All About Click Tracks

The Difference Between Metronomes and Click Tracks

A metronome is a device that produces an audible beat—usually a beep or other staccato sound—at regular intervals. These recurrent sound intervals are measured in beats per minute (BPM).

A click track is a timekeeping tool that is set at a pre-determined tempo (similar to a metronome). It can also combine additional tempo-related information such as changes in BPM, accelerandos, and ritardandos, etc.

Customized Click Tracks for Your Marching Band Music 

Marching Monk offers two different types of click tracks: 

1. Click Track With Music—Consists of a metronomic click or beep with the midi playback of your marching band music. Benefits include:

• Helps students learn and clean drill while music is playing.
• Helps students understand how drill and music are synchronized.
• Helps ensure that all tempo changes in your music are exactly the same, every single time.
• Allows students to hear wind parts more clearly when used in front ensemble rehearsals.
• Saves wind players “chops” by allowing them to practice with “air and fingers” instead of playing every repetition.
• Allows color guard to begin working on choreography immediately.

2. Click Track Without Music—Consists of a metronomic click or beep without the midi playback of your marching band music. This type of click track, while similar to using a metronome, offers one distinct advantage: it helps make sure that all tempo-related changes (such as accelerandos, ritardandos, and rubatos, etc.) are the same, every single time.

Marching Monk’s Click Track Formats

At Marching Monk, we can create a click track for every page of your marching band show. Regardless of which format you choose (with or without music), each click track will:

• Begin with an 8-beat count-off.
• Continue playing until the end of the production. Note: If you are only working on one page, simply stop the click track at the appropriate time.

If you’d like your click tracks to be formatted differently than noted above, just let us know.

Click Tracks Designed for Fundamentals

Click tracks can also be used with fundamentals, basics or exercise programs, allowing music teachers to focus on teaching. Just press play and the click track will continue playing to the end of the exercise or the end of a sequence of exercises. Think about it: You’ll never have to ask a student or staff member to keep track of when to stop and start a metronome ever again.

Playing Click Tracks During Rehearsal

We recommend using an iPad, smartphone or MP3 player to play our click tracks. Use a cable—or go wireless—to connect the MP3 player to your amplification system. If you’re not sure what type of connection to purchase for your system, don’t worry. We can help you figure it out.

Contact Us Now—We Can Help Design Your Click Tracks Today

Here’s all we’ll need from you to create your customized click tracks: 

• A count structure for the marching band drill.
• The software files your arrangements. Our preferred file type is Finale; however, Sibelius or XML are fine, too. Important: Please make sure that clear tempo markings are included on the files.

Note: If you can only provide PDF or MP3 files of your music—and are unable to provide notation files— we won’t be able to create click tracks for you.

Pricing

Our pricing for click track design services is as follows:

• Marching Band Music Set-up Fee—$125 
• Exercises / Fundamentals Set-up Fee—Please contact us for a quote.
• Click Track MP3 File Fee (with or without music) - $2 per MP3 file

Pricing Example: If your marching band show has 75 drill sets, the pricing would be as follows: $125 set-up fee + $150 click track MP3 file fee (75 drill sets x $2 per set of MP3 files) = $275

Note: If you purchased your wind arrangements from Marching Monk, your set-up fee will be waived. Also, if minor changes are made to your music and you need to request a new set of click tracks, you will not pay a new set-up fee. In this case, you will only pay for new MP3 files.