Introduction
Hey, welcome back to the channel. It’s Erik with Churchfront. Today we’re going to talk about using click in a modern worship setting for drums, and there’s a lot of different ways to approach this. We can do a whole video series on this, but if you’re not used to using click and backing tracks, or maybe you’ve been doing it for a long time, but you’re just not feeling that you can lock into it. We’re going to cover some topics today that I think will help.
Benefits of Using Click
One of the benefits of using click is it’s going to lock you in with the rest of your team. So everyone’s going to have that same baseline of playing together. Now, if you’re having a hard time staying with it, sometimes you can subdivide a click. Basically, that’s adding accent notes in between. So if we’re at 75 beats per minute, we would basically add an additional eighth note in between each quarter note to give you more things to grab onto. That’s one way that you can really help tighten things up.
Subdividing the Click
If you’re having trouble staying on just a quarter note, click is adding that secondary eighth note, and you should be able to do that within your software. If not, you can also double the click. If you’re in 4/4, you can just go ahead and double that, and that will give you kind of that subdivision that you’re looking for.
Keeping the Team Together
One of the benefits of using a click is that it keeps you and the team together. Everybody’s focused on that same baseline. You’re on the same playing field and you’re able to kind of tie in together. Another benefit of using click is it’s going to make you a more solid drummer. When you’re not used to playing click, you’re probably playing at a variable click, so you’re going to be speeding up and slowing down depending on what section you’re in. Typically, choruses, we speed up as drummers, but when you start using a click on a regular basis, you’re going to start feeling that pull or push that can happen and a lot of other musicians can contribute to that too.
Improving Consistency
You’re going to start feeling if anything gets out of whack. So the more that you use click and metronome and practice with it, you’re really going to sense those changes. Even if you don’t have a metronome, you’ll be able to keep a more consistent time because you’ve had that practice staying in consistent time.
Viewing Click as an Instrument
When you first start playing with click, you may feel like you’re tensing up. Maybe you’re really focused on the click above everything else, and it’s almost a distraction. For me, when I started looking at click as another instrument, not just this clanking in my ear, I started listening to it in a musical sense and not worrying about if I was a hundred percent locked into it all the time, but just playing with it like it’s another instrument. That’s when I really started to progress when I wasn’t so worried about staying on. As long as you aren’t getting a beat ahead or behind the click, you should be in pretty good shape. So don’t tense up about having the click there, just look at it as another musical reference that you’re listening to.
Mixing and Panning
You do want to think about having that click in the mix, probably the highest gain level. That’s the way I have it. I like to keep my click panned right in the middle. Some people like it to the right or to the left, but you definitely want to look at panning your mix because having that pan with different instruments, it’s going to help that click to stand out more as well. Something else to think about is take out the things that aren’t as important to you. Maybe backup vocals or some of the different elements of the track or whatever things are not essential to your playing so that you can more focus in on the click itself. That’s going to help you to declutter your mix a little bit. So making sure that things are panned in your mix and then also taking out those elements that aren’t as important.
Rehearsing with Click
When you’re rehearsing at home during your practice time, you really want to take a look at using a click no matter what you’re doing. If you’re practicing a song for Sunday or for rehearsal, make sure that you have click track in there. Now, if your worship leader is able to provide that for you, maybe they’re able to upload to Planning Center a track with the click in it. That’s ideal because you’re going to get that experience playing the song. You’re actually going to be playing at the right tempo. You can troubleshoot any difficult spots. If you aren’t able to get that from your ministry, there are apps that you can download that you can add click to, or you can simply just go to YouTube and search for your song with click track. You’d be surprised at how many different resources there are just on YouTube itself if you aren’t able to get it from your ministry.
Separating Click and Guide
Another helpful tip when you’re using Click, especially if you’re new, is being able to separate the click and the guide. The guide is what’s going to tell you what part of the song you’re in. The different sections, it’s going to say, ‘chorus 2, 3, 4.’ That just lets you know what’s coming up. Now, as a newer player, that voice may be distracting to you, or it may be very helpful. If you can set it up in your system so that you can control click and guides separately, that’s going to be ideal. For me, I don’t want to have somebody screaming at me the entire song saying ‘chorus 2, 3, 4,’ but that click, you definitely want to be higher in the mix if you can separate them. That’s the ideal scenario.
Adding Subdivisions
Another thing to consider when you’re playing with Click is adding subdivisions. This for me was huge in the beginning. Basically, what that means is that you’re adding additional notes so that there’s less time in between each click. That can really lock into something. So Jake’s going to help us. He’s going to show us first quarter notes. So it’s kind of a standard quarter note section. Maybe you’re used to hearing a worship song, kind of sounds like that. Now let’s go ahead and add those eighth notes. So now there’s twice as many click notes so that you can really hone in on that. Now, if already at eighths, and some of them are, you can add 16th notes, and that’s giving you even more subdivision. If it’s a really slow tempo, you may want to look at going to the 16th, but if the song is 120 BPM, you probably don’t want to go to 16th notes. This is going to be a chaotic mess. So try subdivisions, and if you don’t have that ability with your software, just go ahead and double the click. So if you are at 70, it’s going to be 140, and that will give you that same kind of effect of adding an eighth note.
Choosing Click Sounds
Another thing to think about when you’re using click is the type of sound that you’re going to be using. Most software, whether it’s playback or whatever that is, even most metronomes have multiple sounds that you can choose from. Keep in mind that everybody is going to be hearing the same sound in the band. So if blaring cowbell is helping you, that’s great, but think about what that’s going to do to other people. Usually, try to pick something that’s a good frequency that it’s cutting through, but it’s not overwhelming in the sense of you can’t hear other elements of the mix. Keep in mind the type of sound you’re using. Typically, I like more kind of woodblock type sounds more over metal type sounds. So really it’s a personal preference, but do ask the other people on your team what type of sounds are you cool with.
Conclusion
Hey, thanks for watching the video today. I hope it was helpful. If you’re looking for more drum-related content, we have a lot more coming out. Go ahead and subscribe. If you’re looking to buy a kit, I’d be happy to walk through that process with you. Again, there’s a link in the description. Go ahead and set that up. Thanks for watching. We’ll see you next time.
