Drumless Play-along Tracks

[Norrie]

I all

Ive been searching the net for Some good Pop/ Rock and metal Drumless backing tracks and I have found a few but not many

Eather with a click or with out.

All the links I find on forums to what sounds like its going to be great end up being old dead links

Can any one point me in the right direction or maybe have a selection of there own they would share with me ? I will give you my email if you pm me

I am willing to pay for any tracks I can get !

This is more for teaching methods to give tracks to learn and also to find some I can just sit and batter out to from time to time for some fum rather than playing to no music !

Any Help with this would be fantastic and thank you for any help in advance

Norrie

[joeq]

there is a series of CDs called Turn it Up and Lay it Down
that are all drumless
mostly clickless, though the be-bop CD has a finger snapping during your half of the Trading Fours.

volume one is just a bass player, but the other volumes have full bands

the website is a bit confusing, but I think there are 8 volumes in all

[biggator6]

Not free, but...

minusDrums - redirect

[Loflyinjett]

PM me if you've got a specific song you have in mind, I might be able to help you out.

[Piranhadrum]

Contact me through Wix.com Tritone created by piranhadrum based on Music site techno2 I have close 160 songs that are drum less play alongs. Everything from Rush to Steely Dan.

[Piranhadrum]

Here are a 130 play along songs.....will leave the link up for a few days.

Thanks!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29875328/Tri...y%20Alongs.zip

[mrmike186]

The Vic Firth site has some great playalongs.Vic Firth

[CISUM]

www.BrynnerAgassi.com

he has free downloadable music especially from his and The Sovernty.

[Ghosty Dog]

Originally Posted by Norrie

I all

Ive been searching the net for Some good Pop/ Rock and metal Drumless backing tracks and I have found a few but not many

Eather with a click or with out....
Any Help with this would be fantastic and thank you for any help in advance

Norrie

Norrie, get yourself a bucket load of midi files.
In your midi sequencer, assign your favorite sound font, mute the drum channel (10), and you're away.
When you find a well programmed piece you really like to play to, just record it to .wav/mp3.

This fella's site has a good variety -
Heavyrock

[dcrigger]

In my personal drum studies, drummer-less tracks or music-minus-one type play alongs were of very limited use. Fine for the occasional change of pace or for making little demos. But that certainly didn't mean practicing without music - just the opposite.

Looking back I would trade all my other forms of study (reading, private lessons, etc.) before giving up the lessons learned from the masters of drumming via listening then playing along with their recordings. Don't get me wrong, I love the clear understanding of rhythm that learning how to read brings and learning the building blocks of technique makes everything so much easier and approachable - but the mechanics of what a drummer does, how does he function musically?, how should drum parts fit together in a song? - all of that came from hours and hours and hours of playing along with records and CDs. Sometimes learning specifically what the drummer on the record played - sometimes just working from the sense of what he played and coming up with similar but different possibilities.

Even today, if there's been just to many days in the studio or on the road (in neither place am I ever playing all that much compared to the hours and hours spent being there) and I'm feeling stiff, not fluid or lacking in endurance - or just want to play something different from where work has been centered lately - into the shed, headphones on, popping on any number of the 100's of CD's I've got in iTunes - to play an hour or so of Hendrix, or Steve Vai tracks, or Hendrix, or Mahavishnu, or some big band stuff - working out the kinks, building the endurance back up, the fluidity - or pull up some new track that I've been wanting figure out - sketch it out if necessary, but however just start sussing out what the player's doing and working through it - and then play along - over and over. Then maybe onto something else - with the idea of coming back to that new track tomorrow or the next day and digging into it some more. Until it becomes something I know - just like the hundreds of other tracks I've been doing that with since I was 10.

For me, book study and technique study have little end result except how they facilitate my doing the above. At least for me, the end product of "book" study doesn't translate directly to playing out in the world. The "book" study makes the real study of drumming (listening to, figuring out, copying and imitating other drummers) go a lot better. And it is the end result of that study that I carry with me out into the world of playing with other players.

IMO no course of drumset study can forego this step and be successful.

Anyway - quite a bit more than my 2 cents on that. :-)

David

[joeq]

Originally Posted by dcrigger

....but the mechanics of what a drummer does, how does he function musically?, how should drum parts fit together in a song? - all of that came from hours and hours and hours of playing along with records and CDs. Sometimes learning specifically what the drummer on the record played - sometimes just working from the sense of what he played and coming up with similar but different possibilities.

yes BUT
it is much harder to focus exclusively on the precision of your playing when another (great drummer) is laying it down

playing along to tracks with a drummer already on them does not force you to really stand up and drop every note in the pocket etc etc.

there is a time and place for both types of practice, IMO

[Piranhadrum]

Originally Posted by dcrigger

In my personal drum studies, drummer-less tracks or music-minus-one type play alongs were of very limited use. Fine for the occasional change of pace or for making little demos. But that certainly didn't mean practicing without music - just the opposite.

Looking back I would trade all my other forms of study (reading, private lessons, etc.) before giving up the lessons learned from the masters of drumming via listening then playing along with their recordings. Don't get me wrong, I love the clear understanding of rhythm that learning how to read brings and learning the building blocks of technique makes everything so much easier and approachable - but the mechanics of what a drummer does, how does he function musically?, how should drum parts fit together in a song? - all of that came from hours and hours and hours of playing along with records and CDs. Sometimes learning specifically what the drummer on the record played - sometimes just working from the sense of what he played and coming up with similar but different possibilities.

Even today, if there's been just to many days in the studio or on the road (in neither place am I ever playing all that much compared to the hours and hours spent being there) and I'm feeling stiff, not fluid or lacking in endurance - or just want to play something different from where work has been centered lately - into the shed, headphones on, popping on any number of the 100's of CD's I've got in iTunes - to play an hour or so of Hendrix, or Steve Vai tracks, or Hendrix, or Mahavishnu, or some big band stuff - working out the kinks, building the endurance back up, the fluidity - or pull up some new track that I've been wanting figure out - sketch it out if necessary, but however just start sussing out what the player's doing and working through it - and then play along - over and over. Then maybe onto something else - with the idea of coming back to that new track tomorrow or the next day and digging into it some more. Until it becomes something I know - just like the hundreds of other tracks I've been doing that with since I was 10.

For me, book study and technique study have little end result except how they facilitate my doing the above. At least for me, the end product of "book" study doesn't translate directly to playing out in the world. The "book" study makes the real study of drumming (listening to, figuring out, copying and imitating other drummers) go a lot better. And it is the end result of that study that I carry with me out into the world of playing with other players.

IMO no course of drumset study can forego this step and be successful.

Anyway - quite a bit more than my 2 cents on that. :-)

David

Amen, I am in the same boat. Best piece of gear were some nice headphones for Christmas in 1994 so I could play along with my favorite bands. You certainly can learn from other drummers and how they approach, or even make the song, by playing along with them. Let's not forgot how just putting down the sticks and listening is super important!

[dcrigger]

Originally Posted by joeq

yes BUT
it is much harder to focus exclusively on the precision of your playing when another (great drummer) is laying it down

Why? In fact, in many ways, I'd say it is just the opposite. That recorded drummer provides the reference I'm shooting for - how I'm gelling with him and the rest of the band gives me plenty to weigh my performance against. And as far as precision goes - staying lined up with another drummer is actually more challenging because there isn't the very broad and subjective for me to place my groove against the track. Again this is a learning exercise - what better way to work on really copping a Clyde Stubblefield groove than seeing with I can lay myself on top of him to the point that I can no longer hear him in the phones?

playing along to tracks with a drummer already on them does not force you to really stand up and drop every note in the pocket etc etc.

But you know, simply playing to tracks doesn't force that to happen anyway. As opposed to playing with players, where there are musical consequences to one's drumming actions - no matter what one plays, the track will stay the same. And while there is a place for record/playback/record/playback as a method for developing some of this - I find that is a time consuming practice best left for fine tuning these things, as opposed to the bulk of the work which is simultaneously trying to develop knowledge of the musical drumming vocabulary, the facility to actual play the music and the self-listening skill of being able to evaluate how well I'm doing (the ear training skill of self assessment). All of these can be work on to great effect playing along with existing recordings - and that is not really the case when playing to drummer-less tracks.

But again, not saying there are without there use. But there importance IMO is really miniscule compared to the other. And remember my response was in answer to the original poster - who sort of lamented that without being able to find drummerless tracks, he would be returned to not practicing the drums along with music at all. So I was pointing out what I see as a huge gaping hole in his study approach.

Because if one only takes what one learns from books and makes up on their own - and then apply only that to drummerless tracks, it is quite likely they are going to end up quite short of the mark.

there is a time and place for both types of practice, IMO

Which I agree is probably true - I just keep running into guys like the OP, either unaware of the value to be had from playing records or like the so many who they are so useful and instructively valuable as to have dozens or hundreds in their possession. Sure they can fun to play to - but really useful for learning to play the drums? Not really. And at all necessary? Absolutely not. All of course IMO. :-)

David

[Pawel]

Originally Posted by joeq

yes BUT
it is much harder to focus exclusively on the precision of your playing when another (great drummer) is laying it down

playing along to tracks with a drummer already on them does not force you to really stand up and drop every note in the pocket etc etc.

there is a time and place for both types of practice, IMO

Exactly, I'm almost completely self-taught and played for years along with cds: best school ever for musicality and language, but you really need to focus on groove alone to really get it together and develop that "tightness", when playing along you leave behind the time-producing skill because you follow the other drummer's time.

[joeq]

Originally Posted by Pawel

Exactly, I'm almost completely self-taught and played for years along with cds: best school ever for musicality and language, but you really need to focus on groove alone to really get it together and develop that "tightness", when playing along you leave behind the time-producing skill because you follow the other drummer's time.

Agreed. There is also a tendency for you to hear the recorded drummer's playing as your own, especially if it is more 'correct'. Headphones block out the sound of your own drums making them muffled and indistinct, whereas the the recorded drums are sharp and clear with full HF extension.

This effect is especially problematical in the case of your ghosted notes, which are difficult to hear with headphones on.

There can also be a problem when you are trying to work on groove or consistency. When you are playing along to a record, you can easily fall into playing a 'second drum part' which seems fine in the context of the original drum part, but on its own does not groove as hard as you would if you were the "only" drummer.


I think it is about balance. Some of my students need to be 'introduced' to the very concept of playing along to commercial CDs! But others fall into an (IMO, bad) habit of only doing that. Playing solo to a metronome (on the kit!) is an essential component of a good practice routine, as is playing solo period - generating your own time.

Playing along to songs is easy and fun. Perhaps a bit too easy and too much fun... . It can become a trap.

Just practicing to records will leave gaps in a drummer's technique that will be hard to fill when he gets to the gig and the 'other drummer' is suddenly not there.

[dcrigger]

Originally Posted by Pawel

Exactly, I'm almost completely self-taught and played for years along with cds: best school ever for musicality and language, but you really need to focus on groove alone to really get it together and develop that "tightness", when playing along you leave behind the time-producing skill because you follow the other drummer's time.

Much the same as what happens with overuse of the metronome - it being a guide to test your time against, but can also be a crutch to rubber band against.

There is no getting around that there are aspects to time-keeping that are only developed through extensive ensemble playing - playing with, tugging and pulling against, locking in with other live players in real time.

All the things that we can do in the shed only approximate that experience in one way or another. All worthwhile when applied well as just playing with live players can never add up to enough time and focus on whatever we need to work on.

So sure, just like the metronome, there's a "training wheels" aspect to playing with commercial CD's that there's just not get around - it provides the positive space for improvement that it provides, but no more than that. It certainly isn't (and I don't that anyone claimed it was) the experience as driving the bus oneself - that experience ONLY exists while actually driving the bus.

And while certainly a student can just put on their favorite records to fart around with working on playing - that doesn't change the usefulness that a truly serious student can and do derive from extensive use of this practice.

Can one become truly proficient from only playing to records? I would say it's very unlikely - though what we do is of an aural nature, so given enough time and dedication, sure. Though it would be very inefficient.

But to become a truly proficient player without a deep study of the instruments recorded history and vocabulary? Not a chance.

I remember when I first entered the professional scene in LA, fresh out of high school and feeling pretty good about the depth and breadth of the listening I'd done and the styles that, though far from mastering, I was at least proficient in, how amazed I was at having encounter after encounter with other players (drummers and percussionists as well as other players in general) whose broad musical awareness, knowledge and depth made me feel like my record collection was more like my grandmother's (you know, a Time Life collection of the swing era and a Reader's Digest collection of light classics). And these guys weren't just familiar with these records, they KNEW them - inside and out - and not just their instruments parts but what the other instruments were playing as well.

Don't know why it was so surprising - and I wasn't surprised by the concept - I'd been doing the same thing - but the depth! That took me off-guard. But don't know why I was surprised - this is a profession. And you don't get to be a lawyer knowing just a bit of the law, or doctor by only learning about the drugs you'll be prescribing most often - no you have to learn the bulk of it. Which of course with musicians and music it is an impossible task - but I quickly found out how high the bar actually was.

David

[joeq]

Just wanted to drop back into this thread and give some ups for the Vic Firth links - thanks mrmike186!

This is some really grooving music, not the mechanical crap a lot of things turn out to be.

Best of all, the the tracks are in a 'with' and 'without' format. You can generate your own part AND you can hear what Dave Weckl or Peter Erskine or Tommy Igoe did with it. How can you lose?

[mrmike186]

Originally Posted by joeq

Just wanted to drop back into this thread and give some ups for the Vic Firth links - thanks mrmike186!

This is some really grooving music, not the mechanical crap a lot of things turn out to be.

Best of all, the the tracks are in a 'with' and 'without' format. You can generate your own part AND you can hear what Dave Weckl or Peter Erskine or Tommy Igoe did with it. How can you lose?

Really the best of both worlds having the tracks with and without drums from some of the best musicians on the planet.

I understand the imprtortance of playing with others but I am a bit surprised of the passionate responses against drumless tracks