Cool inside view of a recording session

[Burgerbob]

[Posaunus]

Oops. Unavailable to me (not a Facebooker).

[ithinknot]

Oops. Unavailable to me (not a Facebooker).

Try this?

It's extremely specifically skilled work all round, to be sure, but the click track is doing more heavy lifting than the conductor in these things...

[mbarbier]

It's extremely specifically skilled work all round, to be sure, but the click track is doing more heavy lifting than the conductor in these things...

Just did a TV session yesterday and the chaos of that one was a remind that even with click the conductor essential. The click really helps (and playing with it is a real skill), but those sessions without a good conductor is just a mess especially when you're in stripes. They really keep the group together, cover up the inevitable click glitches that shouldn't be there but always are, and smooth over the chaos that's always in the booth. Anthony (the person in the video) is especially good at it and making sessions take less time (in addition to be being a great bassoonist).

And they keep the trumpets from trying to run the session....which is heavy lifting in and of itself....

[ithinknot]

Just did a TV session yesterday and the chaos of that one was a remind that even with click the conductor essential.

Absolutely! I was more just making the point for the casual observer that it's not quite the feat of Maestro Genius that they might imagine

The click really helps (and playing with it is a real skill)

Being a harpsichordist (my real job), I haven't had to do this too often (random pop stuff here and there), but yeah... it seems to require a corner of the brain that doesn't get much exercise the rest of the time!

[mbarbier]

Just did a TV session yesterday and the chaos of that one was a remind that even with click the conductor essential.

Absolutely! I was more just making the point for the casual observer that it's not quite the feat of Maestro Genius that they might imagine

The click really helps (and playing with it is a real skill)

Being a harpsichordist (my real job), I haven't had to do this too often (random pop stuff here and there), but yeah... it seems to require a corner of the brain that doesn't get much exercise the rest of the time!

the real feat is being the conduit through which the musicians and booth's stress flows! haha i wouldn't wanna be anywhere near that!

When I was studying with Alex Iles he used to always harp on how the small details of people's rhythm is often in accurate. First time i had a session with a click his emphasis really made a lot of sense!


that's so cool that you're a harpsichordist! my brain just has a million questions about how playing trombone and that relate in your brain- especially in the way attacks work (with and without a click). that's awesome!

[ithinknot]

a million questions about how playing trombone and that relate in your brain- especially in the way attacks work

In continuo playing, organ is a front of the beat instrument (pipes take a while to speak). Harpsichord is back of the beat (attacks are so quick that you're always at risk of sounding in front of the string section)... except mostly you're rolling rather than playing vertically aligned chords, in which case the speed and shape of the spread could be anywhere in relation to the beat, but more usually as a consequence of harmonic tension rather than primarily an expression of rhythm per se... it's a whole thing.

Trombone playing, at which I am bad, is just singing, mentally.

The really trippy stuff comes with pipe organs in large buildings (even worse when the console is detached and nowhere near the pipes), where you're playing anything up to a full beat ahead of a conductor you're watching on CCTV (which itself might have lag). I can do it without thinking these days, but at some level it stops having much to do with musicianship and turns into air traffic control.