Many of my pupils play along with CDs when practicing at home. One pupil earlier today was struggling with performing Gilbert & Sullivan’s fiendishly fast “Modern Major General” so we tried out the newly released ‘Speedshifter‘ tool from ABRSM which is a practice tool from ABRSM that allows you to vary the speed of audio from CD or MP3 without altering the pitch.
Speedshifter is designed to be used whenever a student might benefit from playing along with the accompaniment at a reduced tempo. It can be used in a lesson (if there is a computer/laptop available), or it can be used by the student in their own practice sessions.
Because Speedshifter varies the speed of the audio recording, any fluctuation of tempo is kept. This ensures that Speedshifter provides, in many cases, a more musical solution to slow practice than a metronome.
It’s free and available for Mac as well as Windows. Download and full instructions of use here.
SE22 Piano School 