Songs That Speed Up or Slow Down

As someone who has mainly recorded with a click, the most fun I ever had in the studio was recording a full album without one. There was some movement in a couple of tracks but not in a bad way, and certainly not discernible to non-players. I’m absolutely not bashing clicks, as I have used and benefited from them, but IMHO playing without one gave a more honest representation of my playing than all of the stuff I’ve done with a click. :unsure:
 
"Heat of the moment" with Asia speeds up a lot! Kind of Carl Palmer's thing on many ELP records as well. He said in an interview at some point that it's intentional, to add some excitement to the music.
 
blinky said:
"Heat of the moment" with Asia speeds up a lot! Kind of Carl Palmer's thing on many ELP records as well. He said in an interview at some point that it's intentional, to add some excitement to the music.
Click to expand...
Wow, that one seems so obvious now that you pointed it out blinky. I can easily hear it speeding up in my head, and im not usually that good at that or other stuff.
 
WhoIsTony? said:
I got one ... every song in existence pre 1983

it's called ebb and flow and it is extremely important in music
Click to expand...

There's actually a great video the Rick Beato made about this and how quantizing music kills feel. If I remember right - he even goes back and runs some famous songs through pro-tools and evens out the tempo and it's crazy how it just kills the groove sometime.
 
NouveauCliche said:
There's actually a great video the Rick Beato made about this and how quantizing music kills feel. If I remember right - he even goes back and runs some famous songs through pro-tools and evens out the tempo and it's crazy how it just kills the groove sometime.
Click to expand...
I dont think that's fair. Groove can be produced using a grid and technology also, and it is perfect. Yet somehow it still groves.

Taking a non perfect song and making it perfect proves nothing except what Rick wants. If he took a perfect song and tried to ebb and flow it, said song wouldnt feel right either.

None of this matters. What matters is how it makes us feel.

Some of the grooviest songs constructed are done on a machine using technology. And they are perfect. And that isnt the point of writing music. None of it is wrong.
 
MrInsanePolack said:
I dont think that's fair. Groove can be produced using a grid and technology also, and it is perfect. Yet somehow it still groves.

Taking a non perfect song and making it perfect proves nothing except what Rick wants. If he took a perfect song and tried to ebb and flow it, said song wouldnt feel right either.

None of this matters. What matters is how it makes us feel.

Some of the grooviest songs constructed are done on a machine using technology. And they are perfect. And that isnt the point of writing music. None of it is wrong.
Click to expand...

I think you're misinterpreting my point and I think its because I didn't type it correctly. ALTERING existing tracks with quantizing kills the feel - exactly like you said - like going back and trying to purposely stray from tempo would do the same.

We just recorded our whole second album and did it with a click and it grooves.

The point is that the ebb and flow of certain drummers recorded without a click is part of the song and altering those songs to fit what sounds "correct" to modern ears after all the advances can certainly alter the feel of those songs we love.

I'm all about being precise - but I wouldn't expect it from everyone all the time.
 
NouveauCliche said:
The point is that the ebb and flow of certain drummers recorded without a click is part of the song and altering those songs to fit what sounds "correct" to modern ears after all the advances can certainly alter the feel of those songs we love.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, absolutely. I would love to see what would happen if someone reproduced an old track using technology. Not quantize the existing, but redo with a click using a human drummer. It would still have feel, nuance, and a human element. Would it be obvious or no?
 
To me, a quantized/grid song that's too perfect is less-preferable than a song with a few blemishes but the full human-element and energy. I don't really understand compromising that mostly to make production faster and editing easier. Replacing a hit here or there is cool, re-recording a track is fine, cutting and pasting something "perfect" together is just weird to me, just like replacing drums sounds, triggers, programmed tracks, and most of this stuff is. For me the magic of music is often in the small subtle shifts and things that might in todays world be literally deleted.

I prefer to keep the click in the practice room most of the time and just play music without being slaved when recording or playing a show. If it was used more as a general guide and then turned off or just mostly ignored so that we don't slave everything to it (or fix anything not perfect) then it would be less of an offensive recording tool.

Lastly, if you can't get through your song and have a presentable version within a few takes with your whole band that doesn't waver the time noticeably or have huge mistakes that need editing, you probably shouldn't be in the studio, or if you are you need to accept where you really are in your music journey and either just record it, or go hit the practice room some more until you can perform your own damn song to a very high "recordable" standard. Reminds me of the South Park episode where everyone was photoshopping their portraits to be perfect, ignoring that reality and humans aren't perfect. In the end, the main protagonist (wendy) seems to sadly accept that fake perfection is the norm now......
 
Music reflects society and what I see being reflected is the paradigm shift that humans are making. We are well on the path of the cyborg, in a few hundred years is my guess, maybe less. Humanity as we used to know it, including music, is evolving into things that aren't entirely human anymore. Humans were never perfect yet we want our music to be perfect. It's a disconnect. The future...I'm glad I'll be done here in about 38 years. I hope our children will have a bright future, but it's not looking that way from where I'm sitting

I look at digital music and I can see that this is a really big step in our evolution. What's happened in the last say 40 years with music HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. Whether we want that step is another discussion.
 
I wonder if other industries have the same qualms? Did the tattoo industry poop its proverbial pants when the electric tattoo machine came out? Roofers and nail guns? Farmers and tractors? My guess is no.

The end result is what is important, not how we made the song. And that's what all the hullabaloo is about, how the song is made. Personally, I dont care how it's made. I just wanna listen to the finished product.
 
MrInsanePolack said:
The end result is what is important, not how we made the song. And that's what all the hullabaloo is about, how the song is made. Personally, I dont care how it's made. I just wanna listen to the finished product.
Click to expand...
I'll agree, the end result is well, the goal... It's what we're after is a good recording to entertain people with our hard earned skill, creativity, and songwriting.

I guess my feeling is that the end result can be better if there's less reliance on computers and technical perfection in a LOT of cases. But let's be real, this is art. It's completely subjective what we like and don't like individually. I prefer a more raw, human performance rather than a perfect rendition of a concept perfected to mathematical/digital levels, I find that type of actual human performance infinitely more impressive and inspiring than perfection without as much real life in it. I don't care for the idea that we're trying so hard to fool each other into thinking what we're hearing is real when it's actually carefully put together in a computer. Why not just get good, and play the damn song with feeling and accuracy?

You made analogies to a few trades/crafts earlier but I think a more apt analogy to what we're talking about is what I brought up, which is digital photography manipulation. We have expansive, nearly limitless software options to make images of models (or anything) totally "perfect" in every way. There's all kinds of implications that go along with that such as the unrealistic expectations it propagates, unfair comparisons that get made, potential disappointment with "the real thing", and again the subjective/cultural way that people look at these things.

In my opinion, just like with edited/created digital photos depicting literally impossible ideals of beauty, these overly mathematically-perfect recording techniques create unrealistic expectations and ideals that can be harmful to our sense that it's okay to be authentic to ourselves and what we really are.
 
Dr_Watso said:
Why not just get good, and play the damn song with feeling and accuracy?
Click to expand...
I am 100% on board with this. If you construct a perfect song you cant play, then you have lied to the listener and yourself.

Dr_Watso said:
There's all kinds of implications that go along with that such as the unrealistic expectations it propagates, unfair comparisons that get made, potential disappointment with "the real thing", and again the subjective/cultural way that people look at these things.
Click to expand...
Think about the poor groupies who fell for the sock in the pants trick! I dont know much about photography. I do know photos are altered, my mom was a photographer/journalist. I'm not sure if I agree with it or not. I've never really thought about it actually. I think it depends. If you hide a scratch, bruise, spot, whatever, I think that's okay. But to turn Betty White into Sophia Vergara would be wrong.

Dr_Watso said:
In my opinion, just like with edited/created digital photos depicting literally impossible ideals of beauty, these overly mathematically-perfect recording techniques create unrealistic expectations and ideals that can be harmful to our sense that it's okay to be authentic to ourselves and what we really are.
Click to expand...
I'm on board with this as long as we also consider that anyone who is self perfection obsessed and allows music or images to dictate their self worth probably has bigger problems than just this. Not saying they do, just considering it.
 
Anything we play when I've had too many Jack's... ;)
Moderation, Bruce, moderation..........(saw some cell phone vids from the gig we did Friday night. I'm over here screaming at my phone for the damned drummer to stop speeding up.)
 
Phil A. said:
That's a good point. I was thinking songs where it sounds unintentional. To me, the ones I've listed sound unintentional, but that doesn't stop them from being great (at least the first two).
Click to expand...
If we're talking metronomic time, I've found this "breathing" issue pretty much prevalent in all the old jazz recordings. My theory, although not yet proven with solid data, is that breathing happens when a song transitions from one phrase to the next, or one style to the next. And as soon as the next section begins, the players often return to the initial tempo.

Some styles demand this breathing - jazz ballads for example.
 
Dr_Watso said:
To me, a quantized/grid song that's too perfect is less-preferable than a song with a few blemishes but the full human-element and energy. I don't really understand compromising that mostly to make production faster and editing easier. Replacing a hit here or there is cool, re-recording a track is fine, cutting and pasting something "perfect" together is just weird to me, just like replacing drums sounds, triggers, programmed tracks, and most of this stuff is. For me the magic of music is often in the small subtle shifts and things that might in todays world be literally deleted.
Click to expand...
Music to my ears. I've been trying to say this on DW for a good year now LOL. Thanks Doc!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top