Hardly anybody could honestly say they saw it coming.
Its near overnight explosion in the early 80s came close to wiping out a generation. It seemed as though everyone was affected. It hit home for me when a close friend became depressed and was drinking heavily, and I knew that my number would be up soon.
Yes, those were the days when every professional player, sooner or later, would have to square up to the inevitability of playing to a click. It really was adapt or die and so much proverbial water has passed under the metaphorical bridge that no working player under the age of about 40 can probably remember that there was once another time, if you'll pardon the rather obvious pun.
As a young pro player in the late 1980s it was only a matter of time, and when the time came, the time (my time) was a bit shaky to say the least. It's one thing to spend hours practising with a metronome on a rubber pad, but a whole different thing to lay down assured, steady, confident time and take charge of a group of musicians while that electronically generated pulse is beeping in your ear. Eager to escape the comfort zone of the West Midlands where I had overstayed (clean bed linen and a hot dinner at your parents' place as well as plenty of playing opportunities of one sort or another made life just a little too 'easy' at times) I knew this was a skill I needed to master. A trip to the legendary Musical Exchanges in Birmingham and the drum machine was mine.
A quick read of the instruction manual (yes, I know!) and I got some basic programming skills together, not just clicks but rhythmic patterns, percussion loops and so on. I constantly recommend that my students don't just practice with a plain, quarter note (crotchet) pulse as there isn't much music out there that only goes 'beep, beep, beep, beep', and if there is I have no interest in playing it. Also, rhythmic 'shapes' are what you are going to be keeping time with for a lot of the time so why not keep the context of your practice as close to music as you possibly can? Another recommendation to my students is to spend no more than fifty percent of your practice time using a click, as this may impend the development of your 'inner clock', from which comes the authority to grab hold of music and lay down the groove so everyone knows who's in charge.
Time invested over a few months refined my ability and confidence as a time keeper to levels not previously attained. At that time I had an ongoing gig depping for a fellow drummer who had to take some time off due to ill health. Almost all the music was played to backing tracks and the other musicians complimented me on how solid everything was and how I had a knack of creating a feeling of 'space' in the groove which made them feel extremely comfortable. All good then, and I was able to add 'click ability' to my CV (when I still had such a thing) and over the next few years as I prepared towards the inevitable relocation to London it was a skill that would stand me in good stead time and time again.
The first regular gig I secured in London was at the old Empire Rooms in Tottenham Court Road. As a drummer I liked the fact that this was the same stage on which Buddy Rich performed his first UK drum clinic in 1967, but other than that the gig was totally without any merit at all, apart from money, which was my only reason for being there. An altercation with a thoroughly odious manager called Gerry precipitated my notice as I objected to his request for an hour of unpaid overtime for a party of VIPs but that's another story (with a happy ending as it turns out). The nadir of an evening's work was a truly shocking cockney themed floorshow. All to very iffy backing tracks (I think the cassette tapes had been left in direct sunlight or too near the gas fire at some point).
At the end of that year my newly honed 'backing track chops' came into very good use once again. Way back when Strictly Come Dancing was just Come Dancing the MD at that time was a gentleman named Andy Ross. Prior to moving to London I had become friends with trumpeter Don Morgan who undoubtedly did more for me than any other single individual after I had taken the plunge and got my 081 phone number and a mortgage. Don used to fix Andy Ross's musicians and he immediately put me at the top of the dep list should Terry Jenkins be busy elsewhere. Opportunity arose with a new year's eve gig at the Dorchester Hotel. Andy was fielding a full big band plus two singers, but all the backing vocals were pre-recorded, so I had the headphones and the click and with confidence high after a successful first year in London I tore it up. I rather liked that instead of cutting the band down Andy chose to dispense with backing vocalists. He was one of those bandleaders who was always unequivocally 'for' the musicians in a way that not all that many of them are. I always enjoyed working with him and had the chance to on many further occasions alongside some of the cream of London's session musicians.
It was another outing with Andy Ross that provides an interesting pivot point between playing with the click and one's own inner clock.
On two occasions we went to Sun City in South Africa to do a broadcast for SABC entitled 'Rhumba In The Jungle' (honestly). A core of us (rhythm section and section leaders) would go out and the rest of the musicians would be recruited locally. We would then spend several days rehearsing prior to the recording on the Saturday night.
My recollection is that none of the music was clicked, everything was played live. One afternoon we were rehearsing and Andy called a samba, and referring to his metronome (essential where dance contests are concerned) kicked the band off at (as memory serves) about 98 bpm.
Over the first 16 bars or so he seemed to have one eye on me and one eye on the metronome. We continued for about a minute and he shouted across to me
"You are ****ing metronomic!!" such was my consistency. Nice though that is I couldn't have achieved that without the right players alongside me, not only in the rhythm section but elsewhere in the band.
People are very much mistaken when they presume that it solely the drummer's role to keep the tempo in place. If you have a bass player who can't stop speeding up (and I have compromised myself professionally by being booked on gigs with one or two) no matter how hard you try it can be a real challenge to keep things steady if the bass player isn't listening to you.
Once or twice I've been in the studio where brass and woodwind sections have been called upon to record to a click while the rhythm section lays out. I've heard some very rapid and marked departures from the tempo which almost certainly wouldn't be an issue if you asked a single player to lay down a part in isolation. I think what happens is that everybody starts listening to everybody else's interpretation of the time and that's where the trouble can start. Players with busier, moving parts will obviously influence the time more than those playing long notes, and this can vary from bar to bar according to the arrangement. This is a great example of time as a collective responsibility.
As the second decade of the 21st century heads towards a close the click is ubiquitous. In the context of film soundtracks, television production and live concert tours where absolute consistency from performance to performance is required then the click is the go-to solution. Not to mention in the context of the modern recording industry where contributing players are frequently not on the same continent (no jokes about time zones please) never mind in the same room.
This reminds me of another notable occasion. Many of you will remember Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews duetting on 'Baby It's Cold Outside' in the late 90s. This was recorded with a swinging big band made up of outstanding UK players. At the time they released it as a CD single. Additional tracks were an instrumental version with the vocals taken off and a 'late night jazz club' remix on which Tom and Cerys's original vocals were superimposed onto a jazz trio of which I was a proud member for the duration of the session.
So they played back the isolated vocal track to us and we duly played along. Somebody (definitely not a drummer) had added a 'live click' which did 'wander' a little bit. It also sounded like someone hitting a fridge door with a medium sized spanner. With hindsight it would have been far better if we had played along to the original band track, but we 'walked the wire' down the middle of the click and the end result sounds OK.
"Are we doing this to a click?"
The look on my face doubtless gave the wordless answer to my sideman's enquiry.
A great many giants of classical music, Arnold Schoenberg and Franz Liszt to name but two, despised the metronome and believe that to play a piece at a constant, unwavering tempo can compromise the emotion of the interpretation.
My personal point of view is that if there is no technical necessity for the music to be played with a click then the organic time and feel of the people who are breathing life in to the music must always take precedence otherwise it can get a bit like obsessive compulsive disorder set to music. Unlike the ghastly autotune the click is not there to compensate for a lack of talent, moreover to corral the talent within boundaries as a technical expedient. Everybody knows the two most famous 'accelerators' in popular music where the tempo runs away dramatically, (in case you don't they are 'September' by Earth, Wind and Fire and 'Chameleon' by Herbie Hancock) but does this marked increase in tempo in any way detract from the greatness of these recordings? Of course not. (For good measure check out 'Slick' from the album Samba Blim by Tamba 4 for another example of why this just doesn't matter sometimes). Another favourite is 'Walking Shoes' off Art Pepper Plus 11. The track starts off at a solid 169 bpm but as soon as the ensemble figures come in at the end of the first A section the tempo settles back, and throughout the track there is a marked contrast between the band passages and Pepper with the rhythm section only. Would it be better with a click? Yet again a big fat no.
Also try 'Jessica's Day' by the Count Basie orchestra and hear a big band hold beautifully steady at 112 bpm (111.5 if I'm being pedantic) for almost the entire first minute of the track. Recorded as live, no click, no overdubs, no digital editing.
So in conclusion a question. What makes good music better and does technology sometimes take more than it adds? Does the intervention of technology as a problem solver only serve to detract?
