Back Up
We went out to lunch the other day in Hopewell Junction, NY and a guitarist was playing soft-rock hits of the late 20th century accompanied by a backing track mimicking the sounds of a full band with drums, bass, guitar, piano and more. The majority of the sounds were coming from the backing racks, not him, since you could see that he wasn’t moving his hands very much. This is what you hear everywhere. When I was younger, playing with a backing track was considered to be beneath one’s dignity.
The current way of playing with a backing track is to equalize (EQ) your sound so that the live instrument sounds like it is part of the mix. That means adjusting specific frequency levels to balance the sound. The backing tracks themselves are blah. There are ways of using a backing track that are much more creative, although you’ll rarely hear them today. I’ll get back to this later in the essay.
Rock bands started to use backing tracks in the late 1960s. At that time, rock musicians like the Beatles were adding everything from a string ensemble to large choruses and percussion to the sounds they produced themselves with their own voices and instruments. While the Beatles gave up on live performing, other bands that wanted to perform decided that they needed to add the sounds they couldn’t play themselves onto backing tracks so they could present faithful renditions of their recordings. Having backing tracks doesn’t make a live performance easy. Quite the contrary. The unnamed author of an online mini-history of backing tapes likens the experience to “a relentless juggernaut which will plough on with or without you. It’s therefore essential that when the playback train starts-a-rollin’ that you’re onboard!” The backing tracks are inflexible. The drummer in particular has to wear headphones or earphones to play with a click beat. Singers have to sync with the pre-recorded vocals.
Since the use of backing tracks began in rock, there have been arguments about whether or not the results are acceptable. I found an online article entitled “Are Backing Tracks Killing Live Music? Pros Weigh In.” There is a certain degree of dissimilitude with some aging rockers condemning the use of backing tracks while in fact using them. Gene Simmons from the group KISS is a perfect example:
In 2015, Simmons expressed frustration at bands charging high ticket prices without clearly disclosing the use of backing tracks. “It should be on every ticket,” Simmons insisted. “You’re paying $100—30 to 50 percent of the show is backing tracks, and sometimes they’ll lip-sync. At least be honest.”
However, KISS manager Doc McGhee defended Stanley, clarifying that while [Paul] Stanley sings live throughout performances, backing tracks are indeed used as enhancements. McGhee noted, “Everyone wants to hear the songs performed perfectly. Paul sings fully live to every song, but tracks ensure consistency.” https://seerocklive.com/are-backing-tracks-killing-live-music-pros-weigh-in/
People are paying big bucks to see rock musicians performing with a sound quality that doesn’t come close to the actual recordings. There is no spontaneity. In a way, this is just a continuation of the effect of recordings on music performances that began a hundred years ago. Here is classical music critic Douglas McLennan’s take on this phenomenon:
Even without live recording, perhaps the culture of perfect edited recordings has had a negative impact on concerts. From an audience perspective, listeners used to technically-perfect recordings come to performances with an expectation of every note in place. Performers who understand that the bar is set at technical perfection work with that goal in mind. Perhaps artificially-achieved perfection has become a baseline that has led to a homogenization of musical approach. https://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/about/diacritical
I was fascinated to learn that in one area of popular music backing tracks are anathema— country music. In fact, a few country artists have refused to play with backing tracks even when they are told to do so. Here’s what happened when Alan Jackson performed at the Academy of Country Music Awards ceremony:
Before the show, producers told Alan that he had to play to a pre-recorded rhythm section track, which Jackson clearly felt was tantamount to lying to both his fans and the audience. So instead of playing along, Jackson tipped off the audience to the subterfuge by telling his drummer Bruce Rutherford to play without sticks. So as the performance transpires and everything sounds perfect, there is Alan Jackson’s drummer, swinging his arms like he’s playing the drums, but with no sticks in his hand. Trust the ACM’s never asked Alan Jackson to play to a backing track again. https://savingcountrymusic.com/why-backing-tracks-are-frowned-upon-in-country-music/
In the early 1960s, classical music composer Mario Davidovsky started a series of pieces he called “synchronisms,” pieces for electronic sounds and live instruments. The electronic part could just as well be called “backing tracks.” Davidovsky devised sounds on primitive synthesizers, recorded them on small bits of magnetic tape, then spliced the strands of tape together. Speaking thirty years later “he compared being in that studio to finding yourself in the desert with nothing but a knife and a jug of water and having to find your way out.” [The Synchronisms of Mario Davidovsky – Eric Chasalow (February 2021)] Here is his piece “Synchronism no. 12 for Clarinet and Electronic Sounds.” It features an array of sounds with the clarinet carefully balanced with the electronics.
The late Michael Brecker played an EWI (electric wind instrument) with backing tracks for his work called “Original Rays.” The EWI is a synthesizer operated by wind control with fingerings similar to a saxophone. It can be set so each note sounds like a chord and can cover multiple octaves. I loved this 1989 Austrian performance! There is some funny stuff in it. Note his insertion of Jimmy Giuffre’s “Four Brothers” two minutes in and at 3’19” he quotes from Joseph Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto first in a high range and then in a tuba range. At 4’40” he brings in a backing track with a rock beat. The solo performance goes on for a little over nine minutes when the pianist, bassist and drummer come on stage and they start to accompany Brecker, who switches to tenor sax.
The Davidovsky and Brecker pieces prove that there is nothing intrinsically uncreative about backing tracks. I wish that Hopewell Junction guitarist had just tried a bit harder. Music is my religion so it matters to me, but for most people they just don’t care.