Beats for Piano – Will Backing Tracks Transform Your Piano Skills?

Beats for piano. Is it helpful to find beats to play along with? In this guide, we’re discussing whether there is any point in finding beats for piano and why you might need to source some for your practice.

Not everything you will learn how to play requires backing tracks or beats, so you might not need to worry if you are in the beginner stages. If you have just started playing through the lessons in our academy and having your very first lessons in piano then you might not need to worry about this just yet, but as time goes on you will find that starting to play the piano with a beat playing alongside can be hugely beneficial.

Benefits of Beats for Piano

What is the point? Do people just put beats in the background because it sounds better? Having some sort of drums and rhythm in the background can be a way to enhance your playing ability. It is vital to be able to play in time if you are going to play with other people, or just sound professional in the future. Getting used to playing to a variety of different beats and styles can make you a more accomplished musician.

There’s nothing wrong with the fact that you want your playing to sound better, and if you are recording, it can sound like a much more “finished” piece of music if you have a drumbeat in the background.

One way to practice playing in time is to use a metronome. This is a device (or a feature of your DAW) that can tick along at a tempo and time signature that you set. These are perfectly useful, and help you to keep time while you are playing. However, there are a couple of problems:

• You won’t get used to playing with a lot of different rhythms and sounds, but you can with drum sounds and loops.
• It can get incredibly boring listening to the same few sounds over and over again.

Finding Beats for Piano

All sorts of beats will work! As long as it is in the right tempo, or can be adjusted to the right tempo, then you can potentially use it as a backing track.

It is up to you what type of beat you will want to play along to, and it is good to have a lot of options to see what works. Luckily, we live in an age where there is more audio material available than ever before. For example, Music Radar has made thousands of loops available for free. Some of these are other instruments, vocals, and even sound effects, but there are lots of drum loops.

There are plenty of other places to find drum beats, too. If you are looking to get something niche-specific, you can look through community-driven sites like Looperman. Here, people upload snippets of audio they have made and allow others to use it for free. You can even find opportunities to collaborate when you are ready.

To actually loop the sound, you can use free software such as Audacity, and play through the speakers on your laptop, or whatever sound system you are connected to, Bluetooth speakers will work just fine. You can also switch your rhythms and loops easily within Audacity to try playing along to all sorts of different drum sounds, drum machines, and recorded live drummers.

The Simple Option

What is the easiest way to find beats for piano? There is a really simple option that doesn’t require much technical knowledge. There are actually many YouTube videos that are made to be backing tracks. You can search for the genre you want, and the words “drum backing track” and you may find a video of a drummer that you can jam along with. This is a great way to practice playing along with a drummer, even if it is a recording.

One of the other benefits of this type of practice is the fact that the drums are likely to change. Drum backing tracks can change style, and you can practice playing along with different grooves. This is a good way to learn how to improvise and to practice different styles.

In Summary – Should I Play With a Drum Beat?

It’s up to you to decide whether you need to play with a groove or not. If you are playing in a jazz style or rocking some Blues piano then you might find that a beat transforms your playing and makes it sound even better, but slow ballads might not require a beat.

Either way, to become an established musician, it is vital to practice playing in time and to be ready to play along with other musicians. You can either use a metronome or beats for piano to learn how to play with others, and keep to a certain tempo and time signature.

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