Every Book bought these days come with a CD or code to download play-along and backing tracks for each song, but are these a good thing? The wisdom of being able to hear the song played properly is sound, but are the backing tracks? They certainly do encourage good timing and the feeling of being part of the band, but they also encourage the player to play at a speed they are not yet capable of. There is no backing track at a slower speed to practice to, which is a great disadvantage. The temptation therefore is to bypass using the metronome and the vital process of building the speed of the song, causing mistakes and poor technique. Also tempo changes are very hard to follow with backing tracks, as are long periods where the guitar is playing by itself.
Final word: Backing tracks can be great as a long as a song is learnt and practised properly first!
What do you think? What is your experience of using backing tracks? please comment below for other pupils to see!
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