Practice loops are play-along tracks that include original songs composed specifically for the courses and one-shots recorded by the Art of Reggae band, which are called ‘originals,’ and electronic re-makes of many popular Jamaican riddims which are called, you guessed it, ‘riddims.’ You will find looped versions of the demonstration song(s) that were used in many of the lessons but feel free to practice any concept you are learning using different loops. This will help you better understand the concept as you’ll be applying it to different keys and with different feels.

When you choose a practice loop that is specific for your instrument, that instrument will be muted. For example, if you’re a keyboard player, all the keyboard tracks will be muted, leaving just the bass, drums, guitar and percussion parts to jam along with. You can use any of these loops to practice any of the concepts you are learning. You can identify what instrument a loop is for by looking in the upper right hand corner. There is an icon for the instrument and this means that instrument is muted. For example if there’s a piano icon, this if for keyboard players where the keyboard parts are muted.

Drumset only loops: These are loops that have no bass, guitar or keyboards…just the drums. You can use these to practice in different keys.

Changing tempos: If a loop is too fast you can slow the tempo by clicking on the ‘gear’ icon on the lower left corner of the video and choose “0.75x.” This will slow the track by 25% with reasonably good sound quality. (If you try the “0.5” setting the sound quality is mostly terrible.)

NOTE ON BPM (beats per minute) MARKINGS: most of the loops list the bpm in Cut Time “Fast Feel.” See the intro video on Cut Time vs. Common Time for more info.

KEYBOARD PRACTICE LOOPS

GUITAR PRACTICE LOOPS

DRUMS ONLY LOOPS