How do you practice with a metronome

AlphaMale · #1 08-02-2007, 04:08 AM

What does one do with it when practicing?
I'm guessing it helps your timing.

soong · #2 08-02-2007, 04:32 AM

Just improves articulate timing.

Also when i can't nail a run, bring it down half the time, play it at half time then when your comfortable bring the tempo up. Thats how i mastered the faster stuff.

=]

TheBassBetween · #3 08-02-2007, 05:44 AM

Doc Bop will tell you that you should ALWAYS be practicing with a metronome. It helps improve your time a lot, and forces you to play things slower (assuming it's set to a fairly slow tempo), so that you can really hear each and every note.

rustinstrings · #4 08-02-2007, 06:35 AM

Also have some fun and experiment difficult timing - have the click represent the snare (offbeat), while you play the one(beat) inbetween clicks. Slower temp = more difficult.

elpelotero · #5 08-02-2007, 09:44 AM

typically people will play scales or chromatic scales on it to warm up, practice, and improve their timing, speed, and accuracy.

Speed only comes through accuracy, and accuracy comes from doing things slow.

Once you've mastered all your scales and can play like billy sheehan, then you would put the metronome on to play bass lines or licks that give you trouble.

A good way to practice is start at around 50bpm. Play it for a few minutes. When you're perfect every time, then drop down to 35bpm. Do that until you can get it perfect. Then bump up to 65bpm and repeat...Eventually you get to the 100's.

AlphaMale · #6 08-02-2007, 11:37 AM

Ah I see so a metronome is to help you play with slower time (since slower time is often a lot harder to keep.)
This will help you with your accuracy and technique. And it will help you play in faster time too.
I'm off to practice =D.

Just J · #7 08-02-2007, 12:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlphaMale

Ah I see so a metronome is to help you play with slower time (since slower time is often a lot harder to keep.)
This will help you with your accuracy and technique. And it will help you play in faster time too.
I'm off to practice =D.

It helps you keep a beat too. There may be a time when you don't have a drummer playing with you and the singer/guitarists lean on you to keep time.

I like to play with the drum machine on my computer as well. I try to stay away from the crazy rythms when I do that.

rummy · #8 08-02-2007, 12:14 PM

I use Weird Metronome for warming up.

http://www.pinkandaint.com/weirdmet.shtml

jaebee · #9 08-02-2007, 02:10 PM

ya, as far as keeping the beat, i have played in situations where it wasnt as important to be 'on time" as it was to be 'on the beat'

especially some funk and jazz lines, its important to have your phrasing be solid, but much more so to be on the beat for the strong beats (which are usually not the tempo of the song)

on the one baby!

Ed Fuqua · #10 08-02-2007, 02:42 PM

i do wish I had a 3 second mpeg of me, hanging my head and shaking it...

Scot · #11 08-02-2007, 04:02 PM

I think he's taking some things he's read in completely different contexts from other posters on TB and trying to somehow apply them to this topic.

One can think of practicing with a metronome as playing with another musician that just happens to have perfect time. Perfect time doesn't equate to "groove" or "swing" or "feel" or any of those other intangible things in music we give names to that affect us in some way on an emotional level. Perfect time means that, if the tempo is 60 bpm, there are going to be EXACTLY 60 beats played per minute or 1 beat per second EVERY TIME and without fluctuation (NOTE: this may not be 100% accurate in the case of the pendulum/wind-up type of metronomes and actually, all time sources drift a little so the term "perfect" is used a little loosely).

Does the fact that a metronome has perfect time mean it's going to groove harder than a bass player that doesn't have perfect time? Of course it doesn't. With that in mind, should I forget about practicing with a metronome and only play with groovy and/or swinging cats to develop my time? No, I don't think that's the case either.

I believe the thing to do (in addition to playing with those groovy cats) is to practice along with a perfect time source like a metronome and, here's the catch: YOU have to make the music groove and come to life while playing along with your repetitive but tireless little friend. You do this at all tempos. When you can do it with the metronome clicking away on all your downbeats (which you might think of as a cowbell, if you want) then you adjust your little buddy appropriately and make him play your snare drum/high-hat or backbeat playing on, for example, just the 2's and 4's. The less notes your buddy plays, the less you rely on him to supply the time for you. Now you have to supply that one! You can get creative with putting the click on all different parts of the bar and beats if you want.

When you first set your metronome to something below 40 bpm and make that the 2's and 4's, it's going to seem hard to play because you're so used to someone else dictating where the one is. You might find yourself out of nervousness anticipating and rushing everything only to have those clicking 2's and 4's (hopefully) pull you back in to check. Eventually, things start clicking (pun intended) and you start trusting your newly-developing sense of time (not groove, swing or feel but TIME). You start to tie in your groove or swing or feel with this sense of time. You now have some new found authority in your playing. When you take this to the bandstand, you're going to notice when a drummer drags or rushes during his fills. You're going to notice all kinds of things about the way others interpret time.

Some of those time "discrepancies" you'll hear playing with others are going to be OK and won't bother you because the groove, feel or swing factors are so good that you go with it. You may even like that the chorus slightly speeds up. Other times, you're going to pray that the break comes soon so that you can run to the bar and down 2 shots of tequila. The point is, you develop your time so that you are aware of these types of things going on and also so that you are one of the cats on the bandstand that's projecting good time and not one that's relying on others to know where the beat is or even worse, just playing crappy time and not noticing or caring. When you get together with others that all have a good sense of time and are sensitive to what's happening around them, great things can and probably will happen. Kind of ramble-y I know but I hope it makes some sense to some.

EDIT: Forgot to mention - if you don't have good time your phrasing is probably not going to be great either.

lowphatbass · #12 08-02-2007, 06:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

i do wish I had a 3 second mpeg of me, hanging my head and shaking it...

LOL!!!

manicbassman · #13 08-03-2007, 01:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scot

EDIT: Forgot to mention - if you don't have good time your phrasing is going to suck, period.

you could have edited your main spiel into paragraphs... while you were about it as well... sheesh... just try reading your post without getting lost...

manicbassman · #14 08-03-2007, 01:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rummy

I use Weird Metronome for warming up.

http://www.pinkandaint.com/weirdmet.shtml

cheers... !!

Akami · #15 08-03-2007, 05:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scot

I think he's taking some things he's read in completely different contexts from other posters on TB and trying to somehow apply them to this topic.

One can think of practicing with a metronome as playing with another musician that just happens to have perfect time. Perfect time doesn't equate to "groove" or "swing" or "feel" or any of those other intangible things in music we give names to that affect us in some way on an emotional level. Perfect time means that, if the tempo is 60 bpm, there are going to be EXACTLY 60 beats played per minute or 1 beat per second EVERY TIME and without fluctuation (NOTE: this may not be 100% accurate in the case of the pendulum/wind-up type of metronomes). Does this mean a metronome is going to groove harder than a bass player that doesn't have perfect time? Of course it doesn't. With that in mind, should I forget about practicing with a metronome and only play with groovy and/or swinging cats to develop my time? No, I don't think that's the case either. I believe the thing to do (in addition to playing with those groovy cats) is to practice along with a perfect time source like a metronome and, here's the catch, YOU have to make the music groove and come to life while playing along with your repetitive but tireless little friend. You do this at all tempos. When you can do it with the metronome clicking away on all your downbeats (which you might think of as a cowbell, if you want) then you adjust your little buddy appropriately and make him play your snare drum/high-hat or backbeat playing on, for example, just the 2's and 4's. The less notes your buddy plays, the less you rely on him to supply the time for you. Now you have to supply that one! When you first set your metronome to something below 40 bpm and make that the 2's and 4's, it's going to seem hard to play because you're so used to someone else dictating where the one is. You might find yourself out of nervousness anticipating and rushing everything only to have those clicking 2's and 4's (hopefully) pull you back in to check. Eventually, things start clicking (pun intended) and you start trusting your newly-developing sense of time (not groove, swing or feel but TIME). You start to tie in your groove or swing or feel with this sense of time. You now have some new found authority in your playing. When you take this to the bandstand, you're going to notice when a drummer drags or rushes during his fills. You're going to notice all kinds of things about the way others interpret time. Some of these things are going to be OK and won't bother you because the groove, feel or swing factors are so good that you go with it. You may like that the chorus slightly speeds up. Other times, you're going to pray that the break comes soon so that you can run to the bar and down 2 shots of tequilla. The point is, you develop your time so that you are aware of these types of things going on and also so that you are one of the cats on the bandstand that's projecting good time and not one that's relying on others to know where the beat is (or just playing crappy time and not noticing or caring). When you get together with others that all have a good sense of time great things can and probably will happen. Kind of ramble-y I know but I hope it makes some sense to some.

EDIT: Forgot to mention - if you don't have good time your phrasing is going to suck, period.

Thanks for taking the time to write this, although I too wish you'd made paragraphs, it's a big help!

Akami · #16 08-03-2007, 05:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rummy

I use Weird Metronome for warming up.

http://www.pinkandaint.com/weirdmet.shtml

Thanks for this!

lamarjones · #17 08-03-2007, 07:36 AM

i just turn it on, and try to play

I think some great players actually can count subconciously while they play, maybe moreso drummers. So I just leave that 'clock' going on in the background and play my grooves.

The more I do it, the more I can FEEL that my grooves are hitting squarely where they should be, and I can feel when I am getting off, and if something is funky then I will slow it down and analyze what my line is doing versus what the metronome is doing.

So take the first line in the thrid block I just wrote, people say that it won't help your feel at all which I don't buy. Way I use it, it is just to reinforce my internal clock subconciously, and rarely these days do I try to really use it conciously unless something is not right. But it definitely helped to make my internal clock more consistent WHILE I am actually pumping out grooves or melodic ideas. And the better the tools that subconciously run flow, the less I have to deal with crap that doesn't have to do with me expressing myself.

Scot · #18 08-03-2007, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by manicbassman

you could have edited your main spiel into paragraphs... while you were about it as well... sheesh... just try reading your post without getting lost...

Oh man, that would've been painful if it weren't for the fact that I'm so damn tickled that someone actually tried to read one of my posts in it's entirety!

I'll try to fix that.

jbaird · #19 08-03-2007, 02:04 PM

There was a link posted a while back on using a metronome, basically came down to breaking down any complicated rhythm into its shortest beat and setting the metronome to that.

eg: 1 beat = 16th note. then slowly increasing the tempo and then once you get quick enough set the metronome to half that speed so its now counting the 8th notes, increase speed more, etc.. etc.

This really helped me to get down the sound of 16th notes.

Scot · #20 08-03-2007, 03:23 PM

If you're having trouble playing syncopated 1/16 notes with the quarter note clicking away on the quarter notes I would recommend this:

Put the bass down. Turn on your metronome clicking on the quarter notes at 80 bpm or so. Now, tap your foot on each quarter note (down beats) and count along with the metronome as such:

one-eee-ann-uh, two-eee-ann-uh, three-eee-ann-uh, four-eee-ann-uh (aka, 1-e-&-a, 2-e-&-a, 3-e-&-a, 4-e-&-a)

Now dial the tempo up to wherever you want and, by-all-means, increment it up if you like. Let's say, the original groove is at 120 bpm so let's put it there. Now set your metronome to 60 bpm and make each click the 2 and 4, the backbeat, and continue with your counting. If you want and your metronome goes down enough to do it, put your metronome on 30 bpm and make the click your one, then your two, then your three, then your four (this will be a little difficult at first).

You should be completely solid with counting those "subdivisions" above and should try to nail the click as closely as possible each time (e.g., if the 'nome is set to 2 and 4, you should be saying the "2" and the "4" simultaneously with the click and, if you're counting loudly enough you could try to make the click "disappear"). What you're doing with this exercise is internalizing the subdivisions. Once you really have this down then you can pick up your bass but try playing along with your original groove while you continue the counting per above. Once you can do that you can stop the counting but the idea is that you've internalized the subdivisions and now can perfectly mesh up your grooves to your internal grid and do it in perfect time.

If you can't do these exercises without your bass, you don't really stand a chance nailing any kind of syncopated 1/16 note groove with good accuracy along with your 'nome. I don't at all subscribe to the approach of just turning on your metronome, winging it and hoping for the best. That doesn't cut it at all in my book when there's a systematic approach to make it all come together in a much shorter time. If you subscribe to the "winging it" approach with the 'nome, you're likely to use the same approach on the bandstand and that will likely make you more of a liability than an asset in terms of being one of the cats on stage with good time.

The thing with setting the metronome to play EVERY 1/16 note seems a little over-the-top to me. Might as well just program a groove in a drum machine and play along with it. If you're playing a groove at 120 bpm and want to make your metronome click on every 1/16 note, your metronome would have to go up to 480 bpm and the sound of that would sound to me like some madman drummer frantically flailing away on the hi-hat with the butt of his/her sticks (drummers don't play 1/16 notes with the same loud velocity level on the hi-hat, they use accents and other subtleties to make it sound good). Remember, you want to try to make the click sound as musical as possible so as to give the impression that you're jamming along with a musician, which makes the whole process fun and not a chore.

Some folks like to go nuts with the 'nome and put it on all the different parts of the beat. I don't think that's really necessary but, if it floats your boat, go for it. I would say that you're fine if you take things WAY down in tempo, work them up to tempo and be able to make the click each beat (e.g. 1/4 note) individually as well as all the beats together and the 1 and 3 and 2 and 4.

In short, if you're having trouble with the subdivisions (e.g., 1/16 notes) being "internalized", your best bet is to do exercises where YOU are vocalizing or otherwise providing the subdivisions (NOT your time source) and lock it in with your time source playing more minimally. You can do the same sort of vocalizing exercises with different subdivisions such as 1/8's, 1/8 note triplets, etc. and also with any other time signature such as 3/4, 7/8, 5/8, etc.