Jonesy
Senior Member
I'm going to play devil's advocate here and say learning how to play along competently to a click is VERY IMPORTANT, especially in today's musical climate. A lot of the songs you're playing to may be more forgiving if it's a traditional rock band/ three piece jazz, whatever, where tempo ebbs and flows all in the natural course of a track, but consider the following.
For studio :
Sure there are programs like beat detective and audiosnap out there to manipulate your tempo, but if the recording is intended at some point to sync up with samples or loops, then there may be considerable tweaking involved on the engineer's side. Have fun integrating that 180 bpm loop with the clickless track you just recorded!
Live:
Perhaps even more importantly, what if you're asked to play along to sequenced parts in a LIVE context, which is becoming more and more commonplace nowadays? You have to able to lock in with the sequencers or loops, no escaping it or sugarcoating it.
I totally agree that sometimes it's beneficial to be able to break free from the constraints of a click every now and then, but I would hope no one comes away from a discussion like this thinking "I'll never need to play to sequenced time, because the music just needs to breathe!". In a perfect world it would be the case, but in all practicality it should be considered a high priority to learn how to play in tandem with a click.
Of course every drummer needs to be able to play with a click, but the point of practicing with the click is that you'll eventually gain the ability to play on time without it.