Either last week or the week before, I watched a series of videos by Nathan Nockels talking about the click track that they use for A Mighty Fortress. You can find the first of the series here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XKC1gtXXYk. As adamant as I have been in the past about using click tracks, these videos softened me to the concept. I still stick by my question that musicians have been keeping time for centuries without a metronome piped into their ears, why can't we? That being said, a click track allows the team to expand their sound and do things they couldn't do otherwise.
I don't know if you all know this, but I spent a summer once working in an 1875 cabinetmaker's shop making furniture with period tools. Woodworking takes on a different light when you are using dovetail saws, and handsaws and foot powered lathes. However, there were many occasions that we wished we could do something with the wood that it was either extremely time intensive or simply impossible to do with hand tools.
In the same manner, there are things that we could do to fill out our sound if we used the tools available to us. So, this week, since Ryan (my intern) is leading worship Sunday, I've been learning the ins and outs of tools like Ableton Live and Reason so that we can try some click track things coming up on March 7th (the team that Sunday is right for throwing something completely new at them). Of course, I am still of the conviction that there are teams out there that use click track far too often. To use the woodworking analogy, they use a buzz-saw for everything. I would hope a balance could be found so that we can use all the tools at our disposal.
What are your thoughts on click tracks? Do you think they take away or add to the music?
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