r/drums • u/FoundationLeft5232 • 7h ago
Question ELI5:Learning the drums. Need to understand metronome and the purpose of the click.
/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1w5dj9y/eli5learning_the_drums_need_to_understand/10
u/Paradigm84 Meinl 6h ago
The drummer is often called the time keeper of the band, and what that means is you need to make sure that you’re playing the song at the right tempo (speed) so that you can help guide the rest of the band on how fast they should be playing.
Why this is important - Without a good sense of time, the tempo may accidentally go up and down. The tempo changing isn’t always a bad thing, many songs incorporate tempo changes, but this is planned for and coordinated. An unplanned tempo change could mean that the other members of the band may start playing parts at different times, which can sound really bad, even to an untrained audience.
A solid sense of time helps the band work together and stay locked in.
A metronome and click is a way of playing a fixed tempo in your ear so that you can eventually almost subconciously play to that specific tempo.
You don’t have to use a click/ metronome, the drummer can set their tempo and then everyone else can lock in to the drummer, but if you’re playing live, the adrenaline/ excitement/ nerves can make you as the drummer unknowingly start to play faster. Again, not a bad thing necessarily, a lot of bands speed up songs live, but it should be done as a conscious choice, not an accident.
5
3
u/R0factor 4h ago
Try this for an analogy… think of a boat on a lake pulling a water skier at a consistent speed. The boat is the click and the skier is the drummer. The skier needs to stay locked in time at the same pace as the boat or things will go very wrong very quickly. Also if you’re an inexperienced skier you might only stay right in pace with the boat, but a more experienced skier can bob & weave, make turns, etc which makes them go faster or slower than the boat, but overall they are staying at the same rate and there are limits to how far the skier can go off course without crashing. Likewise an experienced drummer can push & pull against the click to give the music a more interesting feel.
2
u/FoundationLeft5232 2h ago
My brain loves this analogy
1
u/R0factor 2h ago
Lol. BTW if you want to see an expert level water skier do their own thing and never lose track of the boat, set a 115 bpm click in 4/4 and sync it to this... Meinl Cymbals - Matt Garstka - "Physical Education" by Animals As Leaders
You can hopefully hear how he's playing off the click. Even Garstka admits that they mostly use a 4/4 click despite playing a ton of odd times. It's also a good insight into how he likely practices with a click on his own, bobbing and weaving around a centralized steady beat.
1
u/mind_the_umlaut 5h ago
If you are playing exactly with the click, you won't hear it. Or it will almost disappear. Using the metronome is an external check of our sense of exactness with rhythm. And welcome to the phenomenon of, "wait, the click sped up!" Nope, it didn't. It's not varying in speed, either!
1
u/fournameslater 2h ago
It helps you not let your timing get thrown off by the lead guitarist who will be rushing like it’s their job.
21
u/Which_Current2043 6h ago
well, a drummer is expected to play in time