Using Practice Tracks (beyond the metronome)

Before getting up to a healthy speed, I need a lot of practice at slower tempos. Some players just take a recorded track and use an app called “Amazing SlowDowner.” Some people choose a version of a song from YouTube and click YT’s little gear-shaped icon at the bottom right to slow-down the speed in “settings.”

Here are some alternatives:
The Strum Machine app — https://strummachine.com/app — provides decent band recordings with adjustable tempo, and you choose to set it so it very gradually speeds up. They have tons of tunes. You can “loop” a section to focus on one part of tune. Comes in a phone app as well. Very cheap subscription.

The Flatpick Apprentice — http://flatpickapprentice.blogspot.com/ — is a collection of instrumentals and fiddle tunes with multiple recordings at differents beats-per-minute speeds, that you can choose from. It’s made for guitarists so instrumentals from the Flatt & Scruggs repertoire are very few.

FBBTs stands forFree Bluegrass Backing Tracks at — http://www.fbbts.com/Tunes.html — also allows slow-downs and looping, but only has a few of the great Josh Graves instrumentals (i.e, no “Pickaway,” no “Ground Speed”). But it has a built-in Slow-Downer that lets you grab MP3s from your own collection and slow them down and loop. FBBTs does offer a bunch of Swing, Jazz and Django Reinhardt type songs if you go in that direction.

On YouTube, check out the following:
— “Rod Smith Just the Tune”
he has a ton of fiddle tunes and instrumentals at slow tempo (and a ton of hymns as well).
— “Binary Woodshed”
which offers blues, country, Western Swing and some jazz, but not the Josh Graves monuments.
— “BBT Bluegrass”
tracks at 80, 90, 100, 120 beats per minute. Again, not the F&S instrumentals, but more bluegrass jam standards and many great Bill Monroe tunes.

• This topic was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Paul Conrad.
• This topic was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Paul Conrad.