These videos are created by video-capturing
drills in the Musician Training Center (MTC) software.
The drill files used to make the videos are
available for download here.
You can install the Musician Training Center
software, download these drill files,
and play along on your own computer.
This has some advantages:
You can change the metronome speed according to
your preferences and skills.
You can select a portion of the track to loop,
and practice only that until you master it.
You can modify the tracks: change chords, melody,
accompanyment style, etc.
Certain drills involve the creation of random
chord or melodic sequences. For example, improvising
on a random sequence of chords. In the case of a video,
obviously, the "random" sequence is always the
same, but if you use MTC you get to play on
a different sequence every time.
You don't need to be online, everything is
always available on your own computer.
Most of these drills are completely free
to use.
In certain cases, the drills will only work
if you buy certain premium MTC courses. If that's the
case, you will see it mentioned in the drill description.
In other cases, the drills are free to use, but
certain advanced functions (e.g. the Speed Curve trainer, the
Look-Ahead trainer, etc.) are only available
after you buy certain MTC courses. But even then,
using only the free version of MTC,
you can still do everything else:
play along, adjust the metronome,
loop around, modify the exercises, etc.
Below is a step-by-step guide to installing
the Musician Training Center software.
About the Musician Training Center software (MTC).
MTC is a software suite for Windows and MacOS
that contains various free and premium training
tools for musicians.
All the A4 Tracks videos are made with MTC.
After installing it, you will probably want to
create a free MTC account for yourself, at
www.micrologus.com/new.
This is optional, but using MTC
with an online account means free online
backups and keeping multiple computers with MTC
in sync with each other.
For example, you make or download a track to
computer A, click [Sync], then use computer B,
click [Sync] there, and continue on computer B from
where you left off on computer A.
In the MTC software, click [Import]
and select the file you downloaded.
The file is saved in the [My Drills]
area of MTC and is ready for action.
If you're using MTC with an online account,
click [Sync] to save your new track online.
Most play-along functions are obvious:
Play, Pause, Stop, Metronome slider etc.
To select a section for looping, move the
mouse over the staff and click on the starting
and ending points. For more advanced
functions, read the various help areas
in the program itself.
