“CLAUDETTE” BY WONDERFUL JAZZ SINGER CLAUDETTE STONE is now available on CD Baby. If you like jazz standards, light Latin, and ballads, you should like this very much. Click over to CD Baby to preview. (Or go here to hear a few select cuts in their entirety.) While you’re there, read the liner notes for an interesting story about how the recording grew. Unlike most recordings, drums (yours truly) were added last. Matching tempos was a challenge, but I’m pleased with the result.

In fact, it was a real-life example of something I’ve written about frequently on this blog: creative constraints. By adding drums after all the other instruments had been recorded, I was given a very specific constraint. I had to match the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle ;-) shifts in time, or tempo, that occur naturally anytime musicians play together.

Now, in most major recording situations, like the commercial music you hear on pop radio, musicians will play with a “click track.” At its most basic, a click track is simply a metronome that’s piped into the headsets of each player so that the tempo is marked and matched very precisely throughout a performance. It allows producers to bring in different players over a period of time to add their parts without worry that the various parts won’t match up. Click tracks aren’t that common in jazz recording sessions, and “Claudette” was recorded without such a guide. Generally, that’s actually good for me, because I’m not quite as adept at playing with a click as I’d like to be.

Side note: Try this fun online rhythm test to get a feel for what I’m talking about. Here’s what makes it hard: Our instinct is to listen for the click, but in fact, if you’re playing right on it, you won’t hear it. (At least when using a studio click. This test uses an elongated “droplet” sound that ensures you’ll hear it no matter what.) Drummers talk about “making the click vanish.” That’s the goal, but it seems counterintuitive. If you can’t hear it, how can it help you?

But in this situation, a click would have been very helpful. Instead, there was really only one way to approach the music, and that was to listen to all of the tracks (sans drums) over and over and over again until the shifts in time became ingrained in my memory. After I had absorbed the music through repeated listenings, I began playing with each tune on a set of practice pads (“quiet” drums) in my apartment so that I could not only experiment with my approach to the music, but also build the muscle memory of the tempo changes. I went through this process for 10 tunes. (Two of the 12 tunes on the CD are without drums.)

In the end, it was a gratifying experience. Sure, there are a couple of things I wish I had played a little differently or better, but overall I’m really happy with how the recording came out. And the lesson was a good one: Constraints can be incredibly productive in the creative process. Had I not had to do such intense preparation for that recording session, I doubt I would have been as pleased with my performance. Getting to know your material, your objectives, your parameters — your constraints — as intimately as possible simply yields better work, and not only for musicians, but for any creative professional.

Here’s more about my jazz life.

Now, how have YOU dealt with creative constraints?

© 2010 John Armato