Still worried about my timing

[Lee Collins]

I just got back from a gig, I was depping a function, a 6 piece band. I was told it was all to click. As it happens there was no click apart from 4 clicks programmed as a count in on most songs,( some just started and I could creep in), but I was playing 4 x 1 hour sets to midi tracks through my cans. That's about 60 tunes we got through. Only coming out of my left phone as well. I was hearing drums or percussion, guitar, keys, etc.

I did a good job and they want me for more deps,( good, I need the work!), however, although in some ways it was dead easy, it was also fairly hard, not to mention tiring after 4 hours of drumming at full pelt. It was hard because without a click, there were several times through the night where there'd be a bars break and I'd have to nail coming back in. Mostly I did, but sometimes not, or not perfectly.

One example, that crappy song 'mambo number 5'. Fairly brisk tempo, and at the end of a section would be a hit on 1, tacet for beats 2 and 3, hit on 4, and then a one bar break where everything stopped, the whole band, just space. With a click going, that one bar break would have been easy. Second time I nailed it,(just), but first time, I kind of cowered out of it and decided to come in on beat 2 of the next bar. I think it was just a case of being a bit worried of coming in fractionally late or early against the midi track. Sometimes I wonder if I'd be better off not tapping through the space and just feeling it.

I'm also curious if anyone else here has done gigs like that, playing to midi but no click. There were a few songs where it was almost a blur, nothing on the track to give me too much reference, where a click would have been so much better. I'm used to having clicks or playing completely live, so midi tracks with no one thing to latch onto is a bit shabby IMO, however, good practise!

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 18, 2004 12:57 AM: Message edited by: Rudy_Ment ]</font>

[cjbdrm]

Yeah, I've done that: Midi with no click. I played in a Reggae/Soca band that had sequenced bass and percussion. I felt like I was getting paid to practice sometimes...

There were times when the music would break- I could nail coming back in most of the time if there was complete silence...but if that silence was filled by another musician they usually rushed it and would screw it up for me.

If you have a drum machine or sequencer, you can program a 4 or 8 bar pattern which has a break or hits somewhere in it. That kind of thing can really humble you or build your confidence.

What I've been doing recently is downloading midi files and loading them into Sonar(cakewalk) or Reason music production(sequencing) software and muting the drums out to create my own play-along tracks. If you take the time to assign better sounding instruments and/or tweak the mix a little, you can get them to sound less cheesy and at least tolerable for practice...

[Willy Brown]

I've recorded lots with flamenco style bands, as you indicate. Sometimes it drives you nuts. Guitarists tend to rush. All acoustic guitarists rush, or so it seems. I remember reading about Rick Marotta turning down the acoustic guitars in his phones during a session; I did the same.

I've labored about time, worried about it. To me, if this is any help, it sounds as if you've done all the right things. In fact, I bet that if you listened to yourself with this flamenco unit a year from now, and not just a day after the session, you'd like what you hear. You seem to know all of the components necessary to yield good time and feel.

What nobody's mentioned, however, is the rest of the band. If you're playing drums on a session and you have a primary voice (flamenco guitar) and then secondary voices (say, cajon, more guitars, bass, perc, keys, etc) in your phones, you're not dealing with perfect time; you're dealing with RELATIVE time. Give yourself a break and "cut it down the middle". Be easy on yourself if the meter feels reasonably good. Save the "perfect time" stuff for the situations in which your have to "clock" your time. I bet your feel is great. I'd bet on it from your comments. And if it's not, I bet it's not totally your fault. Time is not only clocked; it's the art of communication and collaboration. Unless you're having to chase sequenced parts, and be spot on, I'm betting you're fine.
WB

[mwm]

I practice to the click all the time. But I have a hard time imagine playing live to the click -- esp. if the rest of the band wasn't committed to that click.

For those who do -- do you find yourself focused on the click or the music that is actually being played?

[Lee Collins]

Originally posted by MRhet:

For those who do -- do you find yourself focused on the click or the music that is actually being played?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Last night I did another gig with a different band, and they had a good click running through everything. To answer your question, yes, I listen to the click for the count in, and then I listen to both the click and the music from the first bar.

Overall, you have to of course focus and concentrate on the click, but you need to listen to the music to get into the groove and put the click into context, not just the click. And it's a good idea to have either the left or right phone off or slightly off your ear. Otherwise, it gets too enclosed and the click becomes overwhelming so to speak. Plus the drums become a bit muffled. Shutting out the music purely to hear the click could be good if you can't hear it due to the music being too loud, but it doesn't really allow for much feel.

Once you get used to working with clicks on gigs, it gets easier and listening to both is not as hard as it seems. It's kind of like the ability of doing 2 things, such as eating while watching tv. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

edit: one more thing. When you're the only one with the click, which is usual for a lot of live gigs, it's a good idea to tap time on the hihat through pauses in the music, to keep the rest of the band in time

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 20, 2004 12:30 AM: Message edited by: Rudy_Ment ]</font>

[Lee Collins]

damn, triple posts.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 20, 2004 12:32 AM: Message edited by: Rudy_Ment ]</font>

[Lee Collins]

.

[John Blackburn]

Rudy_Ment,

I did a ship gig this time last year and some of the songs were the same. Our version of MAMBO number 5 (what is it with that tune..?!) had click and midi untill the break the second time round, where the track came back in 1 semi quaver early, and remained there untill the end of the tune. That was lovley. And a 'challenge'. A little bit of quantzizing in the sun, a little bit of.....

[Julius24]

Thanks Willy for the kind words! It?s true, a group should take care to keep the tempo, as A GROUP... but, as you said, i?m trying to do my best and i keep improving my tempo, so i think i need to relaxed a little bit about it...
It?s nice to hear all of you and know how you face similar situations!
Thanks to everyone!