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Lately I’ve been incorporating using a metronome more and more often during my playing sessions. While at first it get quite tedious and “like practice” (likely a flashback to childhood forced piano lessons), now I find myself hardly wanting to play without it.
I find that it’s easier for me to get into a flow state while playing and really connecting with the tune I’m working on if I’m incorporating the metronome. Anyone else find that to be the case?
Metronome is good, and if you are practicing regularly with a metronome that will make a noticeable difference in your playing, so keep that up!
I don't practice enough with it, but I do use it when learning a tune.
I often use a click track when recording solo, I remember we tried the click track when recording as a band and it didn't really work, was hard to hear when all 4 members were playing and we quickly got out of step with it, our own organic interplay timing took over.
The important thing is to lose the metronome at some point ( not for practice but for performing) , training wheels is perhaps not the correct analogy, but the metronome is for guidance during learning and practice, so if you can find another musician who has decent timing and rhythm, that will help with flow a lot too.
often rhythm becomes more important than melody, and if the players get too far out of sync - its a train wreck ( been there done that).
But practicing regularly with a metronome is absolutely the right thing to do, so stay on that course!
I also prefer playing/practicing with a metronome. Has helped me to play cleaner for sure
I'm in two minds about metronome use. I think it's great for working up technique etc, but possibly not so good for working at finished songs and tunes. The reason is, that I suspect a lot of good musical flow feel doesn't fit rigidly within the metronome beat other than at the beginning and end of a verse. I've several times been in recordings where songs with a good feel turned out to begin and finish verses etc on time, but varied in between. We found out after we tried to fit sequenced samples onto acoustic recordings, and discovered that the acoustic track ran ahead predictably in the middle of each verse (it could equally have slowed down). We had someone who knew how to vary the speed of the samples, and they worked it out so the samples followed the speed of the acoustic tracks. The songwriter tried to do it with a metronome, and it just didn't feel right. This wasn't bluegrass, mind you...
Speeding up while playing solo is an issue for me and a metronome is an easy cure. It can take some discipline to stay synced, but finding a groove is easy enough. Like having a perfect drummer. I sometimes set metronome to twice the target speed (or half). Having an off count helps me with feel. ymmv
This thread reminds me that I don't use a metronome as much as I should. But I have been using iReal Pro a lot for practice lately and especially if I'm working up a solo derangement of a tune that I really want to work in a solo or two.
I have been in bands where everyone doing their metronome woodshedding paid off.
I have *never* witnessed a situation wherein someone suddenly had great timing emerge out of nowhere.
Interestingly, those who learned to really work with their metronome had no problem later following tempo-mapped sequences, where a MIDI tempo varies, or even a variable click track with prerecorded sections inserted into live work.
Even working to visual cues (full band stops and starts on a dime) were helped by timing/metronome work.
The most interesting thing I've discovered is an ironclad inverse relationship between someone's claims of impeccable timing... and their actual timing. When someone absolutely puts limits on what one will do to develop musicianship, it shows.
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Incidentally, my favorite use of a metronome is to count the clicks as a backbeat on counts 2 and 4, or on 2 and 5 on a 6-beat jazz waltz rhythm. That offset click makes the swing pop.
:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Scotter
That's cos metronomes are never in time :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Explorer
I really dig metronome work. One of my projects these days is applying it to very syncopated melodies (latin, jazz, funky fiddle tunes), stuff where I find I can easily push a little too far ahead or lag a little too much when playing solo. This doesn't tend to be a problem when I play with my regular crowd, as we're pretty simpatico rhythm-wise, but it does highlight the parts where I'm not as smooth as I'd like to be. Recently heard an interesting variant, which is to record oneself and then check it against the metronome. The idea intrigues me, but also freaks me out a bit, since I really dislike the whole recording process.
I use a phone app metronome called Time Guru. It has a feature that you can turn on to make it randomly drop clicks on beats and it's up to you to keep the time yourself till the click comes back in. It starts with all the clicks for several measures and then starts dropping clicks. You can also set the percentage of clicks it eventually drops. I think that helps you internalize the time rather than depending on the external click. It kind of takes you by surprise and throws you off until you get used to the click dropping out.
onassis: There's also an app called LiveBPM that can listen to your recorded playback and tell you what the bmp is as the music goes by. Will show you where you are slowing down and speeding up.
After years I finally found a metronome I can stand (the Seiko one) and it fits in my case. I usually start on a new tune or meter with a quarter note (4 beats per measure in 4/4) as the beat and then switch later to half note (2 beats per measure) and possibly whole note (1 beat per measure). I also use it to increase the speed of my playing comfortably, hitting all the notes clearly and working on phrasing. I switch back and forth between playing with and without it.
My metronome is adroit at pointing out some of my really stupid misreadings of sheet music!
Rather than a click track I use a sacrificial beat track. The click bleeds through. Or maybe I just think it bleeds though.