iRealPro
Tue, 12/27/2022 - 15:54
Hi,
Not sure if I am in the correct forum or not. I seem to remember a recording of Backing software but cannot find it.
Is there any experience of using iRealPro as a backing music tool or is there a better solution for Harmonica players? Secondly, is there a search tab for this excellent website that I maybe missing?
Thanks
Inky
Inky:
I'd been hoping that someone with more harmonica-related experience with iRealPro would jump in. I downloaded the app some years ago to start building a chord chart library for a weekly trad jazz jam group in which I played plectrum banjo. (I say "played" because, sadly, we ran for cover when the pandemic started in 2020 and we've never started back up.) Aside from a few thousand trad jazz tunes I have loaded into it, I also have a chart list called "Blues 50," with charts and tracks for 50 classed blues tunes.
But for blues harmonica practice or online performance, I use other backing tracks, not only from bluesharmonica.com, but lots of other sources, including Dennis Gruenling. I load them into The Amazing Slowdowner for practice work.
My issue with the audio chord tracks on iRealPro is that so many of them sound like a very uninspired jazz trio (piano, bass, drums) literally "phoning in" a gig at a bowling alley. Not particularly inspiring.
That's not to say that iRealPro can't be a useful tool. In a lot of ways it is simply because while melodies and lyrics can be copyrighted, chord changes can't be. But then, blues chord changes tend to be fairly simple. E.g., while grooves and tempo differ, a 12-bar with quick IV is a pretty basic sequence that works for a lot of tunes. Where a lot of trad jazz charts can go all over the place, with key changes, 32-bar choruses interrupted by 16-bar verses, etc.
And re a search tab here: Word from time to time in the Administrator's thread is "we're working on it," but thus far, there isn't one. Someday.