picture by paco from Badajoz, España
A – B – C: always be clicking.
it was my team’s rotation for worship this past sunday and while i was prepping the set i decided to try something new.
a click track.
now, any good music teacher will tell you that practicing to a click is an absolute necessity when learning an instrument or bettering your musicianship.
most producers (i’m told) will say the same thing when it comes to tracking instruments in the studio.
so as i was getting our charts together i spent some time figuring out desirable tempos for a few of the songs.
the reason we didn’t do a click for all the songs was that 2 of them were new to us, so we didn’t need the added anxiety of metronoming them, and this new tool was a new experiment for my team, so i didn’t want to overwhelm us with something that might’ve become a big train wreck.
so, once were ready to hit rehearsal, i hooked up the ‘ole macbook and got my beeping website ready.
i have 2 words to sum up my thoughts on using a click track during worship team rehearsal.
want to hear them?
of course you do.
if you didn’t you’d have X’ed out this window about 90 words ago.
those 2 words are: helpful and blerg.
first, the helpful.
using a metronome that was ready to go (not having to fiddle with finding the correct tempos during rehearsal) was really helpful. it was a new challenge that got all of us focused on the specific song and on the choices we were making as musicians. it very quickly and very clearly showed us where we have a tendency to speed up and where we have a tendency to drag.
it defintely felt like we were being sharpened in our skills, and that is a great thing to feel!
but now, the blerg.
here’s the thing, part of me knows that every musician needs to constantly work on tempo and consistancy…but another part of me thought ‘this shouldn’t be too rude of an awakening…’
blerg. i did receive an awakening.
honestly, in some ways, it wasn’t. in other ways it was. i have worked with a metronome enough to be able to stick with it, however i was surpised to discover those places in familiar songs where my tempo so quickly changed for the worse.
now, let me say this; i don’t want to have perfect tempo all the time. i think in a live setting that it’s ok to have your speed fluctuate a bit within a song. after all, we’re not performing a recital, we’re leading a congregation in singing. there are lots of reasons why you might want to slow down or speed up within a worship song, not drastically, but fluidly.
that said, i think the click will be a staple @worshippractice for a while. i’m excited to have something like that which causes me to pay greater attention to that aspect of rehearsal.
anyone else using a click @worshippractice?
