You may have heard the term 'Click Track',
so what are they, and how can they help?
Click tracks are an essential part of
any playing of any music in any part of
the world, and they will help you to be a
better musician.
Cliff Tracks are an aural indicator of
the tempo and meter of a piece of music.
And what do I mean by that, well the
tempo of a song is how fast it's playing,
and the meter is the rhythmical pattern
that divide up the tempo.
A click track plays the structure interior
helping you keep time and rhythm,
let's look at Click Tracks and how using
them is an essential part of you becoming
a serious musician.
Firstly tempo.
Tempo's how fast the piece of music is to be played, its
measured in BPM or beats per minute.
Listening to some famous songs you
already know may help you understand tempo.
Think about Mamma Mia by ABBA that plays
out at 137 BPM,
Stayin Alive by the Bee Gees is at a 104
BPM and yesterday by the Beatles plays
out at 96 BPM.
Think about those songs in your
head, and you can understand the different
tempos of each song, the meter or
signature of the music is the rhythmical
pattern in the tempo.
If you consider looking at a music sheet,
you may start to see certain patterns in
the written music,
These patterns are there to
indicate the rhythm to help you
understand further the meters of all the
songs we mentioned already are 4/4.
4/4 will be the most common signature in
Western modern music, though there are
other meters that you should be aware of.
3/4, the Blue Danube by Johann Strauss is
in 3/4, the original means of keeping
tempo whilst learning was a machine
such as this this beauty... it is an analog
metronome, this is how most formal
musicians learn tempo when practicing.
It's always really important to practice
with a metronome, and drummers that
includes you.
Nowadays we have digital metronomes
for any device... and standalone ones.
Some of course are better than
others, there's more functionality with the
digital ones.
For example you can accent the beats...
like this, simply change the meter,
have different noises for each beat.
A simple metronome that I'd
recommend is free from Steinberg
it's called Smart Click and it's
intuitive interface is so easy to use.
If you want something with more
functionality look at Audio Kit Pro's...
Hey Metronome for the iPad,
with voice activation and a ton of other features
as well - it's well worth looking at.
Now that you've learned your instrument with
your metronome, you're ready for the
recording process.
If your recording music in the studio,
you'll be required to play with a Click Track.
Click Tracks or conductor tracks are
metronomes but in a DAW like Cubase or
Reaper you can
write in the tempo and measure at any
point on your timeline.
So if your tune speeds up at the chorus,
then you write that in on your conductor track.
If your middle eight is at a different meter then
you write that in as well, when all the
songs tempos and meters are written into
the conductor track, that is the ultimate
guide to the song structure, then anyone
who's playing on your song can play
along with the conductor track and hear
the metronome that the conductor track
controls, and they hear that in their headphones.
Click tracks and metronomes
are the only way to keep your song's and
your playing in time.
You need to practice with them any time
you pick up your instrument.
You need to set up your
conductor track in any of your song
sequences for when you take it into the
studio or gonna have anyone else playing
your song, get yourself a metronome and
learn how to use a conductor track.
You'll thank yourself someday.
I'm Keith Alexander, you've been watching
Adorama TV.
Don't forget to subscribe to AdoramaTV
for more great videos, and tell us what you think.
You can like comment or share this
video and please come by the Adorama
Learning Center for more great tips and tricks.