Play along to enjoy playing!
Whether you’re learning a new instrument or returning to an old one, you want more than anything to play music. Scales and etudes are necessary and helpful things, but they weren’t what inspired you, spur-of-the-moment or after years of vacillating, to pick up that instrument. No, it was the music you heard – the music you decided you were going to play.
So how did you get to this point? Night after night of scales, etudes, technique drills, exercises. You can see improvement, and that’s good…but it just aren’t as fulfilling as you might have hoped. What now?
Enter play-along music. Many brands exist from various publishers (Music Minus One, for example), but they all provide a book with the “lead sheet” for you to play along with an accompaniment CD. Accompanists range from piano or synth to full orchestra, and books of play-along music are available for wide-ranging musical genres and ability levels. For anywhere from $10 to $30, you can have a group of great musicians back you up while you play your favorite pieces – all in the comfort of your own home!
When I returned to the trumpet a few years back after a couple of decades away from it, I bought a Dixieland jazz play-along book and CD combo to encourage myself. Although my primary playing has always been in “legit” band and orchestral environments, Al Hirt and Herb Alpert first inspired me to play the trumpet so many years ago, and the light-hearted fun of Dixieland jazz and Mariachi music still calls to me. Play-along books have given me opportunities to play various types of music when an actual group is nowhere to be found.
You can find play-along books/CDs online and (hopefully) at your local music store, but SheetMusicPlus has a selection that’s hard to beat. If you do decide to order your music, be sure to follow the “smart PTM” advice for buying music mail-order to get what you want quickly!
For those times when a string ensemble, jazz group, or orchestra is nowhere to be found (or if you’re just not ready for that yet!), play-along music fills the gap beautifully. Give it a try and let us know what you think!
Keep playing,
Mark
