I found an interesting way to test my interal timing

[Tupac]

Well, I was goofing around on a free iPad app I have called Synth. It has a metronome on it, and there's an interesting setting that allows you to set the beat by tapping it, and adjusts it relative to the time between your last note. I'd never seen one of these before. It displays the BPM as you tap it, so I kept trying to keep it on a single BPM. It was very difficult, it usually fluctuated 1-3 beats off each time I hit, going around 90. Anyone else seen this kind of tech before? How do you fair while trying this?

[Roscoe East]

Originally Posted by Tupac

Anyone else seen this kind of tech before?

Tap Tempo to control the Conductor track in a sequencer has been around for at least 20 years.

[Tupac]

...Oh. Well that's cool. Is it normal to not be able to keep it steady?

[BryanM]

Originally Posted by Tupac

...Oh. Well that's cool. Is it normal to not be able to keep it steady?

It takes a lot of practice. Reminds me of an old drummer of mine telling me about an orchestral audition he had for bass drum. They started him off on a click track and had him begin playing, then muted the click track for several minutes. To pass the audition, he had to be right on when they brought the click track back up. This was among other tests as well, but he ended up getting the part and has been there for about 5 years now.

[Tupac]

Originally Posted by BryanM

It takes a lot of practice. Reminds me of an old drummer of mine telling me about an orchestral audition he had for bass drum. They started him off on a click track and had him begin playing, then muted the click track for several minutes. To pass the audition, he had to be right on when they brought the click track back up. This was among other tests as well, but he ended up getting the part and has been there for about 5 years now.

That's exactly what Victor recommends in this video. But I theorize that your "internal metronome" and your twitch timing are two different things. You can still be on beat if you have a good internal metronome, but bad twitch timing means you can't hit it when you want to, even when you know where it should be.