JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Bass and Drum Forum The haunted metronome

Somehow, my metronome can tell when I'm playing a difficult passage in a song, and speeds up! Then, the darned thing slows down when the song gets easy! How does it know?

------------------
Mike Dunbar Music

Funny Mike!

It's like we feel the need to speed things up when it's basic and easy going, as if we need to make it more complicated or it's too simple to just go on like it is. Then as you say, during a difficult passage, we need more time to get the notes out clean, thus making it seem like the song speeds up.

Do I have it right, or was it real what you said,,like a metronome that really speeds up and slows down?!

I only used a click track a few times and didn't like it, as I was not allowing the song to feel it's way, but rather playing on those darn clicks. Sometimes the feel calls for a 1 bps or so increase or slowdown over a few seconds to peak, like for a bridge, or the last chorus, or the ending. It's like painters who would have to paint by numbers, insead of going with their own flow and instincts. Art? Music, being an art needs to have that human eliment as well, "I feel". And with the drummer being allowed to push or pull back a little here and there, it makes for creative and sometimes unique art/music. or something people can relate to, also feeling the push or pull back.

The metronome "looks cool" on a piano though!
And maybe should just be there to be looked at. ???

John Daubert

I use a metronome and a click track extensively. When I teach, I insist on my students owning one (at least I can get them to own one, if not turn it on.) At each lesson, I use the metronome for songs they have mastered. Also, I occasionally have them start at the beginning of whatever method book we're using and review with the metronome.

The first time I used a click track was in the sixties. The engineer would put a microphone on a wind up metronome. We were working to a click on a radio jingle. It took me much sweat and punching to get it. After that, I bought a metronome and have used them religiously. I am considering a metronome implant.

Mike

------------------
Mike Dunbar Music

Implant! LOL Good one!

Do you find keeping that perfect of a time a little restricting at times? Like when a certain feel of a gradual slowing down oculd be occuring, then back up to the song;s tempo? (I don't mean for student teaching, but for recording a song).

John Daubert

Gradual slowing down, poco a poco (or is it eagles a eagles?) ritardando, is no problem. It's what I naturally do. It's fairly easy to accelerate and declerate, holding an even tempo, however, is difficult.

I find using a click track when recording is not restricting, it frees one up from having to argue with the drummer.

My original post is on the phenomenon that occurs when one plays a hard part then an easy part. My natural tendency is to play the hard part slower and the easy part faster.

I worked with one session drummer who would use the click when we ran through the song, then turned it off when we started recording. I used to ask that the click be off in my phones so I would lock with the drummer. Lately, I don't even think about it.

Mike

------------------
Mike Dunbar Music

Totally relate! Just when you are doing a flurry of 16th notes, the darn metronome speeds up! It's facinating, on a personal level to realize how fragil the "groove" is when you are going from legato 1/2 note figures to staccato 16th notes figures. Something I practice a lot with my metronomes. My personal "revelation" has been to alway's keep the 1/4 note groove locked in my little mind whether I'm playing 1/2 note figures or 1/8 note triplets. Kind of forces me to have a multi task overview at all times, which is a challenge, but worth the effort for me!

Rob

Sometimes, especially if I'm working on a slow passage, I'll set the metronome to eighth or even sixteenth notes so I have something to "hang my hat on".

------------------
Mike Dunbar Music

All that discussion and your question is still not answered. Well here is what really happens.

Yes, it does speed up and slow down as you say. It does not keep perfect time as we experienced musicians know. Metronomes do not obey the laws of physics but the laws of metaphysics. Whenever one is made it attracts ego disrupter rays which impregnate themselves into the device. It doesn't matter whether it's the old fashioned wind up kind or the digital kind. The rays also enter music software and affects the click track. But that is not all. Even conductor's batons are affected. It has nothing to do with keeping time at all. It is an anti-overconfidence ego management safeguard . You can't fight it. You must yield to it. It is stronger than any musician in the world.

JeanB

I tried playing to a "Russion-Dragon" device once that supposedly tells you if you're speeding up or slowing down. Boy was it messed up! I know someone else was controlling it.

Anymore, I prefer NOT using a click track, but find a live drum loop to use instead of a click. That way, everyone is using the same "feel" and it gets everyone more in the pocket without the stiffness of a click.


------------------
Larry
www.audibleresponse.com

Larry,

That's what I like about loops too! I like to let the drummer hear the click while I hear the drummer. Similar stuff.

Mike

------------------
Mike Dunbar Music