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Humans with perfect internal tempo? Do they exist?
- Thread starter ThinCrappyTone2
- Start date
Me.
I'm a classically trained pianist in a previous life, and figure I have at least a year or two in aggregate practicing with metronomes, I got hard-wired in the brain by Seth Thomas.
Here's the easy test. Watch a clock or watch with a second hand that steps each second, not a smooth sweep like a Rolex or some wall clocks. That's 60 beats per minute, obviously.
When it crosses 12, count along with it for the first 10 or 15 seconds. Keep counting but look away. When you get to 45 or 50, look back at the timepiece and see if you're still synch'd up.
I won a lot of money on bets I couldn't do it . . . . Of course in a band, if one guy was dragging, I'd hear it right off the bat. Strangely, it was OK if the whole band was a little behind the beat. If the only one dragging or speeding up was the drummer against the rest of us, that was a real pain.
I also knew one guy with almost perfect pitch, and a woman who absolutely had it 100%. I'm convinced it can be a curse after being with them. Hers was so acute to the point she could hear the bend in tempered tuning, a perfectly tuned grand piano was barely tolerable on some days.
I'm a classically trained pianist in a previous life, and figure I have at least a year or two in aggregate practicing with metronomes, I got hard-wired in the brain by Seth Thomas.
Here's the easy test. Watch a clock or watch with a second hand that steps each second, not a smooth sweep like a Rolex or some wall clocks. That's 60 beats per minute, obviously.
When it crosses 12, count along with it for the first 10 or 15 seconds. Keep counting but look away. When you get to 45 or 50, look back at the timepiece and see if you're still synch'd up.
I won a lot of money on bets I couldn't do it . . . . Of course in a band, if one guy was dragging, I'd hear it right off the bat. Strangely, it was OK if the whole band was a little behind the beat. If the only one dragging or speeding up was the drummer against the rest of us, that was a real pain.
I also knew one guy with almost perfect pitch, and a woman who absolutely had it 100%. I'm convinced it can be a curse after being with them. Hers was so acute to the point she could hear the bend in tempered tuning, a perfectly tuned grand piano was barely tolerable on some days.
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I don't think anybody has machine-perfect time, but the closest to perfect I've encountered was drummer Dan Wojciechowski. I got to do some commercial studio work with him a couple of decades ago, and he could absolutely bury the click at any tempo.
We'd be doing a 60 second jingle, and after running it once, find out that it was a second under. So, the producer would say, "Slow it down about 3 clicks", and Dan would play it at the new tempo and make it feel just as good as the previous run. Most humans will automatically pull toward the tempo they just played, especially when it is very close to the new tempo. Not Dan.
Granted, recording was always with a click, but it has been my experience that someone who can nail a click that well can also keep near-perfect time without one.
I've done a couple of demos with a group and we didn't use a click track, although the engineer lobbied hard to put us on one the first time in his studio. We asked if we could warm up by running through the four songs we were doing without a click track. When we finished that first run through, he said we didn't need one. We did the same on our next visit.
We didn't need one because we spent a couple months of once a week getting together and doing only those four songs for a few hours, and we had an outstanding drummer.
We didn't need one because we spent a couple months of once a week getting together and doing only those four songs for a few hours, and we had an outstanding drummer.
there are people with really good rhythm and people with really bad rhythm, so it would follow that at the extremes of the spectrum there are some people with NO rhythm and some others with effectively perfect rhythm.
of course it would be useless without also developing perfect feel. In a drummers case, perfect stick control, rudiments, techniques, knowledge of styles, beats, rhythms etc.
all that stuff is way more important.
with pitch, there's a lot of people with very good relative pitch, but a very select few with actual perfect pitch. ive heard anecdotally that they consider it as much a curse as a blessing. they can get very distracted, or even physically irritated by a tone thats off by a few cents. that would not be a good trait for a jazz player for example. same would be true with tempo. as someone else said above, real music breathes.
take Headhunters' Chameleon. some of the best musicians in the world and that thing speeds up like crazy. im sure they didn't do it by "accident" but it goes to show that the greatest musical minds don't necessarily stick to a monolithic metronomic meter.
of course it would be useless without also developing perfect feel. In a drummers case, perfect stick control, rudiments, techniques, knowledge of styles, beats, rhythms etc.
all that stuff is way more important.
with pitch, there's a lot of people with very good relative pitch, but a very select few with actual perfect pitch. ive heard anecdotally that they consider it as much a curse as a blessing. they can get very distracted, or even physically irritated by a tone thats off by a few cents. that would not be a good trait for a jazz player for example. same would be true with tempo. as someone else said above, real music breathes.
take Headhunters' Chameleon. some of the best musicians in the world and that thing speeds up like crazy. im sure they didn't do it by "accident" but it goes to show that the greatest musical minds don't necessarily stick to a monolithic metronomic meter.
All I know is my last drummer didn't have this.
I have uncanny macro tempo, waking 2 minutes before my alarm clock each day.
And every player knows its harder to play at lower BPM
And every player knows its harder to play at lower BPM
A drummer friend of mine labelled me "the human metronome".
Perhaps it has something to do with having a drummer with 50 years experience (a very tight rhythm section) in the family?
Whilst I thank him for the credit, there's times when I'm way off. I'm only human.
Perhaps it has something to do with having a drummer with 50 years experience (a very tight rhythm section) in the family?
Whilst I thank him for the credit, there's times when I'm way off. I'm only human.
No need to worry. The best musicians with excellent time (doesn't even have to be "perfect") know how to play ahead of or behind the beat as needed to achieve the most effective and "human" feel for a particular song.
It is.
Funny story: a former girlfriend had perfect pitch, she threw out her microwave because the humming was somewhere between an F# and a G and it drove her nuts. She bought a new one and insisted on hearing it in the store just to be sure.
I've played with drummers whose derivative of the 'beat' function was perfectly random.
My internal tempo is perfect - I'm just not sure why everyone else I play with is off
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Strangely enough, it was a college dorm mate in the Piano Technology program circa '77. He would tap his fingers on an adjacent surface while tuning a piano to gauge the "beats".
Riis
Riis
I’ve played with one drummer who had not only perfect tempo but also such dynamic control that every snare backbeat would sound the same when desired. No surprise he was an A-list studio drummer for 50 years.
Perfect, who knows? But like most things human, it's a skill that can be developed and improved upon with practice.
I'd like to think that I have great time form years of metronome practice, but it all goes out the window if you're playing with a front man that leads/lags for any number of reasons. I've tried "correcting" people's time by dictating pace with my bass......and it usually never works on a gig. If the person leading the tune can't keep time, they aren't going to listen to the time keeper for queues to begin with!
I'd like to think that I have great time form years of metronome practice, but it all goes out the window if you're playing with a front man that leads/lags for any number of reasons. I've tried "correcting" people's time by dictating pace with my bass......and it usually never works on a gig. If the person leading the tune can't keep time, they aren't going to listen to the time keeper for queues to begin with!
D
