Originally Posted by: mpaq[QUOTE=Spedzar]

I am wondering what actually motivates people to contribute to these backing tracks...???

1) A need for honest feedback, opinions, suggestions and constructive criticism about one's playing ability, sound, compositional skills, versatility and personal progress from a community of like-minded and open-minded fellow guitarists, in order to facilitate further learning, development and improvement in these areas (I guess this might be a main motivating factor for most people on a site like GT)...
QUOTE]

Hi Spedzar,
For me its #1 on your list above, but for sure I would agree that ego plays a role in any type of self expression.

Feedback helps me to stay focused and motivated. Practicing can get very frustrating at times and its great to get a few words of encouragement during those times when you're thinking "who the hell am I trying to kid, I''ll never be really good at this"....and conversely when you listen to your track so many times, no matter how bad it is is will start to sound good to you since at that point you've lost all objectivity, so the negative/constructive feedback helps bring you back down to earth.
I've been at this for about 8 months now, so I think im past the "phase" period and in this for the long haul.....but yea as far as ego goes, i'll admit its nice to hear the occasional reassurance that I dont suck :)

Haha well don't worry coz I've heard your playing and you certainly don't suck ;) and it's a very honest and interesting comment you make about listening to your own stuff and losing objectivity - it's like when your partner or family members end up getting exposed to what you do, they start listening to your playing and after constant high rotation from being so close to it the stuff becomes ingrained and they go "wow that's so unbelievably cool" and then you post it on here and someone goes "well maybe it could use some salt" or Maestro Shaz or Superhuman shreds a few lines to the same BT and you think "hmm, maybe I'm not actually as good as I think"...

I can't admit to being overly serious about the BT posts - I usually throw my stuff together very quickly with little thought and tend not to tidy things up. I think I'm actually just amusing myself a bit and I'm interested to hear other people's perspectives. I just wish guys like Frank Axtell and ToneZappa would occasionally post some solos to these BTs coz that would be very interesting indeed.