The Institute of American Music has 2 items to help you with your personal practice. The first one, RTracks, is a 3-CD set of mp3 files. On these CDs are more than 1,000 tracks of guitar + metronome. RTracks is specifically for practicing the 50 Tunes. Each tune has several tempos of guitar rhythm with metronome click. Those metronome tempos are: 40, 50, 60, 63, 66, 69, 72, 76, 80, 84, 88, 92, 96, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 126, and 132. This allows the students to practice the 50 Tunes from a very slow tempo all the way up to a very fast tempo. The second practice help product is the Institute of American Music Practice Log. The Practice Log is a small booklet that can fit into most instrument cases. It contains 52 weeks worth of weekly practice schedules. This means that the booklet will last for 1-year. The Practice Log is designed to help the teacher write down the practice assignments for the coming week without losing a lot of lesson time. The student can then use the check-off boxes associated with each assignment as they are completed throughout the week. Other practice help items are also available at this website. To download mp3 audio files associated with the Fiddle Tunes for Young Violinists and the Bridging the Gap series, please visit the Audio page.
RTracks is a 3-CD set of over 1,000 mp3 practice tracks. Each track contains guitar chord strums accompanied by a metronome. Each tune is presented at 21 tempos (40, 50, 60, 63, 66, 69, 72, 76, 80, 84, 88, 92, 96, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 126, and 132). The best way to master a tune is to first learn the tune, memorize it, and then practice it at a very slow speed until it can be played without a mistake. Then, once it is mastered at a slow speed, it is best to increase that speed little by little as the tune is mastered at each increasing speed.
$17.99
The Practice Log is a small booklet that will fit in a violin case. Every left-side page provides check-off boxes and abbreviated code symbols designed to take up very little space on the page. The teacher checks boxes or circles code abbreviations to assign specific left or right hand exercises, tunes, metronome tempos, number of daily repetitions, focus on chords, melody, harmony, and how many minutes per day each exercise or tune should be practiced. The right-side page provides additional assignment space and a comment space.
$4.99