Archive for October, 2011
Want Free Guitar Backing Tracks? Try ITunes!
Beginning guitar players will often strive to play along with the recordings of their favorite songs in order to improve their guitar skills. This is undoubtedly very helpful for those who want to improve their guitar-playing ability while still having fun. Yet when the new guitar player follows along with the song, it can be very difficult to hear which notes the guitar player is strumming, and which are the recorded notes from the lead guitar player of the band. This is where backing tracks, or jam tracks, come in so handy.
Guitar backing tracks are specially created versions of songs that are identical to the original song except that one key element is missing: usually the lead guitar part. These jam tracks offer advancing guitar players the opportunity to hear themselves clearly while playing their favorite songs. By playing along with a good backing track, your ability to hear and replicate the songs rhythms will improve, and you will have the confidence that comes only with playing the lead in a great song, as you imagine yourself the front man in a real band.
Another undeniable benefit of playing along with guitar backing tracks is that it gives you an excellent chance to improve your improvisation and lead skills. Once you have learned the exact notes of a song, it is a guitar player’s natural tendency to want to improvise. Most players who have played for at least a little while will have learned the minor pentatonic scale, the main source of notes, licks, and runs for guitar solos. Once you have this scale down, you can begin improvising and having a great time using your backing tracks as a basis for new twists on old songs. The variations at your fingertips are virtually endless!
To get started immediately with some free backing tracks, check out the iTunes radio channels located on the top left panel of the iTunes interface. The music here was not added specifically as jam tracks, but since there is such a huge variety of song genres, you will be able to find many sources of inspiration for your developing improvisation skills. Simply choose a channel and let the music be your guide as you develop your own solos and melodies. My personal favorite is called Groove Salad, under the Ambient category. The music available on iTunes is commercial-free and non-stop, so you have nothing to lose by giving it a try.
Most of the music you’ll find in the Ambient category will be in minor key signatures. Use the minor pentatonic scale to discover the key, and you are ready for some nonstop jamming. While you’re at it, take advantage of the backing tracks to practice the full major and minor scales, not just the pentatonic scales. These scales will sound amazing against the major and minor chord progressions that make up most of these songs. With practice, you will play for hours without realizing how much time has passed. Free guitar backing tracks will improve every aspect of your guitar-playing ability, including your skill at figuring out the notes you hear by ear. Above all, work hard and your efforts will be rewarded!
The Greatest Asset You Can Have As a Worship Leader – Do You Have It?
We all go to church and sometimes see big churches and hear the great worship leaders. But what is the quality that decides what makes a good worship leader… the quality cannot fake till you make it! Read on.
The first time I saw a very big presence of God drop in a church was not in Australia’s Hillsong church who have created many contemporary worship songs. No it was in a little church of 15 people in Ipswich in Queensland Australia, and the worship leader was a girlfriend of one of my friends.
The presence of God was thick and palatable and I had no idea where or why it came and it made me seek Jesus for the answer. I asked Jesus why?
He said, “It is not the quality of the voice that worships me, it is the heart for the person that sings and how much that they adore me.”
One day in conversation with a worshiper in Melbourne over the phone she was complaining that she did not have as good of voice as the others. The Holy Spirit prompted me to have her ask the Father God, what sort of voice that King David the author of the psalms had.
Her response was that the Father had told her that King David had a rough voice that was out of key!
I heard of a man that had many visions of heaven and he wrote a book with many of his visions. I am happy that book confirmed four of my visions with him being shown the same things as me. He confirmed when he met David, that even in heaven David’s worship voice was a rough voice.
You see, it is the same God we serve that picked David above all his brothers to be King of Israel. The Father told Samuel that he does not look at outward appearance that men look at, but he looks at the heart of a man.
Since the time I met my friend’s girlfriend I have met two worship leaders that brought a thick anointing. Both of them have a deep and intimate relationship with the Father.
Be Blessed
Dance in Worship – Its Origins and Use in Church
Dance actually gets a very good press in the scriptures. The inclusion of dance in worship today is nothing new, indeed it is a throw back to times over 2000 or 3000 years ago. In Psalm 149 we read:
Praise him with dancing; Play drums and harps in praise of him.
After the Israelites crossing of the Red Sea and the destruction of Pharaoh’s army, we read a passage usually referred to as “Miriam’s Song”:
The prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took her tambourine, And all the women followed her, playing tambourines and dancing. Miriam sang for them: “Sing to the Lord, because he has won a glorious victory; he has thrown the horses and their riders into the sea.”
In the famous passage from chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes:
“- a time to mourn and a time to dance.”
Dance and music go together. To express ourselves in movement is a very natural human instinct and it has always been thus. In human social life, dance has always played a huge part. Many a successful marriage has begun on the dance-floor of the local palais de danse or at the village Saturday night ‘hop’ in the church hall.
Almost every nation in the world has a culture of folk dancing in one form or another. In England we have the traditions of Morris Dancing and Maypole Dancing which are very ancient traditions coming almost certainly from pagan origins. Other regional forms such as Clog Dancing also have a preserved tradition. There are strong folk dance traditions in the other home countries of Scotland, Ireland and Wales too.
Every generation of popular music brings its own style of dancing enabling people to respond to the music in a physical way rather than by just sitting and listening. It is something which comes naturally to most people. It is only logical to assume that such expression can be used in a worship situation too.
The purpose of dance in worship is to enhance or reinforce the liturgy using movement and gesture to express the thoughts and feelings of all involved. This, of course, echoes the use of worship music which is designed to do exactly that same thing. To add the physical expression of dance to the use of music in worship makes perfect sense. However, dance, like music, must not distract or misdirect the minds of the worshippers but enliven, clarify or lead the message being interpreted.
One word of warning with regard to dance in worship is that the space for performance must be appropriate to the number of dancers and to the choreography. The danger is that a group of dancers who have rehearsed in a large hall where they can leap around and gesture on a large scale, find themselves performing in a tiny area more appropriate for a pas de deux. I mention this because I have seen this problem occur in reality. It does not enhance worship to see a group of dancers colliding with one another, squeezing past one another as they move and whose arm gestures threaten the eyes and teeth of their fellow dancers. As a musician I have often been shoehorned into small performance areas which have been a bit difficult to cope with, but at least I didn’t need to move around. Playing the oboe is usually a sedentary activity.
We are seeing more and more use of dance in worship these days. When used with sensitivity and careful preparation, liturgical dance can add a valuable dimension to worship as it has done for, quite literally, thousands of years.
Copyright (c) 2010 Robert Hinchliffe