Using tracks is incredibly beneficial. Previously we’ve discussed How to Start Using Tracks in Your Live Worship and some of the benefits. But tracks are also incredibly advantageous for practice and rehearsal. I would argue that using tracks for rehearsal will improve your team’s overall musicianship and help team members show up more prepared for rehearsal and service.
You may think of many different things when it comes to the word “tracks,” so it’s important to clarify. In this case, when I use the word tracks, I’m referring to separate audio files for each instrument, commonly called “stems.” You can use these files for live performance, but you can also use them for rehearsal to help your team feel more confident and prepared.
Learn Your Part
Tracks make it much easier to learn your part. With each instrument separated out into “stems,” you can hear your part clearly. I remember when I was first learning guitar, how I would spend hours trying to dissect exactly what the player was playing — slowing down tracks, using EQ to separate the guitar part from everything else, and trying my best to figure out what to play.
Now when using tracks, especially if you’re using tracks from the original recording, you can hear the original part from the original player in isolation. It’s never been easier to learn your part. It’s like having a guitar lesson with the guitarist on the record!
This is particularly useful when your team is trying to learn parts to a song that has multiple guitar or keyboard parts. Each guitar player can be assigned a specific part, and each can listen to that stem to learn it perfectly. No “stepping on each other’s toes” or everyone trying to learn the lead part. Using tracks for practice, especially when there are songs with lots of layers/parts, can help drive people toward clarity before rehearsal and help them come prepared.
Rehearse Before Rehearsal
A fundamental part of being a bass player is learning to lock into a drummer. While you can learn the bass part before rehearsal, it’s hard to get good at playing with a drummer unless you’re…playing with a drummer. Using tracks for rehearsal can get you as close as possible to the real thing. As a bass player, you can solo the drums and then play along with that stem and a click and practice locking into the kick drum. Slowly sneak the rest of the band back in, and you can “run through” the songs multiple times before you even get to rehearsal.
During Rehearsal
So far, we’ve discussed the benefits of using tracks before rehearsal, but using tracks during rehearsal can be incredibly beneficial. I always suggest people keep every music track in their Ableton session and mute what they don’t use live. That way, when a drummer is struggling to get a part, or the guitar player can’t remember how to start the song, you can solo out the part from the original record, and they can quickly get up to speed. No more holding your iPhone up to the mic and hoping they hear their part!
Once they’ve got the part, you can re-mute that track so they can play the part live.
Improve Your Tone
Tone is as important to being a musician as playing the correct part. A keyboardist has to be able to play the part well but also get it sounding great. A guitarist has to learn the right voicing but needs to be able to understand how to use effects to create the right tone as well.
Using tracks helps you not just learn the part but also identify and replicate the tone.
You can hear the parts in isolation and get a better idea of what effects are being used than if you listen to the entire mix. Once you put everything back together, you’ll get an idea of how your tone fits in the entire mix as well.
Not Just for Musicians
Using stems for rehearsal isn’t just for musicians. You can use stems for training and teaching your audio engineers. Set up a session where you’re playing back stems into your sound console, and give your audio engineers a few hours during the week to practice mixing. With most digital consoles, it’s fairly easy to use the console as an audio interface and play stems from Ableton back through the console.
If you’re using the original stems from the original artist, you can listen to each stem to see how the guitars sound in isolation. How are they EQed? And during your next rehearsal, you can try to get your guitars to sound the same.
Where Do You Get Tracks?
As we discussed in the first article, if you’re leading worship and looking for stems from the original artist, you can purchase those from Multitracks.com. This is an incredible benefit, to be able to learn the exact part from the original artist on the original recording.
If you’re performing your own music, you’ll need to create your own stems. If you’re heading into the studio to record, ask the engineer to create “stems” of your content after it’s mixed and use those for rehearsal and live performance.
If you have someone on your team that’s great at producing or creating their own music, give that person a demo to create parts in their studio. Then you can use those stems for rehearsal and performance. You can even use that as an opportunity to add in “extra” sounds, like keys and synths, that you may not normally have.
But what if you can’t head into the studio and don’t have someone who can create tracks for you?
Record Yourself
If you’re using a digital console, you can use your console as an interface with Ableton Live. At your next rehearsal or service, have the sound engineer connect the console to your computer and record the performance. Once you record rehearsal, you can create tracks to use as you practice.
Your team will improve as they listen to themselves in the recording, and you’ll quickly build up quite a catalog of content. You can then use those tracks to rehearse and prepare. If you do a lot of original arrangements of songs, you’ll find this incredibly beneficial as well!
Again, while tracks are an incredibly useful tool for live performance, you’ll find that using them as a resource for practice and rehearsal will help your team arrive feeling more confident and prepared.