OT: learning to play perfectly to a click track

["Rick Walker/Loop.pooL" <GLOBAL@cruzio.com>]

Travis said it was frequently difficult to get a drummer to play accurately
to a click at times.

As a producer, I encounter this problem all the time.  Here's my solution
given that the drummer
is willing to learn something new...............that is frequently not
always the case and then, my advise is
that if you are serious about your project that you start looking for a new
drummer, as painful as that can be.
I promise you, when you work with a musician who is to insecure or stubborn
to learn or grow you will not be playing
with that person in five years no matter how good they are or how much you
like them, unless of course that you are
unwilling to grow or learn.

I sometimes try this trick when I am producing a band with a drummer who
can't play to a click:

I just say, "This is a very difficult thing to do and I'm not sure that you
will be able to, but would you be willing to
try and see if you can play to this click track.  Don't worry if you can't,
we'll figure out another solution to the problem
of the time".

There's nothing like someone taking a challenge in a pro-active way as
opposed to being told that they have to
play accurately to a click track or they will be replaced.  It's always
effective to tell an inexperience musician
"Here's something that most people can't do".   If they are unable to do 
it,
well then, they are just like most people which
is okay, but it encourages punishment free risk taking.    Almost everyone
that I've tried this with has risen to the challenge
eagerly, whereas I have seen some awful scenes in studio sessions with
producers who try to brow beat a drummer into
playing to a click.      Getting the rest of the band to play to a click 
can
even be more difficult, but let's work on that drummer first.

I have a great set of exercises that I use to teach drummers (and any
instrumentalists ) to not only learn how to play
to a click track but to also learn how to play as far behind the beat as
sounds good or as far on top of the beat that sounds good.

I think I may have already posted this here in the past, but I'll summarize
it again:

TEACHING A DRUMMER TO PLAY ACCURATELY TO A CLICK TRACK


Set a click track to a reasonably moderate tempo (say 90 BPM), so that the
click is playing audible16th notes (not quarter notes).

DON'T DO THIS IN FRONT OF THE REST OF THE BAND.    Call a one hour break 
for
the rest of the musicians.
Self conciousness or being put in the spotlight is antithetical to learning
quickly, in my opinion.

Next get the drummer to count out loud along with the click track and audio
hallucinate that it is ever so slowly slowing down.
If they've never done this,  just have them repeatedly count   "One  eee
and    uh" with one syllable falling on every click.

Have them try this for a while without playing to the track until they can
do it succesfully.
You can point out that you can actually hallucinate this phenomenon audibly
and that you will at some point reach a place where you just can't hear it
slowing down anymore...........................

Now have them trying to play to the click track and repeat the very slow
'slowing down' process until they reach the limit of how slow they can hear
(and consequently play) the metronome is going.

Now you ask them to purposefully try to drag the tempo down, letting them
know that this may get jerky and they may veer off of the
metronome.

The challenge is to play as slowly as you can WITHOUT letting the metronome
get away from you.    Of course, the net result is
that the drummer will play behind the beat.

If the drummer is having problems with this.........you ask them to imagine
that they are very, very tired, or very,  very heavy or very depressed, or
lackadaisically bored, or very very hot.................a lot of these
emotional states are associated with going slow.
You can explain to them that when they are driving 60 miles per hour (sorry
about the kilometer conversion here) they can feel
really exhausted or very hot and still be driving at the same speed.    The
perception of the time it takes to drive somewhere changes
however from a time when you are excited or adrenalated or caffeinated, 
etc.

It is important that this exercise start at the normal tempo of the
metronome and then slowly drift to the very edge of the slowest that you 
can
percieve it's speed.

Once the drummer can do this successfully, the next frontier is to try and
get the drummer to let his or her tempo drift too slow
(so that the metronome gets ahead).  At this juncture, there is a strong
tenencey to try to jump back to the proper tempo
which will cause a glitchy mistake in the percieved playing by a listener
(who can't hear the click in the final recording).

You now get the drummer to play as slow as possible;    purposefully play
too slow (letting the metronome get ahead) and then
take as long as possible to drift back to the correct tempo.

************************
Once this is done,  you do the whole thing over again, hallucinating that
the metronome is speeding up.    Each side of this exercise will take about
10 to 20 minutes.

After a period of time you can ask the drummer to quickly try and slow or
speed up to the furthest limit of still playing with the click.
One they can do that, now have have them

Go to the slowest they can play accurately to the click and at this point
ask them to 'feel' how it feels to be playing there in there body.
Have them now slowly accelerate until they are playing as fast as they can
without getting away (ahead) of the metronome.  Now ask them to 'feel' how
they feel while playing like this.   Amazingly, a person can have really
different emotional associations with
these places of playing relative to the click.     If they didn't know any
better, they would swear to you that they are playing at different speeds.

One tempo can feel incredibly different depending on where you place
yourself relative to the click track.     Cultivating how this feels to you
is a very powerful way of starting to understand the very basis of tempo 
and
rhythm.

***************
Now you are ready to have the drummer to the final exercies:

Have them play to the click.......................then go to the slowest
that they can play and still be accurate.
Next give them one minute exactly to slowly speed up until they have 
reached
the fastest that they can play and still stay accurate.

Encourage them to make this speed up as slow as possible.

Now give them one minute to slow down from the fastest speed.

Repeat both exercises in 30 seconds

Repeat both exercises in 15 seconds

Repeat both exersices telling the drummer to go from slow to fast and back
again as quickly as possible without causing any
'lumpiness'.

NOW FOR THE FUN:       Record them doing this exercise and then play it 
back
for them without the click:

Voila..............you cannot even hear the difference in the track, 
despite
how radical it feels emotionally or perceptually.

the whole point is to get them to make all corrections
gradually..................In this way, they will feel when the click gets
'away' from them
but the listener won't if they are relaxed about returning to accurate.

NOW THE BEST PART.

Turn on the click and tell the drummer:   "Don't think about
anything.............just play to the click"

In 45 minutes to an hour,  the drummer will be able to relaxedly and
perfectly play in time to the metronome.


NEXT FUN EXERCISE:      learning to play to a loop that is not
perfect....................a 'lumpy' loop if you will.

later,   Rick Walker (www.looppool.info)