Knowing where you are with backing tracks

[lownote]

This is more a plea for help to players of lead instruments but hopefully experienced musos of any ilk have thoughts too. You see, I play sax as my (fairly newbie) second instrument.  My problem is I’m having real difficulty matching my playing to backing tracks.  Obv the back track doesn't have a melody line, that's what I'm supposed to be giving. So if the backing track doesn’t have an obvious pedestrian  sense of the song (simple chord changes, simple beat)  I am totally at sea.  Worse,  I think I’m OK until the back track ends and I find I’m whole bars out and still in the middle of the song! Some back trax and songs are worse than others:   fancy ones  with cool drum and complex backing instrument lines without clear echoes of the melody mean I end up having no sense at all of where I am.  And I can’t reference the pace written on the music because a back track from another source might have a totally different beat/ cadence/pace.  Any steer?

[Dad3353]

10 minutes ago, lownote12 said:

...Any steer?

This can happen if you're playing above your 'paygrade'. Don't be tempted to rush into stuff beyond your present grasp; with patience and diligence, things will improve. What to do..? Firstly, have the backing track loud enough so that you can really hear it. If you're playing to a speaker system, maybe the sax is drowning out the track, so try with headphones, maybe (just one side, if you need to hear what the sax is doing...). It's also important to listen to the track, without playing at all, to get the beat and structure integrated in your mind. Don't play; sing the sax line whilst listening. If you can get a metronome synchronised to the tempo, that'll be a big help, but It's not always easy, depending on where the track came from. Chord sheets help, too, as a visual aid as to where the music is going. Again, this is stuff that can (and should...) be worked on without playing. Once it's well established in your mind how the music is constructed, where the changes come, when to stop and breath, when to launch into that awesome riff... Only then can you play with confidence, over any track at all (that you've studied and mastered...).
In short, it will be of little help to just 'blow' over a track. Put a bit of work into studying it first. Do you have a tutor..? That would be of enormous benefit; he/she should be able to help, at least in advising what tracks are suitable for your level.
Hope this helps. 

[lownote]

Star, dad

[Nail Soup]

Maybe try some tracks that have vocals that the sax either interplays or alternated with.  With the sax removed of course.

Then it would be easy to know were you are....then play in unison with line a, counter melody to line b, riff after each chorus or whatever it is.

[spencer.b]

You could map out the structures ,not to read but to get a sense of the form then count like mad til it becomes internalised

[Crawford13]

2 hours ago, spencer.b said:

You could map out the structures ,not to read but to get a sense of the form then count like mad til it becomes internalised

This. Writing out your own lead sheet of the backing track will help massively. 

 

[bazzbass]

learn to count, what else can I say?

[lurksalot]

On 09/12/2020 at 08:35, lownote12 said:

This is more a plea for help to players of lead instruments but hopefully experienced musos of any ilk have thoughts too. You see, I play sax as my (fairly newbie) second instrument.  My problem is I’m having real difficulty matching my playing to backing tracks.  Obv the back track doesn't have a melody line, that's what I'm supposed to be giving. So if the backing track doesn’t have an obvious pedestrian  sense of the song (simple chord changes, simple beat)  I am totally at sea.  Worse,  I think I’m OK until the back track ends and I find I’m whole bars out and still in the middle of the song! Some back trax and songs are worse than others:   fancy ones  with cool drum and complex backing instrument lines without clear echoes of the melody mean I end up having no sense at all of where I am.  And I can’t reference the pace written on the music because a back track from another source might have a totally different beat/ cadence/pace.  Any steer?

 

as a quick cheat , open up the backing track in a DAW and create markers or regions over the track 

it will be a live visual aid as to where to are in the music , it helps for finding sections that you might want to practice more than others and will get your head around the progression fairly quickly