Performing With Click Tracks - What No One’s Told You…
Why is it important?
Performing live to click tracks or metronome’s tends to be a bit of a divisive subject, particularly among more conservative minded individuals. We hear people say, “It takes away musicianship,” or “It takes the feel out of music.” I don’t believe it takes away musicianship, or takes away from the feel of music; rather I believe that it changes the skill set and requirements of musicians, and it changes the way music feels.
Wether you like it or not, we are in a digital age; an age of 1’s and 0’s; You’re on, or you’re off(…Hmmm…Divisive.) With IEM technology becoming so accessible, today’s era of music has fully embraced the digital age: Commonplace are; samples, MIDI instruments, quantization, backing tracks, click tracks, etcetera, even during LIVE performances! Wether you like it or not, this is where the industry is heading, and has been for some time now. As a drummer, not only is it important to practice to a metronome, we must also be able to perform to a metronome.
The challenge…
Metronomes and/or fixed time keeping devices are not easy to play with. At least not for me. It is tough to simply not lose the metronome completely if you are a beginner, but even after you learned to stay with the metronome in general, you’re probably not going to sound great performing to one. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard a band playing, and I could tell they were playing to a click track; drummer Bob was “chasing the click.” I have even taken recordings of myself, thinking I was KILLING this performance, and then found that I didn’t really sound as good as I had thought I did. : / And while a regular listener won’t tell you that the drummer sounds bad, it will suck the feel out of the music very quickly. None of this is to say that drummer Bob, or I, is a “bad drummer.” As I said earlier, playing with a metronome is not an easy task. Performing to a metronome is a separate skill that needs to be cultivated, and is essential for any modern drummer. Unless you follow these tips during your practice time, Bob and I’s performances are really just par for the course.
The problem…
First, let’s breakdown the problem and see why its happening…
Follow me with a metaphor:
In racing, sometimes there is a “pace car” that sets the speed for all the racers to follow before a race is resumed. That’s the metronome. You are the car following, and the audience is your passenger. Yikes.
Scene 1: You are following the pace car being towed by a rope. If you’ve ever towed anything with a rope you know physically what will happen is that you will constantly be bouncing and lurching in the slack of the rope. It’s jerky, and your passenger just spilled his drink….ugh. This is what playing TO the click is like.
Scene 2: You are now, instead, driving with your own engine at about the same speed as not to pass up or fall too far behind the pace car. This is what playing WITH the click is. The ride is smooth, and your passenger is happy with his drink is still in the glass : )
How does this look for a drummer?
Here goes Bob at his church service. He hears “Intro…two…three…four….tik tok tik tok…” Bobs mind naturally subconsciously says, “Oh! Theres time! We must “hit” with the click…” and he starts playing whack a mole with the click.
Being a naturally imperfect human, we will simply NEVER play directly on top of the click. And thats Ok, but Bob’s sense of time isn’t warmed up, Bob’s subdivision is a little off, and he start getting ahead of the click, and his beat starts FLAMMING with the click! Bob’s mind hears it INSTANTLY, there is a RED ALERT and he CORRECTS to make sure the next note after being off the click track is back on the click track.
Bob is playing to the click, so he didn’t really hear or feel anything odd. He’s just hitting on top of the click the best he can, and the best anyone can with this mentality, really. But the audience’s time reference is…the drummer. And what they heard, or more likely FELT, was NOT good. The drums are choppy, and the music FEELS stiff.
How to we fix this?
Improve your overall timing/subdivision awareness and accuracy - Sounding rock solid while playing to a metronome involves simply improving your timing in general. Using a metronome, make sure that you can play through the rhythmic scale comfortably without losing sight or feel of the quarter note. Work your way to a BAR click, forcing yourself to truly be the captain of the time. If you can do this, you will begin to FEEL that you are coming out of time, far before the next “tik” happens in your ears, and you can adjust accordingly. Similar to medicine: And ounce of PREVENTION is worth a POUND of cure.
Make small adjustments - So you’ve worked out your timing, and you notice occasionally while you’re playing, that you’ve crept up a bit ahead of the click track… This will happen naturally, and you must ensure you are making small adjustments to bring yourself back on track. A 0.5-1.0 BPM change over a measure or two, will be relatively unnoticeable by most people in an audience.
Understand that the metronome is just a REFERENCE - Have you ever heard anybody disregard a speed limit sign by saying “its just a suggestion…” Similarly, a click track is actually just a suggestion. A drummer could theoretically play a whole song 1 BPM off of a click track, listening to the thing menacingly moving through the phase of the subdivision in his IEM’s, and the audience wouldn’t know a thing! It could sound fine. Although impractical, annoying, and unlikely, it is possible. The click track does not exist in the music; as a ruler doesn’t exist in a house. It only a tool to help compare things to a perfect standard.
Practice playing off of the click - Thats right…During your practice time, take it off the rails for a bit. Intentionally play your beat ahead of the click or slightly behind, consistently. You have to realize that if you play a bar of music, and you end up one butt hair behind the click track, to play good time, by the next bar click, you should still be exactly one butt hair behind the click, to have not made two minor timing errors out of one! Eventually, you will find that if you can play consistently OFF of the click, you will be able to play more consistently ON the click. And when you find yourself OFF the click, you won’t be so inclined to make coarse adjustments to get back on the click.
The key is: To play WITH the metronome, not TO the metronome
A real life example:
Lastly, I will leave you with a real life example:
I really enjoy the band Hozier because they have a raw feel to them, that is refreshing in this day in age. Go listen to the popular song, “Jackie and Wilson.” It is pretty good song! It feels great. Go listen now, and then come back…
Ok, you’re back. Now, get a metronome, and set it to 82 BPM. Play the song again, and play the metronome at the same time. Adjust it so it lines up the best you can. Now listen…You will notice, that the drummer, and band as a whole, will get ahead of the click slightly in the chorus, as the energy builds! This is a thing that will happen to the best of us, and it is natural, and it is how we accommodate for it, that truly defines how your playing feels while keeping time with a metronome!
Hopefully this helps, and this gives you some new perspectives to bring to your practice time! Please send me an email, and let me know how this article has impacted you! Till next time….
GO PRACTICE!
