam Tracks (at bluesjamtracks.com. duh.) And while they aren’t free, you really do get what you pay for. These guys know their stuff, and the backing band here is just plain solid as a rock––not to mention a pleasure to solo over.
On top of that, each track is written in the style of a particular blues performer (B.B. King, T-Bone, SRV, etc,) and every download comes with not just a full backing track, but also an example solo track (in case you need some new ideas,) and a PDF file with guitar notation and TAB representing the solo. Good, good stuff.
I’ve also just recently gotten acquainted with IG’s aptly titled IG BLOG Playalongs––these bad boys are free, and while I haven’t had a chance to check all of them out yet, I have enjoyed channeling some groovy Hendrix mojo with IG’s “Hey Joe Jam.”
Which brings me to the question… got any favorite Jam Track sources you can share with us?
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June 7th, 2007 at 5:25 am
Hey Cary,
I don’t use pre-recorded jam tracks….instead I use PGMusic’s Band-in-a-Box ( http://www.pgmusic.com ). Although the user interface is a bit clunky (perhaps for good reason), this is simply one of the coolest computer programs I have ever used. What it will do is “generate” backing tracks in a plethora of styles (included heaps of blues styles (4/4, 6/8, etc.)…jazz, rock, funk, you name it…and you can design your own styles). It will even generate solos based on the chords you type in, in the style of a particular artist….wanna jam with BB King, Pat Metheny, Eddie Van Halen, or Charlie Parker?… it’s there (I don’t know how they do it…it’s some kind of artificial intelligence). The newer versions have “real-er” sounding drums. It can even export MIDI if you want to import parts into ProTools or Sonar, and lets you really go to town…
Check it out. If you are studying jazz, it’s essential…. but for other styles, it does a good job as well. It’s actually a phenomenal songwriting and arranging tool as well (it will even generated lead sheets)…..and for the price, it’s an incredible value. People have websites with all kinds of cover songs arranged in BIAB for free download….just do a Google search.
June 7th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Thanks for the recommendation, Rick — I just perused their site and it looks like a fun program… glad to see they’ve got a Mac version as well :) Will definitely check it out.
June 8th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
I have a Dish receiver and stereo in the garage, where I dial up the Sirius and Dish Blues channels and Motown stuff, whatever. Keep the remote handy, there’s always stuff to jam to. Sirius Spectrum #18 is good too. I even learned Soul Meets Body by Death Cab– my 16 year old sons buddies now think I’m pretty cool!
June 11th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Funny story, I was going to do tech support for band in a box when I lived in Victoria BC. Apparently they are based out of there. I ended up taking a job with Shaw Cable instead.
I sometimes jam with Guitar Pro 5. Although it’s just glorified MIDI, it sounds decent enough for me to jam along. This is usually when I am learning songs though, it’s good for playing songs that have 2 guitar parts because you can play the lead and have the full band playing the rest of the song.
I don’t have any backing tracks but I really really want to get myself a decent looping pedal. That way I can jam with myself! I’ll lay down a few tracks and save them to the memory for later. If you get a good enough pedal you can even usb them to your computer.