Coming in from an R&B and disco background (the music of my childhood, which I still love), wanting to play under a steady beat is part of me, and to hear folks of the likes of Edgar Meyer assert the value of playing music this way is something I agree with very strongly. I, for one, feel the metronome has always been an essential part of my development as an aspiring musician.

But in the classical music world, it's not common for me to hear this. I don't mean that the tempo will speed up or slow down for a musical effect, I'm talking about folks playing together seamlessly. I hear it often - those virtuoso lines get rushed, and relaxed, romantically delivered lines drag - and it really challenges people's ability to stay together rhythmically and pull things off that are meant to happen collectively.

Is my complaint here not taking into account that there may be 100 or more people playing onstage, and it's simply unrealistic to expect the kind of metronomic perfection I'm accustomed to when I'm, say, hearing a disco song, where perhaps 5 or 6 people are playing together behind a consistently delivered drum beat? Learning classical music and developing the techiques to pull that music off challenge me immensely...am I rather not seeing the big picture, where the folks who can pull this music off have gone beyond playing with a steady beat and are challenging each other with cat-and-mouse games rhythmically to shed off boredom?

O.K., so I got to find out about the Viennese waltz rhythm trick in 3, where the 2nd beat comes in early and the 3rd may or may not get lazy...no thanks to this thread, but pretty cool anyway. Any other rhythm tricks to share out there?cool.

This is something that I've battled with.

I think the trick is to consider 'feel' rather than concerning yourself with 'beat'. It may sound odd, but as an experiment I tried to get into the 'feel' that the MD on a classical gig that I do was playing with, and managed to do it. I don't really like it, but it is valid and common...

I think I may see what you mean. It is probably my own musical background messing with me and not letting me listen with the open mind I wish I had (if it was ever there to begin with...).

Speaking as listener and CD Buyer - isn't this why we buy several version of the same piece, with different conductors? A conductor's interpretation can make the same piece almost unrecognisable.

So - I remember talking about this in another thread about Beethoven's 9th Symphony. So - the period performance versions - are more strict on rhythms - whereas a conductor like Gunter Wand introduces so much rubato at the beginning of the 1st movement, that it sounds more like Bruckner than Beethoven!! ;)

O.K., I've thought long enough after hearing the Kleiber/Wiener Beethoven 5th recording again, in the last movement where the orchestra plays a note 4 times in a row with the timpani, and they actually get it perfect one of those times and it sounds like a gunshot and is just incredible sounding. Who wouldn't want to brag about that?

Regardless of the feel or swing, either folks are together or they are not...and I'm going to be a pain in the ass to myself and others for not doing our best to play together in time at all times and appreciate such things when they do happen.

I happened to see Dianne Reeves(along with her trio) sing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last month. Her entire program was dedicated to Sarah Vaughan and I've never heard a symphony orchestra "swing" before that night. Usually, my experience has been that symphony orchestras are rather "stiff" in how they interpret(sp?) the eighth note in jazz type music, but not that night. Not only were the arrangements intricate and voiced appropriately, but the orchestra was grooving big time. What a great night that was. I guess in answer to your question, yes, it is possible for a large group of players to play with precision together while still maintaining the musical integrity of whatever style they are playing. :hyper:

I'm not surprised. I've heard Larry Combs, the CSO principal clarinet, play jazz, and he swings his a** off.

I may be wrong, but I think conservatory-trained bass players who can play jazz at least passably are becoming more the norm than the exception, and I suspect the same from brass and woodwind players (well maybe not oboists).

This isn't an orchestral problem, it's an acoustical issue. If you are sitting 100 feet back in a concert hall and the trumpets and basses play precisely at the same moment, the bass "beat" arrives at your ears behind the trumpet beat. Bass has to very slighly anticipate high timbered instruments.

On the other hand, if you are an orchestra member playing into microphones with every bass or every other bass miked, then you should play precisely on the beat - the impulses arrive at the various mikes simultaneously.

Apart from the fact that good music is a whole lot more than "beat." that's only part of the mix.

Orchestral musicians usually have impecable rhythm. Accoustics can creat the problem.

But in the classical music world, it's not common for me to hear this. I don't mean that the tempo will speed up or slow down for a musical effect, I'm talking about folks playing together seamlessly. I hear it often - those virtuoso lines get rushed, and relaxed, romantically delivered lines drag - and it really challenges people's ability to stay together rhythmically and pull things off that are meant to happen collectively.

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. One learns the part and watches the conductor. Accelerating and deceleration are valid musical means of expressiveness. If you want to know how godawful unchanging meter sounds, listen to music composed in a computer and played through a synthesizer.

It has nothing to do with whether they "can" do it. In a famous incident, Toscanini was conducting "Bolero" for a recording. At the end, the engineer said there had been a glitch, could they do it over. Toscanini said yes. The overall time difference in a 20 minute piece was 16 seconds.

If you want to know how godawful unchanging meter sounds, listen to music composed in a computer and played through a synthesizer.

It has nothing to do with whether they "can" do it.

I'm not talking about unchanging meter. I'm talking about playing together. Say, for example, you're working with your favorite drummer tonight (you know, the one who can't keep a straight beat), and your style is to make sure that your bow starts the string or your finger lets go of the string at the precise moment the drummer's foot pedal hits the bass drum (or any other percussion) as much as possible. Since it's a little easier to predict the beat by compelling the drummer to keep the beat straight rather than letting it wander, that's what I prefer.

The more precise a musical group is in playing together, the better the music sounds to me. It's also what I strive for and drive the musicians I play with to achieve if I hear them going astray. I want what I produce to sound its best, and this is one of the attributes I attach to "best". If the people around me can play in metronomic time, then they will do it if I have any control over the matter.

If the music doesn't call for metronomic time, then that's life...but I still demand to hear myself and everyone else together regardless. If I or they can't do it with the metronome, the conductor might as well be flailing whether or not he's able to wave his arms with great precision and repeatability.

...good music is a whole lot more than "beat."
Of course you are right, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. But rhythm is rhythm, and not a whole lot more.

You may have a point with acoustics and speed of sounds, but I'm not sure that the orchestra or my speakers are so far away to let musicians off the hook. Still, if orchestra musicians typically have impeccable timing, I'm glad it is what I listen to the most now.

I believe that "feel" is what is ultimately important. Whether time is meant to be metronomic or not. What DonO doesn't like about the computer is that it has no feel. If everyone in the band were to hit every note in absolute metric perfection then the band would have no feel as well.

This isn't an orchestral problem, it's an acoustical issue.
John, The:
Now that I know what you mean, this is the reason. The worst seat in the house is the first row. It's a consequence of positioning and the size of the orchestra.The further back you are, the closer together the aggregate sound. You can make a ratio of the distance between the nearest and furthest instruments from the listener.

I know this may sound strange to a metronomic player, but some older bassists may know what I mean.

In the late 50s and in the 60s, I would work with the drummer sometimes for hours to learn to lay back slightly, only a bit, behind the drummer. Drummer saw to it that I could do this. It was a big band style that you almost had to do in some bands. Even in smaller groups, 7 piece groups. Laid back.

And in another few groups, they preferred me to jump onto the beat and even almost rush it. It gives and entirely different feel to the music. It drives the music.they didn't want it like a metronome.

And it was a heck of a job to learn how to lay back on it too, at first. But it's gotta be that way to achieve the big Les Brown sound. (No, I wasn't playing with Les Brown - dangit.)

Music played strictly to the metronome is rhythmically dead. You just can't do anything with it. Beat is a guide. Rhythm is "essence."

Sometimes you drive - sometimes you hesitate. Sometimes you march to the clicking heels at 120/min.

Music played strictly to the metronome is rhythmically dead.

I'm not going to buy this statement until dancers form a line for it.

Well, I don't want to influence your opinion. Buy some old 33 rpms of Duke Ellington and Stan Kenton originals, then get some Sauter and Finnegan, andn Listen carefully. Then get some of Guy Lombardos strict, straight laced stuff. It's all there to be had for the hearing. Everybody should make up there own minds, though. I know what I went through to get what the rhythm section wanted. It were a piece of work. Rock musicians are brought up too straight laced, IMO.

The times, they are a' changin.

The more precise a musical group is in playing together, the better the music sounds to me. It's also what I strive for and drive the musicians I play with to achieve if I hear them going astray. I want what I produce to sound its best, and this is one of the attributes I attach to "best". If the people around me can play in metronomic time, then they will do it if I have any control over the matter.



This sounds to me, like a very strange and narrow concept of what music is about....I take it, you don't like "Free Jazz" ..... ;)

Well, I don't want to influence your opinion. Buy some old 33 rpms of Duke Ellington and Stan Kenton originals, then get some Sauter and Finnegan, andn Listen carefully. Then get some of Guy Lombardos strict, straight laced stuff. It's all there to be had for the hearing. Everybody should make up there own minds, though. I know what I went through to get what the rhythm section wanted. It were a piece of work. Rock musicians are brought up too straight laced, IMO.

The times, they are a' changin.
This reminds me of that scene in "The JerK", when Steve Martin's character finally finds "his music" on the radio, and starts clapping on the 1 & 3.

Me, I like some raggedy edges on my music.

This sounds to me, like a very strange and narrow concept of what music is about....I take it, you don't like "Free Jazz" ..... ;)

I like what I've heard of Ornette Coleman, but it didn't sound quite as adventurous as, say, A Love Supreme.

Would you have told either of them to play with strict metronomic time in their solos? ;)

But really, I was thinking of the general concept of Free Jazz, without time or harmony, rather than particular artists?

Rock bands - not to show disrespect on my part, it's music, of course - and most of them are children of our generaton or slighlty removed from that - so I call it "rediscovering music, couched in electronics."

So far, they have rediscovered that strict perpetual beat is excellent for dancing - 10,000 years after the native americans discovered same; and they have already progressed to the Franz Joseph Haydn stage in dynamics - that is, some incorporate both pianissimo and sforzando, already. I have great confidence that in the ensuing years, they will add things like "piu mosso,," "meno mosso," " retard," f, mf, and p, "<, >" in the area of dynamics, and are almost certain to rediscover "timbre." I hope. Yes - certainly.

Who knows what the future holds for these children of musical fortune. Free jazz? Nothng's free.

Would you have told either of them to play with strict metronomic time in their solos? ;)

If the intention was for us to play together and we couldn't achieve this any other way with reasonable success, you bet I would.

If tripping over each other, running a race against each other, or some other reason to not play together was intended, then that's what I'd do my best to do. I'm not trying to suppress imagination in music or the ability to express things that simply don't work by following a metronomic beat, I'm just trying to get down to the nut-cracking. Playing together is playing together, not sort of playing together, not almost playing together, and certainly not "this is free jazz, and we can relax the meaning of playing together without any cost".

If the meaning of laying back or pushing forward on the beat is literal and not a courteous way of telling a musician to "wake up, pay attention to what everyone else is doing and follow the beat", then it's simply an idea that I'm having difficulty appreciating right now. The challenge to play in perfect time with others is something I like to do and like to hear. When I get bored with that I'll relax my grip...

Shoot, y' know, you might be a pefectionist. Some of the drummers I've worked with were,too, which is why we worked at it for so many hours. Hesitation, or slight anticipation, can be a sign of pure sloppiness, sure. But they are also done a lot for musicality. I doubt you wouldn't complain about some of the fine singers who could drag a beat or a measure out far enough to drive the sections bats...

You'd be especially unhappy with some of the jazz we used to play in two or three different rhythms simultaneously, the simplest example maybe with rhythm section in 4-4 , horns in 3 -4 or vica versa; then there was 6/8, 4/4, etc. A good percussionist himself can keep three or four totally different rhythms going - seen it done many times. Scary, too!

And you would definitely not be happy when some of us played two different tunes at once, in two different rhythms, and they came out quite nicely! So I won't even enter into that her. Or how about playing in two rhythms and two keys simultaneously? Music is scary and fun stuff, if you don't build too many fences around it.

Ever listen to some really, really old time dixieland with slap basses (not tubas) who didn't care a damn about playing in tune OR in rhythm. But by hoot - it was some good sounding stuff. Authentic, loose, fun. Beer music. Gut bustin' music.

Greek dances??? Romanian, or Russian Folk music?

Play with a blue grass band sometime - extra notes, beats dropped - intentionally, I mean. Part of the "score." Drive y' bats if you dont' know when they are comin'.

Yep. Scads of fun.

If polyrhythms don't follow a common beat, they're not polyrhythms.

Aw - I'm just having fun with you. I also know what you mean. But it reminds me of when we used to play old barn dances and grange hall gigs on cold winter nights and the piano hadn't been tuned for 40 years and nobody played with the same rhythm and sometimes the drummer fell of the stool asleep or for some other reason. Long as you were pretty close to a beat and a tune nobody really cared because they were too busy having fun.

I'm really scared of too much precision. But you gotta get it for most things. Too bad. Anyway - you'll find just the right musicians, sooner or later, and it'll all go away. Meantime... enjoy the music.

What part of "Watch the conductor" is not understood? It is the conductor's responsibility to assure that every instrument is in tune. It is the conductor's responsibilty to assure that all players stay with the baton. It is the conductor's responsibility to interpret what is written on the page and determine how best to execute the work.

It's a cognitive leap from R and B to "conductor." Different paradigm.


Say, have you ever tried to imagine what it would be like to do the scherzos in the 5th with 9 BGs instead of 9 DBs? I bet you could level a city block.

I've not done much orchestral work. But I've played in big bands for years. I've spent many hours in studios as a contract bass player...and with groups I wanted to be with as well:) I've practiced endlessly with metronomes, and without. "The beat" is a somewhat maleable thing, especially when considered by genre. When in the studio, I prefer not to have to use a clicktrack if the rest of the musicians are accomplished enough to get the job done without one, as there are times when it is appropriate for the bpm to move up or down with the feelings in the music at the time. As has already been noted some directors/band leaders/band mates want the feel on one side or the other of straight up, and that's cool, and warranted. Try and swing or drive without it:) I've also noticed that just switching strings can change the way I need to play. Guts require that I think far enough in front of the beat for the strings to react and get the beat where I want it, whereas if I'm using spiro's or whatever, I can think much more normally to get the beat where I want it...

Guts vs metal- You sure are right about that! I used mostly guts at the beginning, and even in small groups you anticipate otherwise the darn sound would be late at the back of the club. Moving on to Thomastics changed that. Harder and quicker, higher timbre, so you ride less, linger longer. Interesting stuff.

(Those old copper wound gut A's and E's are worth big bucks now, if you can find them. )

It's a cognitive leap from R and B to "conductor." Different paradigm.


Say, have you ever tried to imagine what it would be like to do the scherzos in the 5th with 9 BGs instead of 9 DBs? I bet you could level a city block.

Well - we are in thw "orchestral technique" forum and I was approaching this question from the point of view of a listener - that is, a concert-goer and classical CD purchaser.

So - I think that a lot of the Romantic repertoire just wouldn't work with a "metronomic beat" - it is the rubato and rhythmic fluctuations that give the "dreamy" quality that is needed for this music.

Conductors will also use this as a contrast, much like dynamic contrast - so in Bruckner's slow movements, some conductors almost make the music stop - it is floating in a Wagnerian mist, mysterious and swirling - but then there can be a big contrast when a big rhythmic figure comes in that literally blows this away - along with the audience!! ;)

So this is really where the skill of the conductor comes in - I have heard versions of Bruckner's 8th where the slow movement is pure purgatory - one of the most boring things on record! But in von Karajan's live recording with the Vienna Philharmonic, it is one of the
most magical things I have on record and I never tire of listening to it! :)

But the contrast with the flanking movements is immense and in the finale, there is a brief reprise of each movement and you can hear the time going from the the crashing rhythmic climaxes of the allegro and scherzo into the flexible dreamy metre of the slow movement.

A good summary. The metronomic fellow seems to be offering two problems if I understood him right: first is playng in ensemble, and second seemed to be holding a steady beat throughout. You just covered the latter. Beat is a variable, not a constant.

Poor ensemble is a problem everyone faces, and starts with getting two hands to coorperate, then two people, then everyone else. Ensemble is a problem of duets, bands, orchestras; cities, towns, states and nations. The more a group works together, the better it should become. Not necessarilly, however. You have to work at it.

The other part of his argument that I can relate to is that in going from jazz or other small group work to symphonies or such, the individual player has to relinquish his hold on rhythm to a conductor. The ensemble is then built around that. Admittedly, it's difficult. It took me awhile to shake of the idea of steady beat when I first joined an orchestra. I was already used to looking at the baton, from working in concert bands.

I guess he's simply telling us the "I don't like poor ensemble," and really, neither does anyone else. At least that's my nterpretation.

What part of "Watch the conductor" is not understood? It is the conductor's responsibilty to assure that all players stay with the baton.

It's the responsibility of the players to assure that the conductor isn't wasting his time. I hope this isn't the reason we're lamenting the collapse of American orchestras on an annual basis...

I've seen conductors fire violinists simply for using the wrong bow stroke at rehearsal. The musicians job is self preservation, and he/she is not responsible for the conductor's not wasting his time. A conductor will let you know in short order whether you are wasting his or her time. Let there be no doubt. And if you are, you're history.

There are more orchestras than ever in history. There are also more deceptive administrators. Look there for the demise of those that don't float. Federal money in support of the arts also brings a school of sharks, just as it does in research or other fields.