Metronome Settings

  1. Sue Rieter
    Sue Rieter
    Henry said in another thread:
    "I just finished up a Matt Flinner course and he (among many others) thinks in cut time (2/2) while you and I think in common time (4/4). It's funny because I have heard heated arguments about which is proper. Six of one and a half dozen of the other. So Matt's 100bpm is our 200bpm."

    This cuts right to the heart of my metronome confusion.

    I'm using "Natural Metronome" Ap on an Android phone. It has three columns: Beats per bar, BPM and Clicks per beat. If Clicks per Beat is 1 and BPM is 100, for instance, the frequency of the clicks does not change whether I have 1 Beat per Bar or 3 Beats per Bar or 4 Beats per Bar. A beat is a beat, no matter how many there are in each measure. At 100 BPM, wouldn't 100 beats take up 50 measures of 2/2 and 25 measures of 4/4, but both last one minute?

    I remember learning in band class: "2/2 time, two beats in a measure, and a half note gets one beat" or "4/4 time, 4 beats in a measure, and a quarter note gets one beat." It seems to me that a beat is a beat whether you call it a half note or a quarter note.

    I've read about this topic in Duke Sharp's Garage Band Theory and still find myself scratching my head.

    What am I missing?
  2. HonketyHank
    HonketyHank
    I think of it like this -- In cut time and in 2/4 there are two beats per measure and each is emphasized. In 4/4 there are four beats per measure but usually only the 1st and 3rd beats are emphasized. If each emphasis is called a "pulse", then the pulse rate of 2/2 equals the pulse rate of 4/4 when the metronome is set at 100 for the 2/2 version and 200 for the 4/4 version.

    It's easy to get messed up thinking about this.

    Or think of a drill sergeant counting cadence:

    Left ... Left ... Left right Left ... (march)

    One ... Two ... One and Two ... (2/2)

    One ... Three ... One two Three ... (4/4)

    One ... One ... One two One ... (2/4)

    All four of these take the same amount of time.
  3. HonketyHank
    HonketyHank
    Truth be known, I like the 4/4 way because I hate the way you have to count four notes per beat:

    2/2 = One eee and eee Two eee and eee

    4/4 = One and two and Three and four and
  4. Sue Rieter
    Sue Rieter
    I still don't get it. Doesn't my metronome count the "beats" not the "pulses"? When I have the metronome set to 4 beats per bar, there are 4 little circles at the top, and each one lights up sequentially as the beats pass by. I get that musically the 1st and 3rd are emphasized (downbeat), and that bluegrass chops on the 2nd and 4th (upbeat), but don't see how that is reflected on the metronome. 2 and 4 are still represented. I can set clicks per beat to 2 or 4 or whatever, and that speeds up the rate, and I might do that if I want to get a better representation of how quick the eighth notes or whatever are going by, but I feel like that's different.

    When I'm challenging myself, I just set it to 1 beat per bar and 1 click per beat. If I have to play 4 notes (ie two ups and two downs) in one beat I count them in my head, and hope I'm ready for the next set when the next click comes along.
  5. Southern Man
    Southern Man
    Time signature doesn't tell you anything about tempo. 100 bpm is 100bpm. If you put you metronome on 100bpm and leave it there, but then change the time signature, it sounds exactly the same whether it is in 2/2, 3/4, or 4/4. (Or any other time signature).

    Formally, the time signature really only changes how the music is written, so yes, you can take a song in 4/4 and substitute 1/2 notes everywhere there are 1/4 notes
    (etc.) and label it 2/2 and it can be played exactly the same.

    However, informally and by convention the time signature also tells you something about the rhythm and the emphasis. We all can recognize that 3/4 sounds different than 4/4 and 2/2 is generally used for faster songs than 4/4. But this information isn't actually included in the time signature itself--There is no formal reason you couldn't take a 4/4 song and rewrite it in 3/4, changing the chord ever fourth beat and play it exactly the same (this would be somewhat absurd, I'm just saying that it fits within the formal rules). It's a convention and we reflect that in how we count these time signatures differently.

    At least that is how I see it.
  6. Sue Rieter
    Sue Rieter
    Henry, if you don't like those counting conventions, maybe you need this book.

    I'll probably get a copy at some point.
  7. Louise NM
    Louise NM
    "At 100 BPM, wouldn't 100 beats take up 50 measures of 2/2 and 25 measures of 4/4, but both last one minute?"

    Sue, the answer to this is yes. But if the notation remains the same, you would have played the same tune at drastically different speeds.

    Let's say, for the sake of argument, you are playing a 100-measure fiddle tune, a reel. We'll set the metronome at 60 bpm, aka one beat per second. If you play it in 4/4 time, each measure would take four seconds to play. The entire tune would take 400 seconds, or six minutes + 40 seconds. If you then change the time signature to cut time, 2/2, but leave all the notation the same, each measure would would take two seconds—one for each beat—and the tune would take 200 seconds: three minutes + 20 seconds, half as long. Your fingers would be flying! If you wanted to think about this same very, very long reel in cut time but not play it twice as fast, you would set the metronome to 50 bpm.

    If you are playing the melody it doesn't make so terribly much difference whether you think about it in 4/4 or 2/2. A rhythm player, however, would change what he/she/they is/are doing. Likewise, if a conductor is involved, the big difference is whether they are beating in two or four.

    If Matt Flinner often thinks in cut time, I would guess a lot of that has to do with his speed. Listening to a metronome (or a drummer) clicking along at ♩= 200 would drive a sane person around the bend!
  8. bbcee
    bbcee
    If Matt Flinner often thinks in cut time, I would guess a lot of that has to do with his speed. Listening to a metronome (or a drummer) clicking along at ♩= 200 would drive a sane person around the bend

    That’s the case for me. As I’ve been working on getting my speed up (not Matt speed quite yet!), I’m finding that setting the click to cut time tricks my mind into feeling like I’ve got more space to play within. I also don’t feel like a hammer is driving a nail into my ear!
  9. BadExampleMan
    BadExampleMan
    Funny, I just posted about this in the other thread.

    I went as far as differential equations in school, but I still can't figure this out. Strum Machine's 100 bpm is the same as a regular metronome's 200 bpm. It's like, even though the tune is built in 4/4 (which Luke, the developer, doesn't differentiate from 2/2, 2/4, or cut time), there's only 2 beats in a measure. He treats a "boom-chuck" as one beat whereas in a 4/4 song it's actually 2 beats.

    Oh, look, by trying to explain to y'all what confused me, I guess I actually figured it out. Must be this new Kenyan coffee I'm trying out.
  10. Sue Rieter
    Sue Rieter
    Okay, what Louise said makes sense. But bbcee, what exactly does it mean to set the click to cut time? What setting physically changes?

    BEM, I'm not a very good rhythm player. I think what you're saying is strum twice as fast in 2/2, so you get in the same number of strums per measure even though there are fewer beats (2 v 4). This is what Matt does, I think. Not me, yet. I am able to get only one "boom-chuck" into a 2-beat measure and two in a 4-beat measure (if I'm lucky). Especially when the tempo increases.
  11. Louise NM
    Louise NM
    Sue, with a simple metronome you would just set it at 50 bpm and know that it clicks, beeps, flashes, pokes you, etc., on the first and third quarter note of each bar.

    There are metronomes that are much more sophisticated. The best one I know of is Dr. Beat. It uses different sounds and different colors of lights to denote the first beat of each bar and can be set to make all sorts of subdivisions clear. Last time I looked they are just south of $200, but well worth it in certain situations. They are loud enough for a full quartet to hear.
  12. HonketyHank
    HonketyHank
    I have tried several (many) metronome apps and the one that I like best is called "weird metronome" available free from download.cnet.com . Simple yet versatile and programmable. Unfortunately, I think it is Windows-only.
  13. Sue Rieter
    Sue Rieter
    Will have to check that one out and compare. I'm not apple oriented at all.

    Louise, a lightbulb went on. That makes perfect sense.
  14. Stacey Morris
    Stacey Morris
    My goodness reading all this has me confused!! Based on what I remember Louise saying, even though one would think 3/4 time and 6/8 time are basically the same (and i know some folks who play 6/8 just like 3/4), 3/4 time has one emphasis per measure and 6/8 has two. So, playing the music that way would make it sound different. I think (though not sure) the person arranging the music would intend for it to be played the way he arranged it.

    Because I was having so much trouble with timing, I ordered an old fashioned metronome that has the arm swinging back and forth and that is it. I have been working with it now for a few months, but still struggling. Anyway, if I set the metronome at 60bpm, I play the music at 60 bpm (which is about as fast as I can go at this point). If the time signaure is 4/4, each quarter note gets one beat, and eighth get half and a sixteenth gets a quarter of a beat. If the time signature is 2/2, a half note gets one beat, a quarter note half a beat, etc. I can be a little thick headed, but I don't understand "thinking" in cut time or common time. I just play in whatever time signature is on the sheet music. Based on what I know, the tempo is something else entirely.
  15. BadExampleMan
    BadExampleMan
    Sue, with a simple metronome you would just set it at 50 bpm and know that it clicks, beeps, flashes, pokes you, etc., on the first and third quarter note of each bar.

    Yes! That's what Strum Machine's timing amounts to. Whereas my naive elementary-school understanding and use of metronomes is to have it click on every quarter note in each bar. So if Strum Machine and my naive metronome are both set at 60 (=1 click per second), Strum Machine plays 1 bar in 2 clicks whereas I think of 1 bar as being 4 clicks.

    So when I set SM to 100 and rip into Old Dangerfield, I'm playing it at 200 quarter notes per minute.
  16. JeffLearman
    JeffLearman
    The "beats per bar" thing only matters if you set it so that the 1 beat sounds different than the other beats. My guess is that by default all beats are the same, so BPM is all you need to set. But if you want to know where beat 1 is, set it to have a different (usually louder) sound. Then the beats per measure thing will make sense. As to whether you want cut time or 4/4 or how often you want the "1" beat, that's really just a matter of preference, with one exception.

    The exception is if you're trying to communicate with other musicians, so that "1 bar" means the same thing to both of you. "Sit out 4 bars" -- how long is that? It's pretty much arbitrary and the only important thing is agreement.

    Now, while I said it's pretty much arbitrary, if you play the same thing to 10 seasoned musicians, at least 9 of them will count it the same way, unless it's unusual. But not need to sweat that, it comes with experience, either reading or working with other musicians.

    Also, there are lots of cases where it really does matter, but those are odd ones like 5/4 time.

    One final bit. Cut time confused me until my high school bandleader explained it to me. At least, for marching music, they use it when there are lots of notes per what normally would be a beat (for marching music, that's 120 BPM.) Well, for some songs, especially flute parts, they play so many notes it gets hard to count all the tie bars to tell 16th from 32nd (or god forbid 64th) notes. So, they use "cut" time where every note lasts twice as long as written (and a measure has only 2 beats.) That eliminates one tie bar from a run, making the music easier to read. That's pretty much all there is to it.

    And I mentioned flute parts as the ones with all the fast notes. Well, in bluegrass, that's the mandolin (or banjo). So I'm not surprised to hear a mando player being more used to cut time.
  17. JeffLearman
    JeffLearman
    I've mentioned this before I think, but a popular way to use a metronome for people playing non-classical music is to have it click on 2 and 4. It's a GREAT thing to practice (in addition to the normal way) because it mimics the backbeat of many kinds of popular music, including bluegrass. It takes a little getting used to, especially starting the tune, but well worth the effort.

    In this case I want all beats to sound the same.
  18. Sue Rieter
    Sue Rieter
    With the "Natural Metronome" ap, if you set it to more than 1 beat per bar, it shows a series of circles across the top to represent them, the 1 beat is a different color, and the sound is different from the other beats. It's default, not a setting - at least not with the free version.

    How would you set it up to click on 2 and 4? That sounds like an interesting exercise, but I'm not sure if you can do that with the ap I have. I downloaded the one Henry was talking about (weird metronome), but haven't done anything with it because it looked intimidating.
  19. JeffLearman
    JeffLearman
    First, set it up for one beat per measure, so every click is the same.

    Second, set it to half speed (that is, 60 if BPM is 120.)

    Third, start it and don't look at the display. As it clicks, say "and 2 and 4 and 2 and 4 and ..." and then evolve that to "and 2 3 4 and 2 3 4" and finally "1 2 3 4". That's the hardest part. That's just one suggestion, no doubt there are other ways to "get it" that the clicks are on 2 and 4. Whatever works!

    Here's another way to get started. Tap your foot between the clicks. Then mentally assign 1 and 3 to your foot taps.

    Anyway, once you get it in your head that the clicks are on 2 and 4, start playing!
  20. JeffLearman
    JeffLearman
    Here's another getting-started trick. Just start counting 1,2,3,4. Then start snapping your fingers (or tap your lap) on 2 and 4. Get this in your head. Then start your metronome and see if you can repeat the counting while snapping on 2 and 4 with the click.

    At first it seems really clumsy but with just a little practice it starts to "click" and it's incredibly good practice.
  21. Mark Gunter
    Mark Gunter
    For us right-brainers, this is probably more than we need to understand. Just do what works for you, lol.

    To you left-brainers: Kudos on figuring this out and trying to explain to us
  22. Sue Rieter
    Sue Rieter
    Part of learning music for me seems to be trying to learn not to over-analyze stuff. I'm not quite there yet.
    The artist can't quite overcome the engineer.

    I find I have to figure it out, and only then can internalize it and let it go
  23. Mark Gunter
    Mark Gunter
    I think I can understand the explanation, but I doubt I could explain it to anyone else. Truth is, my memory has declined rapidly in recent years anyway, but the confusion that takes its place needed the elbow room anyway.
  24. JeffLearman
    JeffLearman
    I know what you mean. When I try to learn some music theory, it falls into two categories: names for stuff I already intuitively know, and completely incomprehensible garbage. But lo and behold, over three or four or five decades, that line does move. Still, I keep learning something and bells ring and "wow, cool!" ... only to remember, "gee, didn't I learn that just last year ... and the year before ..." Sigh.

    About the right and left brain. Well, I'm kinda both. I definitely attack most stuff from the analyitical/wordy (yeah, real wordy) side. But my music comes from the other side. And the two sides do not really get along; won't work together much, don't communicate. I think they hate each other.
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