[Harp-L] grooving to backing tracks, drum machines, etc... (long)

[Slim Heilpern <slim@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All -


Just wanted to add my 2 cents about playing with backing tracks and 
other non-human accompaniment.


From the player's perspective, if you are trying to improve your 
all-around skills, it's all good. Playing with anything mechanical or 
pre-recorded is an art, just like jamming with humans, or following a 
human conductor. The more you  do it, the better it feels and sounds. 
Anyone who would like to get into session playing needs these skills.


From a listener's perspective, it can be disconcerting that the music 
you are hearing in a performance venue is partially canned, but 
depending on the quality of the tracks, the mix, and the ability of the 
human performer to add something special, it can work. It is always a 
hurdle though, to capture the audience's focus and attention, when they 
can clearly see that only some of the music is live.


It is of course possible to create great music by playing along with 
backing tracks, especially those that you've created yourself. Think of 
all those studio albums with great grooves that were the product of 
overdubbing (Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, etc....).


I played for many years with a live band and then for many years with a 
computer on stage providing most of the backup, so I know a little bit 
about this. I've also done lots of multi-track, over-dubbed recordings 
over the years and a lot of the same issues are at play.


Here are a few tidbits of knowledge I've picked up that may be helpful 
if you need to play in any of these contexts:


- Practice with a metronome. Nothing like a plain old metronome to show 
you where your natural tendencies to speed up or slow down lie. This 
will not only help you play with canned drums or a click track, it will 
help you play with other humans as well, since not everyone has the same 
tendencies over a given piece of music. It forces you to listen as you 
play and make adjustments as necessary. It helps to perfect your 
internal clock. If you're not used to playing with a metronome, you will 
swear that the metronome is speeding up or slowing down. Learn to trust 
the metronome and you will start to realize how imperfect we humans are 
at judging time.


- Human perception of time is fickle. Try this: play for 15 minutes or 
so with a fixed time metronome, drum box, or backing track. Then play 
with the exact same track after having a couple cups of caffeine. You 
will swear that the tempo has slowed down. Likewise, if you play with 
the same track when you are really tired, it will sound fast. There is 
nothing wrong with this, and there is no reason to always play something 
at the exact same tempo. However, when you are working with other 
musicians, they might not be in the same state of mind as you are, and 
their perception of tempo may be different at any given time. Learn to 
appreciate this and be flexible. There is no one correct tempo for a 
given piece of music.


- Sequencers, Drum Boxes, and "Humanization": I used to build MIDI 
software sequencers for a living and have a good knowledge of how 
'huminization' works. There's nothing very human about it, since it 
involves the randomization of how exact in time each note is played. 
That's not really what we humans do, although the effect can sound 
convincing. We tend to have some musical reason for playing a particular 
beat early or late. If you are creating backing tracks using a 
sequencer, it is often more realistic to record without quantization, 
even if you have to do it at a slower tempo, to retain a real human feel 
(if you are a reasonably good MIDI drummer). MIDI recording is just like 
audio recording except you have much better control of time. You can 
record really slow and play it back up to tempo with no degradation of 
audio quality, while maintaining your personal human feel. Another 
sequencer technique, which is sometimes called "Soft Quantization" is a 
nice compromise, preserving your feel, but tightening it up a bit.


- When performing or recording with backing tracks, make sure the 
backing tracks relatively loud in your personal mix so you can really 
get into the groove. Think of how loud a drummer is when you're standing 
right next to him or her. It can make a big difference.


- Slim.

--
www.SlideManSlim.com