A Shadow of Cool

I recently discovered a mountain of backing tracks on Spotify, and they’re my new favorite tool for practicing. These tracks are thinly produced, repetitive loops of music allow musicians to practice soloing in various keys, and lately I’ve been setting aside time each day to play along with a handful of them.

The tracks are clunky, and have that “karaoke version” feel to them. They mimic popular songs, with just enough variation to skate under the radar of copyright infringements. The backing track in the video above is an obvious rendition of The Doors’ Roadhouse Blues.

My playing is clunky, too. I’ve really fallen behind on my electric guitar skills, and it shows. Thankfully the backing tracks seem to go on forever, and there’s a seemingly endless supply of them. So I can keep running the same lick over and over, along with the music, until I get it right.

This sort of thing takes me back to my early days learning to play guitar. I’d record my favorite songs from Y-100 onto a cassette tape, and I’d learn the guitar parts by ear. I’d feel so damn cool when I came up with my own solo, something the band didn’t do but sounded perfect with the recording.

Now, when I’m playing along with the backing tracks, it’s a lot easier to restart the song, or go to a specific part of the track to practice a lick. No rewinding slowly & missing the mark. But when I get something right, when I come up with something new that I didn’t know how to do the day before, I still get a shadow of that cool feeling.

At 39, I’ll take a shadow.