Is it fair to play live with a metronome?

It's not even that for me. I've just never been great with tempo :)

Funny thing. The band can play a song and think it's great. Then on playback the speedup sticks out like dogs' yarbles - and not to advantage.
Pol, your time & general meter is better than 90% of players I see, & way better than you think.

BTW, do you like how Nick rips the phones off his head? Love it!
 
Pol, your time & general meter is better than 90% of players I see, & way better than you think.

BTW, do you like how Nick rips the phones off his head? Love it!

Thanks Andy, but bear in mind that I don't post the really bad takes. I try to have mercy on people's ears ...

I guess my point is that I don't subscribe to the "keeps the beat alive" etc way of thinking when it comes to loose tempo. I did once, but no more. It's a common view but it has a "lemonade from a lemon" feel about it. Take those James Brown grooves. Totally bang on tempo ... and steaming. The "aliveness" comes more from the internal dynamics of the groove and the connection with the band. Also, if the bass and other rhythm section instruments are loose then the drummer can only carry them so far. Aliveness and groove are very much a team effort that's only as strong as its weakest link.

I enjoyed Nick ripping off the headset too - it looks like he's cutting loose in the throes of passion but you never know ... the click might have malfunctioned :)
 
Using a metronome live is against the by-laws of music. You will be disqualified and must sit out for 3 gigs.

Is this honestly a question?
 
The reality is a drummer in today's modern era needs to know how to live with a click and without.

So many bands use loops, backing tracks, sequencers and such these days. If a drummer doesn't know how to use a click live, that drummer won't be getting those gigs.

Pretty much everyone I know who actually is able to make a living playing drums these days plays to a click live the majority of the time.

But of course, not every last gig is going to require this skill, and one needs to be able to still perform without said click.

The other aspect is someone you're in a room full of players and not everyone's sense of time is great. The bass player pulls, this player drags, and not everyone is on the same page. Pull up a click, and force them to fall in line, and suddenly the bands falls into place. Clicks can settle arguments really quickly.
 
The other aspect is someone you're in a room full of players and not everyone's sense of time is great. The bass player pulls, this player drags, and not everyone is on the same page. Pull up a click, and force them to fall in line, and suddenly the bands falls into place. Clicks can settle arguments really quickly.

It works if everyone listens to the drummer. A couple of years ago I tried using an in-ear click at band practice. The band quickly pulled away from me and I had two tempos in my ear - the click and the band. Not pleasant. If I wasn't mad already it would have driven me there ...

One time we tried recording to a click and the band pulled away from the click and me in a matter of seconds and it all broke down. Some people can play okay normally but can't play with a click (or a drummer with a click) to save their lives.

It's a team effort.
 
It works if everyone listens to the drummer. A couple of years ago I tried using an in-ear click at band practice. The band quickly pulled away from me and I had two tempos in my ear - the click and the band. Not pleasant. If I wasn't mad already it would have driven me there ...

One time we tried recording to a click and the band pulled away from the click and me in a matter of seconds and it all broke down. Some people can play okay normally but can't play with a click (or a drummer with a click) to save their lives.

It's a team effort.

While I can agree that some players are having trouble to follow a click (it's in their mind, just knowing that the click is perfect!), I believe that every musicians should be able to play to a click, the day they'll do some recording in a studio for X or Y artists, they'll probably will have to do so.

It's not just down to the drummer to be able to follow a click, everybody needs to do it.

Polly, I'm wondering how your band mates manage to follow you when you're not playing to a click, your grooves are setting the tempo, right? So when you play the click in your ear plug they should be able to follow your grooves the same way. Or I'm mistaken and you follow them? If this is the case, well who's the timekeeper, you or them?
 
While I can agree that some players are having trouble to follow a click (it's in their mind, just knowing that the click is perfect!), I believe that every musicians should be able to play to a click, the day they'll do some recording in a studio for X or Y artists, they'll probably will have to do so.

It's not just down to the drummer to be able to follow a click, everybody needs to do it.

Polly, I'm wondering how your band mates manage to follow you when you're not playing to a click, your grooves are setting the tempo, right? So when you play the click in your ear plug they should be able to follow your grooves the same way. Or I'm mistaken and you follow them? If this is the case, well who's the timekeeper, you or them?

Yep, ideally everyone would be able to play with a click ... I mean, it's just like jamming with a cowbell, isn't it? No biggie. I suspect some people have a mental block about it.

Do I set the tempo? At times. At other times if I don't let myself get pulled along it sounds awful ... it makes me sound like I'm dragging and I really, really hate dragging. In some songs I can get them to come to me, in others I can't.

I tried policing it about a year ago but that created tension so I stopped. So no, I'm not keeping time, just drumming ...
 
It's ok. I'm designing a piece that is entirely composed by the computer at the moment purely for my own amusement. Computers have much more taste than people.
 
Computers have much more taste than people...

Computers have a really clinical approach to music as opposed to spiritual, emotional and innovative approach by real people...

Now, Duncan, don't get me wrong, for your own pleasure and practicing environment, computer's music is fine, but for me, it doesn't compete with songs written and composed by people... :)
 
Computers have a really clinical approach to music as opposed to spiritual, emotional and innovative approach by real people...

That depends entirely on who is programming the computer. Sorry, I was having an obtuse joke (claiming I had much more taste than other people - which clearly isn't true). Apologies!

I am serious though when it comes to computer composition. I mean:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhyWH6B68iA&feature=g-upl&context=G24a0f46AUAAAAAAAAAA

Is largely controlled by a computer (last two thirds of the video). Although not entirely.
 
Polly, I'm wondering how your band mates manage to follow you when you're not playing to a click, your grooves are setting the tempo, right? So when you play the click in your ear plug they should be able to follow your grooves the same way. Or I'm mistaken and you follow them? If this is the case, well who's the timekeeper, you or them?

In my experience, that's really not how a good groove works out. It's a matter of push/pull from all players until that perfect pocket gets lined up for everyone. I've often found that aligning a song to a metronome grid is one of the quickest ways to lose the feel of real human inter-rhythm. It takes real time, practice and dedication to work your best magic with a group of players, but I think in the end, it's way worth it when the end product doesn't have the tempo set by a machine.
 
In my experience, that's really not how a good groove works out. It's a matter of push/pull from all players until that perfect pocket gets lined up for everyone. I've often found that aligning a song to a metronome grid is one of the quickest ways to lose the feel of real human inter-rhythm. It takes real time, practice and dedication to work your best magic with a group of players, but I think in the end, it's way worth it when the end product doesn't have the tempo set by a machine.

Hi doctor, nice prescription here. :)

I agree with you, and most of my playing in a band setting is carried out without a metronome or a click track, i was just trying to give some highlight in regards to Polly's comment "A couple of years ago I tried using an in-ear click at band practice. The band quickly pulled away from me and I had two tempos in my ear - the click and the band", when we play, most of the time it's the rythm section (drums, bass, guitar) which lay down the road for the other players to ride on it, and they seems to be able to follow us quite well.

So I was just stating that if the drummer uses a click, the rest of the band should able to follow the tempo from the pulse of the drummer (they don't hear the click) without too much trouble. A drummer can also vary the tempo so slightly, even with a click, to suit the mood of the song, but it takes some practice to make it a smooth drag or pull feel within the track.
 
Whenever this topic comes up, it almost always comes down to older drummers vs. younger drummers. To older drummers like Doctor Dirt, playing live with a click is just like ripping the heart and soul out of music. To younger drummers, playing live with a click is just an everyday part of drumming like stick control and coordination. In an interview with Tim "Thunder" Mason, that he did a few years ago in Modern Drummer, he said he had not played a live show without a click in almost 25 years. Carl Albrecht, goes on and on in his clinics about how a drummer today should always rehearse, practice, and play live with a click. He goes on about how once you hit a certain level of success in music, playing live with a click is mandatory. Every big act uses a click live and if you can't do it, you won't work. I'm sure someone on here will respond with the name of some oldies act that still sells out stadiums and does not use a click, but pretty much any band that became big in the last 20 to 30 years uses one. I will admit that there is a bit a a backlash against it with some of the very newest rock bands out there. So maybe in the great revolving door that is art and fashion, live clicks may fall out of favor, but for now you must be able to play with one live in order to be suscessful in the music business.
In response to a couple of people who said that they tried to play with one in their bands and you had a hard time because the band woud immediatly get off of the click. When I first started using a click with my bands, the same thing happened. They had to get used to playing with me and with me playing with a click. The keyboard player and I went round and round with the guitar player that we were not getting off during his solos and that we could not just adjust to whatever he played. Eventually, he came to really like the click, and got upset one night I forgot the adapter to plug it into my inears. By that point, our time as a band had improved so much that his solos stayed in time much more than they had before the click. We had to work out into's that were "in time". I either had to count off the intros or count the band in afterwards. I had to kept soft time on the hihat when the drums would drop out. It's just a matter of getting creative when working with your live arrangment. The more the band is used to fluctuating time, the harder it will be for them to learn to play with the click.
 
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The OP sort of implies that it's cheating to use a click, but I would argue that for someone who isn't accustomed to it, it's harder. So I'm not sure if cheating is the right word, because cheating usually implies making something easier.

Regardless, working with a click all the time is going to improve your time when you aren't playing with one. I would bet that the drummer who can play along with a click in all situations - live or studio - will play better time without the click than the drummer who says he doesn't need it and never uses it.
 
In response to a couple of people who said that they tried to play with one in their bands and you had a hard time because the band woud immediatly get off of the click. When I first started using a click with my bands, the same thing happened. They had to get used to playing with me and with me playing with a click. The keyboard player and I went round and round with the guitar player that we were not getting off during his solos and that we could not just adjust to whatever he played. Eventually, he came to really like the click, and got upset one night I forgot the adapter to plug it into my inears. By that point, our time as a band had improved so much that his solos stayed in time much more than they had before the click.

Ah, perseverance. Well done, Doug. I just gave up.

Our keyboardist (who has the worst timing in the band) was hostile to the "robot time". He didn't even like me using a 'nome for starting tempos. He's a blues guy and some blues guys have a big attitude about these things. Fair nuff, each to their own.

What our kys guy likes is having an obliging, weak-willed drummer like me who bends and twists (and basically does everything wrong) in order to get the music as workable as possible in a musically unworkable situation :)

So the young drummer / older drummer comment has some merit but is not universal. It's possible that I'm older than Doc Dirt :)

8-Mile, I agree. Playing to a click is a skill like any other. It's not easier.
 
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