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Sorry to have been away from this discussion for the past few days.  I think the way in which the problem of the click track has been situated within a much larger set of practices, including multitracking, cut-and-paste operations, etc., is very productive.  In some ways, it takes the heat off the click as an isolated issue (but, still, the click track’s association with the metronome and the long history of attitudes for and against its use makes it something of a special case). 

I especially like Anne’s characterization of the groove as a set of layers, the click being just one possible layer.  For me (and as Anne also suggests) the precision afforded by the click is also a kind of “feel” – a feel that may be more suited to some genres than others.  But what is also interesting to me is the way in which the click itself is, ultimately, a layer that is later removed from the sounding groove and only manifests itself in the structuring impact it has had on other layers. 

This places the click within the mutlitracking process as a temporarily sounding, structuring element.  The click is not unique in this role – it’s a role that’s not unlike that of the vocal guide track mentioned by Rob in relation to Dunn; but Dunn’s problem is with having or not having a guide.  In most sessions, the guide track is typically removed and replaced by a permanent, more nuanced vocal.  But this can go beyond simple polish and nuance: I know of some sessions where the final vocal track was distinctly different from the initial guide in its accent patterns and phrasing.  In case like this, the performance of the rhythm section is, in part, based around the members’ response to a musical layer that is not present as part of the final musical texture; and in its turn, the final, sounding vocal may change in response to the layer contributed by the rhythm section (and other players).  So perhaps multitracking can be thought of as a structuring process that employs both sound (recorded) and silent / silenced (unrecorded) elements. 

To some degree, every contributor to a multitrack session works within the realm of the virtual – they can only imagine what the rest of the track will eventually sound like; but the rhythm section occupies a peculiar place even within this process because its members work under a special set of unique (and often temporary) contingencies.  

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A few weeks ago I saw Dave Grohl’s Sound City at a local cinema: on the whole, it’s an interesting, if somewhat obsessive and self-indulgent film – a tribute to the mystique of analog studios.  There is a particular sequence in the film where Grohl talks about one of his first experiences in laying down a drum track in the studio and being forced to work with a click track because he kept speeding up so much.  It’s an interesting sequence, in part, because Grohl admits that he learned something new from the experience but, in the end, he cannot help but wonder (only half jokingly) whether it isn’t musically valid to speed up just a little bit during a performance.  

To some extent, Grohl’s statements reflect an old dichotomy, pitting the human against the machine.  Recent books on the subject, however (such as those by Steve Savage or the collection edited by Anne Danielsen, that includes a chapter by Simon Zagorski-Thomas on recording technology and performance, among others), suggest that the human/machine relationship is more complex. 

There is often an assumption that recording a rhythm section in the studio obviates the need for a click track, the players achieving a groove through an intimate form of musical interaction (in the case of Grohl, he was, of course, only laying down an isolated drum track).  But I’m wondering whether anyone in this discussion has any thoughts on, or experiences with, the productive use of click tracks in recording rhythm sections.  Are there ways in which a click tract can be used to enhance a collective groove?  Are there ways in which a click track can structure a performance in ways that the rhythm section might do otherwise without the track?  Is the decision to record a rhythm section (with or without a click) more a question of musical genre than one of logistics?  

Please Note: this post is one half of a set of questions and ideas related to click tracks that I will be distributing across two panels – one on Rhythm Sections and the other on Embodiment and Gesture – so there may be some overlap in the discussions but I’m trying to keep them as separate as possible . . . at least at the outset.