is metronome really helpfull?

[NuNo]

after talk with Jeff today,here it goes;

I appreciate all your comments about the metronome and would like to put this into the soup. I can proove inside of 10 minutes the misguided approach to using a click believing that it will give you good time. Maybe we can have this opportunity at some clinic some time.

Best,

Jeff

 

[Dave Grossman]

I appreciate all your comments about the metronome and would like to put this into the soup. I can proove inside of 10 minutes the misguided approach to using a click believing that it will give you good time. Maybe we can have this opportunity at some clinic some time.

Yeah, we've heard that before, many times. Proving or disproving the usefulness of a metronome is just not possible in 10 minutes. You may be able to prove something but it certainly won't be whether or not practicing with a metronome over a long period of time (weeks to months) can improve one's sense of time which is what this whole thing is about. It's like trying to prove that a plant doesn't grow when you water it by watching it for 10 minutes. It's not something that can be experienced at that time scale.

If anybody knows anything about this proof, please let us know. So far, nobody has been able to or willing to explain it.

If anybody doubts my claim that a metronome will improve your sense of time if you practice with one regularly, then just try it for yourself. The worst that will happen is that you have wasted $15 on a metronome. The best that will happen is that it will improve your sense of a time and you will be a better bass player because of it. Not using one may cost you a lot more.

- Dave

 

[NuNo]

Yeah, we've heard that before, many times. Proving or disproving the usefulness of a metronome is just not possible in 10 minutes. You may be able to prove something but it certainly won't be whether or not practicing with a metronome over a long period of time (weeks to months) can improve one's sense of time which is what this whole thing is about. It's like trying to prove that a plant doesn't grow when you water it by watching it for 10 minutes. It's not something that can be experienced at that time scale.

If anybody knows anything about this proof, please let us know. So far, nobody has been able to or willing to explain it.

If anybody doubts my claim that a metronome will improve your sense of time if you practice with one regularly, then just try it for yourself. The worst that will happen is that you have wasted $15 on a metronome. The best that will happen is that it will improve your sense of a time and you will be a better bass player because of it. Not using one may cost you a lot more.

- Dave

sorry Dave but i dont see where you getting...
just go to a clinic,it wont do you no harm...

peace
nuno

 

[Dave Grossman]

sorry Dave but i dont see where you getting...
just go to a clinic,it wont do you no harm...

If Jeff pays for my plane ticket, hotel and clinic fees, I'll go.

I stand by my claims and have offered ample explanation for why I feel they are true and how anybody can prove them for themselves. I have done this numerous times over the past few years.

I feel that Jeff owes it to us to explain his proof even if it can't be demonstrated here. It has been over two years since this began (at least, the TalkBass.com phase of the metronome controversy). I think he can tell us now. I seriously doubt that anyone is ever going to go to one of his clinics just to find out what his anti-metronome proof is, tempting as it may be.

- Dave

 

[Davehenning]

Excellent analogy.

Well said. A few years back, I had a lesson with German Doublebassist Sigi Busch. The subject of the lesson was what he called "microtiming". The idea was first to be able to play exactly "on" the beat, so as to make the metronome click disappear into the sound of the bass. Next we worked on playing to different degrees of playing ahead of and behind the beat, all the while discussing famous players who tended to play in different relations to the beat. It was one of the most illuminating lessons (in a big-picture kinda way) I've ever had. Without the metronome, the only other way to do this is to hire a band to attend all of my practice sessions, which could get pretty expensive.

I had a similar experience:

When I was starting out years ago, I had a teacher in NYC who used to make me clap rhythms with the metronome until it would disappear into the sound of my clapping. And this was usually with the metronome set as slow as it could go. Over the course of several months, my sense of time grew much stronger, much faster than it ever had using other methods. It was one of the best things that any teacher ever made me do. A huge eye opener. Especially when listening to the different player's approaches to the beat. Ray Brown certainly comes to mind.

In the end, I think that the player's ability to adjust their timing to whatever context they are playing in is the most important thing. (ie. playing with a drum machine vs playing with Jimmy Cobb)

Maybe the metronome is not for everyone, but the previous basketball analogy was pretty dead-on in my eyes. A metronome provides a context from which to work within. ie. a hoop for the ball
(or a hoop for the note, if you will)

 

[Ed Fuqua]

I think we may be getting closer to what Jeff is really trying to say, if the words "misguided approach to using a click" are an accurate quote. I guess we need to hear how he feels about a "well guided approach"?

Somebody had half-quoted an article they thought they remembered in which Gary Burton had made a rebuttal to Jeff's claims, I posted a question at Gary's website and this is the response I got:
"I'm not sure how I was quoted, but I can say that I think using a metronome is very helpful a developing player. I practiced improvising over a 6-12 month period with a metronome and managed to achieve a reliable sense of pulse and time as a result. I suppose that it could be overdone, as with all disciplines which might become too regimented, but I would never tell someone to avoid a metronome for practice becuase my own experience was a very positive one. - Gary
Gary
Boston, MA USA - Tuesday, June 25, 2002 at 20:18:05"

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

I
In the end, I think that the player's ability to adjust their timing to whatever context they are playing in is the most important thing. (ie. playing with a drum machine vs playing with Jimmy Cobb)

Maybe the metronome is not for everyone, but the previous basketball analogy was pretty dead-on in my eyes. A metronome provides a context from which to work within. ie. a hoop for the ball
(or a hoop for the note, if you will)

Bingo. If the stance against metronomes is really about "stiff time" being a necessary result of working with them, then I'd have to argue that that represents pretty shallow understanding of what working with a metronome is all about. I think you nailed it with the above.

 

[NuNo]

hello,

jeff says this;

"Jeff here. Gary's comment about his using a metronome as a young player relates to the fact that he was already a nearly fully formed azz musician when he started to use one. He could read music fluently, he studied his instrument with meaning since he was a child. By the time he was a teen, Gary could solo with the top percentage of jazz soloists in the world. Gary didn't mention that, as a boy where he grew up, drummers were hard to find. Much of the playing that he did as a young man was on his own. Therefore, a metronome was a rhythm section partner if he used it this way.

In general bass players today don't solo, can't read music, and have little experience as live players. Most electric players have had little music instruction and know little about generic musical content on their instrument, and certainly off of it. A metronome will never help a player like this to have good time.

If we meet up, I will prove to you the falicy of practicing with a click. Forum debates are difficult because the participants are too emotional about their opinions (for proof of this, watch and see the heated responses after this comment of mine). If we meet up sometime, please raise the question about metronomes and I will prove the supporters of metronomes wrong in person and face-to-face.

Best regards,

Jeff"

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

I won't speak for anybody else, but I feel no need to get all worked up over this. What I do find strange is the fact that Jeff feels the need to communicate through a third party...but that's with him, I guess.

Whatever. I'll still be practicing with my little drum machine this afternoon. If I'm making myself a worse player in the eyes of someone I've never met, I can live with that.

 

[Dave Grossman]

jeff says this;

That's the same thing he said 2 years ago in his TalkBass.com forum (aside from the Gary response).

I don't think there's much more that needs to be said. I think it is safe to say that most music teachers will encourage the use of a metronome. The only person I have ever heard say that people shouldn't is Jeff. While I find this quite unusual, one does have to realize that there are people who believe strongly about a great many crazy things that are so obviously and provably wrong that they would be laughable to most people. When an authority says them, people tend to take some notice though and unfortunately, some believe them. Just the fact that there is a "Flat Earth Society", people who believe in the "Moon Hoax" and people voting for Bush ( ) should be an indication of this.

As far as letting Jeff prove this to me face-to-face, it would be interesting but probably as pointless as letting someone attempt to prove that the Earth is flat.

The one caveat I would have about metronomes is that one should never let themselves be so accustomed to playing with one that they are unable to play without them. Not everything needs to be practiced with a metronome nor should it. Not everything needs to be in metronomic time either. Having a good time foundation which can be learned by practicing regularly with a metronome will help you have good time without one (or, at least, the majority of people). As I've said, easily provable and people should attempt to prove it or disprove it for themselves before making any judgements one way or another. I know for a fact that the time I have spent practicing with a metronome has improved my time.

- Dave

 

[Ed Fuqua]

Oh, gawd, I'm so overwrought with emotion I just have to post an inarticulate response.

Or get somebody to do it for me.

NUNZERO- please thank Jeff for his insightful biography of Gary Burton. Please convey my hope that, since he might have actually met Gary at Berklee when he was there, it's more accurate than his assessment of the educational background of "20's jazz musicians". He still has managed to avoid Gary's statement that he "would NEVER tell someone to avoid a metronome for practice". Perhaps Jeff just never had the opportunity to prove Gary wrong face to face while he was a student at Berklee.

If you would also assure Jeff that, as far as I can read here, no one is asserting that a metronome will teach a musician how to develop a line from a given harmony, will teach a musician anything about functional harmony, will teach a musician anything about physical approach to an instrument. They're a lot like videos that way.

Maybe since Jeff is teaching students at the Players School of Music face to face how wrong it is to use a metronome, some of them would be able to explain it to me face to face. I'm here in NYC, are there some PSoM students that are gigging up here that I could talk to? Cause so far all I got are big pros like Neal Miner, Peter Washington, Scott Colley, older cats like Ron and Reggie Workman. Who all talk about working on developing time feel with a nome.
Or younger cats like those on the board here -Ray Parker, Mike McGuirk, Savino, Marco - and some who aren't like Nathan Peck and Paul Beaudry and Cliff Schmitt. Who use or have used a nome for practice.

I'm naming some names cause you can go to records or the TBDB Johnson Chronicles and hear how these guys sound. And decide for yourself if the work they did with a nome is a waste and "wrong". I'm sure Jeff will say something to the effect of "well these guys wuld be playing with great time without the nome" and I can't speak to that. What I can speak to is my own personal experience. And that is - I used to have VERY BAD TIME. It wasn't because I didn't have any experience playing with people, I have recordings of performances from as recent as 1985, two years before I moved here. It wasn't because I "couldn't" solo, I just couldn't solo with good solid time. It wasn't because I didn't have music instruction, I had been to Berklee.
If you want to hear what i sound like now, there are a few sources, including the above named TBDB project. I have GOOD SOLID TIME now, what got me there was focused, consistent and progressive work with a metronome.
So I'm a great example of somebody who DIDN'T have great time anyway, who didn't learn to have a solid time feel by playing with other people and who had to put in a lot of work with a nome to get it.

Maybe Jeff's just got a faulty idea of how to work on time feel with a metronome...

 

[Jeff Bonny]

I think we may be getting closer to what Jeff is really trying to say, if the words "misguided approach to using a click" are an accurate quote.

No shyte. Every time I see the topic of Jeff Berlin and the nome I wonder why people have such a hard time getting past his bluster and to the POINT of what he is saying?

 

[Ed Fuqua]

No shyte. Every time I see the topic of Jeff Berlin and the nome I wonder why people have such a hard time getting past his bluster and to the POINT of what he is saying?

Well cause he always follows it up with a statement I personally have found to be incorrect ie working with a metronome is wrong. "Misguided approach" sure, there are as many ways to use a hammer in a misguided approach, but you don't hear any carpenters saying you should ditch them, right?
You don't get good time by turning on a metronome and twiddling, you have to work on it with the same sort of focus and consistency that you work on ear training. You don't sit at the piano and drop your hands for a little while, you approach it with some sense of building a foundation and moving forward, that you learn to crawl before you learn to run. Time feel is the same thing. In ALL these exchanges this is the first I have heard that it's not just ANY work with the nome, but the "misguided approach" that Jeff disagrees with. That would seem to imply a well guided approach, wouldn't it?

 

[NuNo]

well,now we´r going on the "funny,ironic side"
if Jeff´s statements are worseless or pointless just dont put your post´s please...if it was the same 2 years ago ,well just leave it!!!
i really think that most of you dont understand the true meaning of his judgement,hey i am not American nor English and understand quite good since the day 1!!!
whats funny is that he really gets all this fabulous musicians "burn",so if he is not right--------WHY????
I dont see anything wrong in putting Jeff´s words by ME,its still Jeff right???(like if that would make any diference)

peace and love,

nuno

 

[Dave Grossman]

No shyte. Every time I see the topic of Jeff Berlin and the nome I wonder why people have such a hard time getting past his bluster and to the POINT of what he is saying?

Here's what Jeff said:
"I can proove inside of 10 minutes the misguided approach to using a click believing that it will give you good time."

I think he meant:
"I can proove inside of 10 minutes the misguided approach of using a click believing that it will give you good time."

In this case, it's not the approach that is misguided but the use of a click at all that is misguided. I do not think he has ever advocated using a metronome in any way shape or form.

Here are various quotes from some interviews I just found via Google. I think the point is more than clear.

http://www.innerviews.org/inner/berlin.html
"There's nothing here that's never been said before, except maybe don't use a metronome to learn good time because it's not going to give it to you."

http://www.bunnybass.com/e-zine/interviews/jeffberlin.shtml
"By far, the biggest roadblocks are what these players have read in music magazines about learning how to play. Handgrips, metronome studies, major scales exercises that have been re-hashed to death "

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
"No handgrip, metronome, chops building concepts, speed exercises etc. etc. etc. will help a player to learn how to play better!"

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
"We don't use metronomes here, and the reason we don't is that time is not an hourly, click oriented event, time is an internal event. I get more arguements from people on that, that if they would only sit with me for five minutes, I would completely prove the point. But metronomes are not a way to get to have good time. Time is an internal event. The reason I know that, if you go back anywhere in history, to any musician, any tap dancer, any horn player, and you look at the time they put out, the great time, the great feel, it's never come from a metronome. They just played full time."

Link Removed
"Learn for the joy that learning brings. Play for the pleasure of playing. Put perfection where it belongs—in a box in the attic with your metronome, your blindfold, your handgrip, and your perfect-pitch exercises."

One can split hairs about what he meant in each of these statements but it is obvious that he dislikes metronomes and feels so strongly about it that he mentions this fact in almost every interview I've read. Myself and most other players here think he is wrong. When there is a disagreement, people naturally will attempt to support their statements with provable premises. We have yet to receive such a response on this subject from Jeff other than that he can only prove it face-to-face or vague notions that time is some internal thing that cannot be improved by using an outside constant time source.

Yet, on our side, we have offered many easily provable premises that can only lead to the conclusion that if used consistantly, over time, practicing with a metronome can improve one's sense of time (again, with the caveat that maybe some people can't be improved any more because they already have perfect time or because they are completely time-challanged).

Time is not normally perceived as constant. "Time flies when you're having fun.", right? To train our brains to be able to perceive constant time is a discipline that takes years of practice. Practicing with a constant time source is the best way to acheive this goal. Practicing in a band with a solid drummer is also useful but in my opinion, is not as good as playing with a discrete click for improving one's sense of time.

Until I receive a satisfactory explanation of why metronomes cannot help improve one's sense of time, I will continue to feel the need to set the record straight lest somebody take this anti-metronome stance too seriously and jeopardize their musicianship because they can't play in good time.

- Dave

 

[Dave Grossman]

if it was the same 2 years ago ,well just leave it!!!

When Jeff left talkbass.com, he deleted his forum and all of our posts. So, whereas, this thread is mainly rehashing what was said 2 years ago, that information is lost forever. We are now putting it in the archives so in the future, when people do a google search for "Jeff Berlin metronome" which I'm sure that many of us have done, these messages will be available. You will find similar responses at The Bottom Line mailing list and probably any other forums where this has come up. Because of this fact, I find it hard to believe that this is still coming up. Though, TimeCube guy ( Invalid Link Removed ) is still at it so I guess that answers my question.

To be honest, I find these discussions more intellectually stimulating that I do irritating. It is frustrating that we can't get a hint about what the anti-metronome proof is though.

- Dave

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

well,now we´r going on the "funny,ironic side"
if Jeff´s statements are worseless or pointless just dont put your post´s please...if it was the same 2 years ago ,well just leave it!!!

I think the good folks posting here are reluctant to "just leave it" for the same reason that Jeff himself is unwilling to do the same - both "sides" believe strongly in the validity of their argument, and feel that it does a disservice to younger players to give up the ghost, so to speak. What's good for the goose....

i really think that most of you dont understand the true meaning of his judgement,hey i am not American nor English and understand quite good since the day 1!!!
whats funny is that he really gets all this fabulous musicians "burn",so if he is not right--------WHY????

Burn? I don't see any burn. I see a couple of people rolling their eyes at the notion of some kind of "proof" that he is right that somehow can't be explained in the context of this discussion. Considering the format of where this discussion is taking place, that comes across as awfully "convenient". But like I said, I'm experiencing no particular "burn". I think the whole thing is rather amusing.

I dont see anything wrong in putting Jeff´s words by ME,its still Jeff right???(like if that would make any diference)

Wrong? Nah. Weird? You betcha. But that's fine too...I like weird.

 

[NuNo]

sorry Chris but my name is NUNO not nomone!!!
please have a little respect...

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

My apologies. "NoNome" (as in "No metroNome") was nothing more than a mild play on words which seemed to fit the circumstances. No offense was intended.

Kind regards,

DURRL

 

[Michael Manring]

Well folks, it’s not my wish to stifle free debate, but since this forum has my name on it I do feel obligated to ask everyone to exercise patience and etiquette here. I for one, am delighted to hear what Jeff has to say whether I agree with it or not, and I’m equally happy to hear opposing opinions from anyone who feels moved to post. This is obviously a subject we are all passionate about and that’s great -- it’s important! But I’m hoping we can proceed with the assumption that reasonable folks can disagree and that, hopefully, we can all learn from the opportunity to be exposed to various points-of-view.