These tracks from Piano-Accompaniments are designed as an integral part of your practice requirements, and it is recommended you get to know your solo part fairly well before you use these tracks: 1) Listen to a commercially available recording of the work you are practising, preferably with the piano score so you can see where your part coincides with the piano. I would recommend the Naxos website as a great place for listening to many of those works included on this site.
2) Make a careful note of the performance details that apply to any movements you buy from the store. These performance details indicate certain aspects of the recording that you may need to know about before you start rehearsing. Such details include: whether there are any click beats to listen out for, whether or not the accompaniment includes repeats, whether there are any cuts in concerto tuttis and how long is allowed for cadenzas.
Note: if you buy any practice versions, (or harpsichord versions) then you should read the corresponding details outlined under the performance version of that movement.
3) Mark into your own solo part any click-beats or instructions you think may help you in following the recordings.
4) Listen to the recordings you have purchased from Piano-Accompaniments.com, again preferably with the piano score, before starting to rehearse. This will give you an idea of the tempo you will need to play at, and you will see where any ritardandos and accelerandos occur.
5) Use the tuning notes to help you get in tune with the recording before you start. All the pieces are recorded at A=440kHz to ensure optimum accuracy.
Modify the speed of the recordings
While many of the more difficult tracks come with slower practice versions, you may find you wish to further alter the tempo or volume of the recordings, and this is quite possible to do if you have a computer and an internet connection. By downloading certain recommended software programs, you have the opportunity to create custom recordings to play along to, thereby further increasing the potential use of these products.
I would recommend the following three programs as among the best products on the market. All offer free evaluation versions that can be downloaded from their respective websites. 1) Amazing Slow Downer - (opens in new window)
Probably the easiest to use of the three programs here, and also happily contains probably the finest tempo-altering algorithms available anywhere. There are not many features available other than the facility to slow down or speed up entire tracks, but what it does it does very well and quickly. The evaluation version is fairly limited, but the full version is available for about $40 (about £25).
2) Transcribe - (opens in new window)
A British program that provides an excellent alternative to the Amazing Slow Downer. The program offers a Wave Editor style interface, making it more flexible than ASD, and you can change the volume/reverb and many other aspects of the recordings. As its name suggests, you can also use this program to transcribe tracks into another key, and is available for about £25.
3) Goldwave - (opens in new window)
This is the most heavily feature-laden program listed here, and offers the unique ability to slow down certain parts of any movement whilst leaving the rest untouched. This program requires some reasonable processing power for best results, and also comes with the best evaluation version of the three programs mentioned. The full version costs about £30.
