The Delightful New Way to Work With Backing Tracks
Karaoke? No, not at all. Welcome to track separation heaven!
Using backing tracks? How cheesy!
Not necessarily. There are many opportunities to delight audiences using tracks. Of course karaoke tracks tend to be a cheesy version of the original. But guess what? These days you don’t have to use Karaoke tracks.
Now it’s very easy, and almost free, to use the actual backing tracks of any song and simply remove the vocal. It’s AI. This is a real game changer. More on this exciting new software in a moment – first, I want to offer more on the why tracks can take your musical offerings to another level.
Why would you want to do this if you play guitar or keyboards and you already know 100 songs that you’re comfortable performing?
Because you can bring ANY song to life that may not be possible to present in all it’s glory on your instrument. There may be riffs, a crucial horn part, a string section or the electric guitar riff that makes the song. This opens up your repertoire to far beyond your ability to accompany yourself. The sky is the limit. You love those Chicago hits, but how to include the horn parts when you’re playing rhythm guitar? Can’t play standards? Don’t have time to learn a whole set of holiday material? Just pick your songs, your keys and just concern yourself with the lyrics. Easy. You are delivering the goods by just singing.
Because using backing tracks gives the audience sonic variety. Listening to whole hour of one person accompanying themselves can be tiring for any ears. It enables you to offer a more dynamic show.
Because the point of entertaining people in senior environments is to remind them of music they enjoy and have a connection to. This is accomplished using tracks. They don’t give you a funny look because it’s “cheesy”. They recognize the song and they love it! For many in your audience, especially those with fading cognition - the more the music is true to the original, the better.
Because you may not be able to accompany yourself for some reason. Last week I had an injury to my finger and could not play guitar at all. I was scheduled to do an afternoon of strolling, about 4 hours of music. I separated the main vocal from 10 of my favorite songs the night before, went room to room with a tambourine, a hand held speaker and this little app on my phone. I was able to connect and bring music to the rooms just as successfully as if I had my guitar. I was able to sing material that was difficult or that I had not yet mastered on guitar, like “My Cherie Amour”. Both the residents and I were happy to explore a new format. Worked like a charm!
Because you can play DJ with this technology. That means you can deliver music for parties and festivities. You can take on a New Year’s Eve gig and deliver all the joyous upbeat percussion of let’s say Belafonte’s “Jump In The Line” and songs like “Celebration”. I did such a gig and was able to get them dancing! Because these recordings were meant to be danced to. In closing, I had my choice of several classic versions of “Auld Lang Syne” and chose Guy Lombardo’s. The audience loved singing to this one, because they knew it. You can deliver traditional songs in so many ways. If I play an Easter show I can include Judy Garland and Fred Astaires version of “Easter Parade” as my backing track. WAY more interesting and familiar to the audience than what I can put across on my guitar!
Because in today’s environment, it’s expected. Last week I played in a nursing home where the activities director told me they only have live music once a month and the rest of the time they sing to tracks. Recently I played a freebie in NYC where the residents commented they wanted MORE of the show to be using tracks - and they wanted it louder!
Now, what’s this about using the original track and not having to use karaoke tracks?
Welcome to Moises!
I found out about this app when I was buying cables and things to go with my set up that I use to output tracks in a music store. The fellow helping me told me to check out “Moises”
He explained that you just pop any Mp3 into this app, and separate out the vocal from the instrumental tracks.
It IS that simple. Moises is one popular track separation app, there are others.
The Moises app doesn’t just remove the vocal. It can separate out several tracks, so you can mix in and out other elements. For example, you can remove the main vocal but leave in the backing vocals. It offers certain instrument track separation as well.
And that’s not all! If you sign up for the premium subscription ($4/ mo) you can change the key and tempo. It will also indicate the chords as the song plays!
I am excited about this development, even if it goes against all of my treasured beliefs about the integrity of music recording and performance. And as a songwriter, I am concerned about the ethics of just lifting another artist’s backing tracks for my own show, with them not earning a dime. It goes against copyright law. It is not “fair”- but I can cut us some slack here because these are all tracks to songs that have earned the artists millions.
Track separation presents a way to offer MORE of what I want to offer these folks – while at the same time ditching cringe worthy Karaoke tracks. Now you can sing along with the real thing. Get the free version and play with it. I think you’ll love it. Have FUN!
I have a program that can play the tracks backwards in order to more clearly understand the subliminal messages. It opens up a whole new world of understanding. The future is much brighter thanks to technology!
I welcome our robot overlords.
(Actually, I am just covering myself in the hope that they will be nice to me. I heard that they can’t read things in parentheses so I should be okay.)