KVR Audio

Caleb · Post by **Caleb** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 2:19 pm

I must have such a useless sense of rythm.
I can never play my piano in time with a click track.

I feel like a total deadshit sometimes.

I always speed up and then force myself to slow down.
Bet you can imagine how bloody awful that sounds on playback.

The problem is that I compose on the piano without any metronome and I tend to speed up and slow down depending upon the part I'm playing and the mood I'm trying to create.

However, when you're recording into your sequencer, your sequencer doesn't know how to change pace with you so you either try to keep pace with a metronome and use tempo automation later or you record without the metronome and have a ghastly time trying to tame the midi notes later.

Either way seems to have its disadvantages. If you play with a click track you can lose the expression you use when speeding up and slowing down like dynamics and the other way you can make a total mess of the performance when adjusting the notes to fit into beats and bars. I mean you can try auto-quantizing to an extent on recording, but if you're speeding up and slowing down there's a strong possibility it's going to quantize quite a bit of it incorrectly anyway.

Does anyone else have these problems at all?
Just wanted to share my pain I guess.

Caleb

xoxos · Post by **xoxos** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 2:39 pm

oh for sure. my ~ entire musical mission is to contrast the 'suitability' of automation to organic life..

i do a lot of 'fluid melodies butchered by being tied to a sequencer' stuff. i'm a lousy instrumentalist but even for all my crap skills, it's the big metal clock that kills it. if i sing the melodies (or god forbid perhaps one day find instrumentalists to play them with) they sound good again :p

what i haven't tried doing, which i should.. and i guess you should..

my host logic 4 has a function to fit the clock to a recorded audio wave. i've never used it.. seems to be automatic within boundaries, eg. you set where the beginning and end of say 16 measures is, it tries to interpolate the rest from the recording

oc, if i did this, it would ruin the point of my uncomfortable music :)

you feel like a deadshit? welcome to your compositional medium :p

Eric Bourne · Post by **Eric Bourne** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 2:47 pm

It seems to me that most of rock n' roll is based on a click track (personified by a drummer pounding away on the down beat). I suggest you listen to more crunk and trance to increase your sense of rhythm. Do a little shimmy while you play the piano too, but an on-time shimmy. Out-of-time shimmying is horrid stuff.

C00kie · Post by **C00kie** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 3:21 pm

Your mind must switch to external clock instead of internal clock. If you can't keep tempo with the metronome/clicktrack then also you won't be able to keep tempo when playing along or adding a track to a nearly finished song.

Practice, practice, practice. Do it more and you'll become better at it. And practice!! Maybe practice by jamming with the radio or some CD's.

deps · Post by **deps** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 3:33 pm

I have trouble working with click tracks too. I can keep near-perfect time playing percussion and guitars (been playing both for years), but the moment I start a click track I find myself paying too much attention to the metronome - then I start to wander off the beat.

weird.

C00kie · Post by **C00kie** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 3:49 pm

I did use to have recording anxiety... As soon as the red light was on, I couldn't play more than 2 notes. Very improductive

But by doing it a lot you overgrow it... eventually

Mighty_Hero · Post by **Mighty_Hero** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 3:59 pm

It's all in the head.

Beardedone · Post by **Beardedone** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 4:08 pm

It took me about a year of metronome training to break the bad habits of have learned to play by ear. My guitar teacher drilled this into me. It really is basic musicianship. I see my kids being taught this in their piano lessons. It is humbling to see what I refused to benefit from when as a child when I refused to take formal guitar lessons.

Try this exercise. Play at a slow tempo that is comfortable with clicks on 2 + 4 for example, then play at increasing tempos in increments of 10 bpm. Playing each tempo untill you are comfortable. Continue to the limit of your abilities. Pay close attention to the beats. If you cannot feel them in your playing stop. When you reach the fastest you can play, stop and go back and practice at the initial tempo.

xoxos · Post by **xoxos** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 4:18 pm

Mighty_Hero wrote:It's all in the head.

i disagree

sure, you've got your people who are technically proficient enuff to put down smooth performance to a click track.. a fundamental of hiphop, but go outside of midi and automatic sequencing and you'll find that people speed the song up a little here and there, it's the natural energy of the music that has been sterilised by the medium.

you try and step sequence a piece of music then program a natural feeling tempo increase.. cos i've had nothing but lousy results this way for my music. imo there's an 'organic tempo' that doesn't just snap into stuff, and technical proficiency is a symptomatic solution.

i'm a lousy instrumentalist, but if i can say it, half of the point of being a lousy instrumentalist is because the music within me is uninhibited by any intimacy with a particular transduction (beyond voice, which is hard to avoid)

anyway, i don't see that denying the natural tempo of music (in it's natural, fluidic thought environment) by saying "get with the step sequencing!" is gonig to do you good.

soulata · Post by **soulata** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 4:24 pm

What others said: practice

It really helped me to get my timing right (or in that general direction at least).

It's so funny seeing kids hate metronomes when I teach.

Although some also get over-used to it and can't play without, which is equally bad.

Just to add, I'd practice on 1 and 3, and on 2 and 4, not only on 1234.

k

clueless · Post by **clueless** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 4:24 pm

why not just play to a loop full of 'vibe'?

Beardedone · Post by **Beardedone** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 4:29 pm

you try and step sequence a piece of music then program a natural feeling tempo increase.. cos i've had nothing but lousy results this way for my music. imo there's an 'organic tempo' that doesn't just snap into stuff, and technical proficiency is a symptomatic solution

I remember doing that when I first started with Sonar trying set up abacking track to John Scofied's "Techno" (from Still Warm) and seeing how much the time breaths. I knew this but it is instructive to see it laid out on a grid.

Caleb · Post by **Caleb** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 4:35 pm

I guess the problem isn't so much the speeding up and slowing down. I tend to write music (particularly if I'm composing on the piano) that speeds up and slows down with the emotional elements of the song.

I'm not sure if it's undisciplined or sublime.

My problem is more trying to record that into the constraints of a sequencer so that I'm reasonably able to add other elements of the music, in which case I'm left with my ealier dilemma.

I think rather than performing to a click track I should probably try performing to a complete drum beat. It may help me feel the rythm more naturally so that I can still add the dynamics in my playing while keeping to a more rigid tempo.

Then I will need to play with tempo automation.

It's going to be a bit weird playing some of this music to a drum beat - but it's worth a shot.

Caleb

cellular · Post by **cellular** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 4:38 pm

For what you want to do, i guess ideally you should play all instruments by hand, and ignore the sequencer tempo. I realise that this is mostly not an option though.

Personally, i find it much easier to play to a drum track than to a metronome click. I often write down temporary, simple drum tracks to use as a guide when recording something, or import some drum loop.

Caleb · Post by **Caleb** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 4:40 pm

cellular wrote: Personally, i find it much easier to play to a drum track than to a metronome click. I often write down temporary, simple drum tracks to use as a guide when recording something, or import some drum loop.

Cool maybe I'm onto something there then.
I'll see how it works out.

Caleb

Playing to a click track