Who has to play to a click or backing track live?

larryace said:
The sound of the click is a non issue, the perfection of it all is my issue.

I'd love to hear someone adjust Stairway to Heaven so the whole thing is at the starting tempo. It wouldn't be nearly the same track. Perfectly even does not move me. It's the little...and sometimes large imperfections that make it interesting.
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As I said, not everything needs or benefits from a click. Funny you'd mention Led Zep though, Bonham's time was regarded as so profound, yet it wasn't that good (he rushed fills a lot.) It was fine, but perhaps only he and Keith Moon could get away with timing issues and have it work out in the end.

I do have an aversion to clicks live, even being an audience member. Live music is the last bastion of raw musicianship and it's being systematically diluted of it's humanity.
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Any dilution is not the result of a click, that's a separate topic that maybe deserves its own thread.

Dammit I want to see all the music created right there in front of me by good musicians doing the best they can, with their own sense of time, not a digital clock's sense of time.
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I like creative, enjoyable music that's played well, but I don't insist that it be done or not be done in a certain manner. If it sounds good to me, that's good enough. As a result, I get to enjoy a lot of music.

Bermuda
 
larryace said:
So in my head, the time is friggin mine, and that's why I drum.
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In my head, the song is ours. Music is a team sport and time is time.

And, I doubt than anyone can tell if a band was playing flawlessly in time. I don't hear tempo variations in older music until I put them to a click when learning them or writing parts to cover them.

When I came back to drumming a few years ago, someone asked if we we played with a click and my response was, " we don't want to be robots". In retrospect, I was being short sighted. I was a huge learning experience for me.

I don't see how aiming for perfection can ever be a bad thing.
 
New Tricks said:
I don't see how aiming for perfection can ever be a bad thing.
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It wasn't long ago that we had the ultimate respect for drummers who kept great time and sounded tight doing it. Funny how, since the advent of absolute perfection in production, musicians are demonstrating a backlash to it.

That's not limited to just Larry's perspective, I occasionally hear it elsewhere and from non-drummers as well. I don't worry about it though, I've got it covered either way. :)

Bermuda
 
larryace said:
The sound of the click is a non issue, the perfection of it all is my issue.

I'd love to hear someone adjust Stairway to Heaven so the whole thing is at the starting tempo. It wouldn't be nearly the same track. Perfectly even does not move me. It's the little...and sometimes large imperfections that make it interesting.

I do have an aversion to clicks live, even being an audience member. Live music is the last bastion of raw musicianship and it's being systematically diluted of it's humanity.
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Perhaps.

Of course, some people prefer the diluted humanity.

Trying listening to power noise music for 5 seconds, and then realize some people actually find that entertaining, and well, you'll want some aspirin.

The thing is Larry, you basically play one genre, and play it better than most of us. A live click doesn't suit the bands you play in. You shouldn't play with a click live.

But if you open your mind to others forms of music, and find that there can be beauty in things that at first doesn't sound right, and that in certain situations a click live, backing tracks and the whole 9 yards actually works and is preferable for that situation.

The first time I played like with a click, I didn't want to, but I got through it. The first time I was prepping to play with backing tracks, it felt like I was going through a mid-life crisis (never mind I was still 20-something at the time). But like anything else new, you do it a few times and then it's just second nature.

Much like a certain cymbal might work in one kind of band but not in another, the genre of music, and the sound the band as a whole is going for is what dictates if backing tracks make any sense or not.

You generally don't play blast beats at a jazz kit, you generally don't play brushes at a power metal gig, you generally don't use a click on a blues trio gig, and you generally don't want tempo fluctuations wit-in a song on a synth gig.

So you go with what is appropriate for the music at hand without making too many general overall statements and trying to apply them to all forms of music.
 
Believe it or not I played along with a few regular songs on a CD and people seemed to like it. I'm trying it out on the street some more. It's like people don't even care that there is no band there, they just want to see a drummer. And it's just a regular CD, not drumless backing tracks.
 
larryace said:
The sound of the click is a non issue, the perfection of it all is my issue.

I'd love to hear someone adjust Stairway to Heaven so the whole thing is at the starting tempo. It wouldn't be nearly the same track. Perfectly even does not move me. It's the little...and sometimes large imperfections that make it interesting.

I do have an aversion to clicks live, even being an audience member. Live music is the last bastion of raw musicianship and it's being systematically diluted of it's humanity.
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Remember that a human programs the sequencer. There is the potential for emotive creation (art) in that.

In a blues band, a click would be heinous. In a death metal band like Nile where they are all playing at 270 BPM, it becomes a must. Or in a band that uses sequences, or video.

Rush, the band that started many of us, including me, drumming has been using sequencers live for decades. I have never found a song like "Subdivisions" to be less emotive due to it's being played to a click. As a matter of fact, that song really hit me hard as a high school kid.

It all depends on what the appeal of the music is.

One thing that bugs me is the use of perfect tempo in slow, emotive, piano ballads. I want to feel the music breathe and pull back after the singer finishes a verse that is intended to set a mood.

Modern pop ballads just put the piano in perfect time and it loses something. I'm trying to remember which famous pop ballad has an obvious case of it but i can't.
 
For sure Jeff and it does have to do with the music one gravitates towards. IMO, Rush doesn't groove, it's a "brain" fueled thing they have going on as opposed to an "emotion" fueled thing going on. A lot of heavy music doesn't groove, which is fine, I just don't get a lot out of it, with exceptions of course, (Yes' "Close to the Edge" for example, curiously, which was made pre digital) so mostly it doesn't interest me. Digitized and quantified music subtracts the very thing I love about music, the musicians skill at manipulating time.

I've said enough bad things about playing live to clicks. Much respect to anyone who has to do this.
 
A click is very lame. Your band might as well be using a dj or drum machine.
Get some sack guys.
 
Don't hate the playa :)

And, it has nothing to do with scrotums.

The fact is, you have no idea what your timing is like until you check it with a click. Give it a go and report back.
 
MCM said:
A click is very lame.
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Ask a working pro how lame a click is. I know more than a few pro drummers - names you know - and this is not a discussion I've ever had with any of them.

Bermuda
 
bermuda said:
more than a few pro drummers
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Maybe that's the difference right there. There is the "working pro" who simply must embrace clicks to stay in the game, and then there is the "artist" drummer, who maybe is part of a band or group that sells its compositions. The "artist" drummer is better served by making the compositions unique, or true to the genre, than by perfecting their time. Also, the artist drummer is free to develop chemistry over a long period of time with the same band. There isn't pressure to create perfect time right from the start, since the band likely formed at a young age.

Not saying the artist drummer has bad time necessarily, just that the demands are different, because the expected results are different.
 
There's a backlash against clicks because there seems to be a belief now that perfect is the only way. It's as if the world just realized every piece of music has a pulse running through it. It's a production advantage, not a way of life. Phish's drummer used clicks to save time on their most recent album, and he admits the end result was stiffer than what he'd ideally like. He has excellent inner time, which he obviously developed in the woodshed with metronome, not in a full band situation where everyone is safety netted by a constant click.
 
brentcn said:
Maybe that's the difference right there. There is the "working pro" who simply must embrace clicks to stay in the game, and then there is the "artist" drummer, who maybe is part of a band or group that sells its compositions. The "artist" drummer is better served by making the compositions unique, or true to the genre, than by perfecting their time.
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Being an artist and a working pro are not mutually exclusive.

Bermuda
 
The Sloth said:
He has excellent inner time, which he obviously developed in the woodshed with metronome, not in a full band situation where everyone is safety netted by a constant click.
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The woodshed metronome and the full band click is the same thing. The woodshed just involves the drummer and the band setting involves everyone. It's a training tool, not a safety net. The more you play with it, the better you will play without it, guaranteed.

When playing live as a band, we are all listening to each other and making constant, minute, indiscernible adjustments. For example, a player/singer may naturally slows down a touch during a difficult part and the others recognize it and compensate, often without even realizing it.

Playing with backing tracks is the same thing. It's just like playing with someone who has really really good timing :)
 
bermuda said:
Being an artist and a working pro are not mutually exclusive.

Bermuda
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No, of course not! Rather, opposite ends of a spectrum. And you might be anywhere on that spectrum depending on the gig. But it would explain the whole "clicks are lame, I hate playing with clicks" attitude among some while others are just fine with it.
 
Let's have a little fun. Here's a track I played drums on - https://soundcloud.com/bermudaschwartz/cattinaround No, it's not a live gig, but it's certainly played live by humans, and it's obviously Americana (one of the blanket genres which I said doesn't normally benefit from a click.) It's only 2min if you care to listen to the whole thing.

Based on what you hear, what can you tell about the track and the performance? (apart from my interesting intro...)

Bermuda
 
brentcn said:
Maybe that's the difference right there. There is the "working pro" who simply must embrace clicks to stay in the game, and then there is the "artist" drummer, who maybe is part of a band or group that sells its compositions. The "artist" drummer is better served by making the compositions unique, or true to the genre, than by perfecting their time. Also, the artist drummer is free to develop chemistry over a long period of time with the same band. There isn't pressure to create perfect time right from the start, since the band likely formed at a young age.

Not saying the artist drummer has bad time necessarily, just that the demands are different, because the expected results are different.
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I don't think music history quite agrees though.

The Who were established stars when they added sequencers in the early 70's. Pete was driven by art to explore new musical territory.

When Rush started added sequencers in the 80's, again, they were already high profile. They didn't need to add sequencers and clicks on stage, they chose to.

(didn't Pink Floyd also use clicks to tie into pre-recorded bits starting on the Dark Side of the Moon tour? )

When I first got into using backing tracks, no one forced me, I wanted to do it. At the time, not many bands were doing it, outside of White Zombie and a few others. And certainly very few on the local scene were taking on backing tracks.
It was conscious decision to do something cutting edge and set ourselves apart from the rest of the LA scene. Although in retrospect, we were about 6-12 months too late. While we were getting it together, Static-X got signed by Warner Brothers and some band called Linkin Park was entering the studio. Soon, every band in LA was walking around with backing tracks.
 
New Tricks said:
The woodshed metronome and the full band click is the same thing. The woodshed just involves the drummer and the band setting involves everyone. It's a training tool, not a safety net. The more you play with it, the better you will play without it, guaranteed.

When playing live as a band, we are all listening to each other and making constant, minute, indiscernible adjustments. For example, a player/singer may naturally slows down a touch during a difficult part and the others recognize it and compensate, often without even realizing it.

Playing with backing tracks is the same thing. It's just like playing with someone who has really really good timing :)
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That's right, and those adjustments are meant to be made in rock music. Everyone in a band should have a strong sense of time they've developed on their own. Bands anchoring themselves to perfection is ironing the spirit out of live music. And I personally think that backing tracks are cheese of the highest order.
 
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