Metronomes and Rhythm-Learning

Whistle
1

A post on another thread got me thinking (always dangerous).

I’m a newbie, playing about 6 weeks, having studied classical flute a little bit in my teens (30 years ago). It seems everyone advocates the use of a metronome. I had been hoping to avoid using one. When I was learning flute, the metronome was one of the things that finally sent my discouragement over the edge. The thing just froze my brain and my body. Trying to play duets with slightly more advanced students had the same affect. Eventually, I dismissed myself as not only musically hopeless, but rhythmically hopeless. I often can’t really hear a beat, and almost never can clap to one. (Don’t laugh; I’m bearing my soul here).

Went through the last 30 years thinking of myself as having no rhythm, and questioning whether rhythm could be learned. So, recently, I picked up the whistle and decided not to worry about it and to try to have fun, even if that meant playing alone only. Hoping perhaps that some rhythm and other musical sensibility might be learned by playing to recordings.

So, in the other thread, someone wrote that using a metronome could actually help one develop their internal sense of a beat.

My questions are:

  1. Do you (anyone here) believe that rhythm can be learned, and
  2. Do you agree that a metronome helps you develop your internal sense of beat (or rhythm)?

Sorry for the long post.

Bob

2

Don’t be too discouraged - there’s been more concentrated mention of the metronome in the last day’s threads than you’ll often see over the course of a month. And it was all (or mostly) in the context of how to speed the rhythm up - the kind of thing where having an objective standard reference is valuable.

I think the single best way to learn the rhythm is to listen to music. Listen until the differences between a double jig and a slip jig, or a reel and a hornpipe, seem obvious. Put the rhythms into your playing. Don’t worry too much about how many BPM you’re playing at first, just accuracy and feeling. Bring the speed up over time until you’re satisfied. The metronome is a useful tool for the last part, but not obligatory even there.

I’ve still got a long way to go myself - I’m hardly session-ready, unless it’s a slow session - but I’m improving. And though I sometimes use the metronome, I think, overall, playing along with a recording I like does more for me. Drives my family crazy when I spend an hour looping on the same track, though. :boggle:

3

I hate metronomes. I hate metronomes. I hate metronomes. I will not use one unless some one pays me to do so. I don’t care if it helps, it is no fun. Let me repeat that, it is no fun. Keep in mind that 99% of us are in this for fun, only 1% or less is going to be recording in a studio.

That said, my rhythm does need work :frowning: However, playing along to recorded tunes seems to be a more fun and more enjoyable method than the relentless mechanical beast. Do what works for you. Enjoy.

  • Bill
4

Indeed you are correct. It appears when first invented a metronome gifted to a famous composed was thown at the back of a door with the comment ’ a great door stop!’

However that said if you have tempo problems - keeping a nice steady pace - then there is nothing except a good percussionist/metronmome that will help.

5

An answer to the first is, when you are in a boat or ship do you have difficulty
with the rocking motion? If on a train does the ‘clickety clack’ and the rocking motion irritate you? When you hear music do you tap your feet to it?

When you hear a stinged sound do you hear the vibrations or do you instead ignore them?

6

There has to be a better way. Just say no to metronomes. The dialectic predicting metronomes for the future is wrong and based on faulty premises (yes tongue in cheek, but most readers get the idea that I am NOT going to use a metronome).

I have pretty good rhythm overall. The clickety clack of a train is relaxing. The rocking of a boat not so as I get seasick. My down fall is that, once in a while I seem to get half or quarter beat off. With a metronome, it is infuriating. In a duet or in a lead role, the other musicians can compensate. In a large group, best to wait to catch up on the next verse. I guess I can do the latter with a metronome, but again it is no fun. The metronome has no heart, no soul, and that is what I see as the essential ingredient to meaningful music of all kinds and all genres.

So all of you can keep your metronomes, and bless them. I will not use one (again, unless someone pays me, i.e. I become a professional musician, and that ain’t likely). As Lee Marsh keeps reminding us, enjoy your music.

  • Bill
7

My suggestion is: sing. Listen to instrumental music you like, and sing along with the melody using whatever syllables you like, “doodle oo doo doodlydoom bom” or whatever. Doing this in the car works well. Improvise counter-melodies, thinking more rhythmically than melodically. Have fun. Stretch and release rhythms by singing a little ahead or behind the beat. By singing simple syllables, you’re able to focus on the rhythms themselves, instead of the physical process of creating the sounds.

One very good band director I had in school always sang parts to give us an idea of what he was going for. We heard enough of it that he could say, "take it from the “ba-WEEE,” and we’d know what he meant.

8

Good advice.

Also, listen to the piece you want to do
and dance to it (not necessarily for an audience),
tap your feet to it.
Go to the beach or something and
and tap or dance it out on the sands
IMAGINING the music in your head.

When you practise that piece
imagine it playing in your head
and tap to it with your feet
and practise to that.

This is playing with music.
A metronome is for music workers!

Enjoy!

9

Absolutely. When I first started playing guitar–just chords, no lead–I couldn’t keep a beat to save my life. It probably took a couple of years to get just a little confidence in this. Now, over forty years later, I do pretty well at it.

  1. Do you agree that a metronome helps you develop your internal sense of beat (or rhythm)?

My first experience with metronomes was that they simply couldn’t keep a beat. Metronomes nowadays seem to be better at it.

I find that a metronome that has a different sound for accented beats is much easier to use. For me, using a heavily accented beat and tapping my foot on that beat makes it work pretty well.

One thing is not to try to play too fast. Play at a comfortable speed and only increase speed gradually.

If you get off the beat, just try to stop playing for a second, listen to the beat, and try to take up close to where you left off, but back on the beat. Being able to get back into a tune is a useful skill if you ever play with others. For me, it never works to try to catch up. I just get confused. It’s best to just pause.

One other point is to try humming or scatting the tune along with the metronome, and try to find the “swing” of the piece, then aim for that swing in your playing.

I’m not sure how essential a metronome is. I’ve only started used one over the past couple of years, mainly as a way of pushing my guitar-playing speed on Bluegrass fiddle tunes. It keeps me from speeding up on the easy parts, which is just as important as not slowing down on the hard parts.

I don’t see much point in using one with the whistle–on which I’m a complete beginner. If I ever decide to start playing fast tunes, I’d work them out slowly, as I do on the guitar, and then I might use the metronome at the end of the process to polish them up.

For the most part, I find that tapping my foot works pretty well.

10

Yes and yes.

I used to think I had good rhythm, but a teacher pointed out to me that I needed to work on playing steadily—and I really noticed this when hearing recordings of myself.

I began working with a metronome, which really helped. I guess most important is that I began to notice where my rhythm was off. If you don’t know you’re making a mistake, you won’t have the feedback your brain needs to learn.

If you can not clap along with a beat, tho, I’m not sure the best way to start developing that skill. I know there are educational software programs for learning musical skills; do any of them have exercises for developing rhythm?

But while we’re baring our souls, let me admit: until about last year, I was unable to tap my foot and play at the same time. As a child I was told never to tap my foot when playing, so I internalized the beat; as an adult, I found I’d confuse myself trying to tap and play together! It was like playing two instruments at the same time. No problem now, but this was actually a skill I had to develop with practice.

Caj

11

I hate my metronome because i can’t get it to follow me! :smiley:

Metronome is a very good tool to practice things slowly; to have something to prevent you from accelerating.

12

When I first began playing whistle, the metronome severely p*ssed me off… I just couldn’t play along with it at all.

I think it might have been the fact that I was trying to learn how to play the tune, listening to myself playing it, and having this bloody “tik-tik-tik-tak-” interfering with my ears and my braaaaain.

I found that once me fingers had ‘memorised’ the notes and I could play the tune to my own internal rhythm, that was when the metronome ceased to be a block and became instead a useful rhythmic accompaniment.

My 2p: Learn the tune first (to the point that your fingers know where to go on their own), and then use the metronome.

hth,

13

Some good points have been made. I especially like the point that it’s a good tool to keep you from speeding up. I have difficulty playing at a uniformly slow tempo.

Also, I believe Darwin mentioned metronomes that have a different sound for accented beats. I’ve never heard of that, but generally set mine to sound just the accented beats.

I don’t think a metronome is a panacea, nor should it be used all the time, but it is a good instructive tool, and, yes, it is possible to learn rhythm. You might need to relearn it occasionally in more difficult pieces, though.

14

I think the metronome is a useful tool, especially for beginners, if used correctly. I used a metronome regularly when I was studying classical guitar in the 70s and 80s. I firmly believe that it helped me develop a steady sense of rhythm which a number of people have remarked on, especially when I was playing for flamenco dancers. Now, I use the metronome for technique learning, like for slow practise of rolls or a particularly tricky phrase. The metronome helps me slow down the rolls while maintaining the temporal spacing of the notes. I don’t generally play whole tunes with it any more. The physical performance of music involves regular time intervals. Sure, that regularity is stretched by good players for a variety of reasons but if you don’t know how to play it straight you won’t get the expressional stretching right…IMO.
Mike

15

I would second the idea of dancing, if at all possible. I have a decent natural sense of rhythm, but my boyfriend is totally rhythm-deaf, if that’s what you call it. We started doing dancing (English & French country dancing–like what you’d see in a Jane Austen movie) and, while he still has difficulties, he’s gotten MUCH better. Even if you can’t tap your foot too well, your body as a whole, moving with other bodies especially, will be able to groove into it (not to be suggestive).

I just used a metronome for the first time last week (for violin) and I was happy & surprised to see that I was dead on. I use my whistle as a tool for figuring out the meldoy of the violin piece I want to learn–it’s MUCH easier if I have the melody in my head before tackling on the violin–and I was basically shocked to see that I was right on the beat.

Before playing music, I had always assummed I had no sense of rhythm, but apparently I do, and if I do, that means everyone does.

16

This appears to have been the plight of many of us. I played with a fife, drum and bugle band in the days or yore and the Master demanded we keep our feet still because it cost points in competition. On the other hand, most of our playing was while marching. Every try marching without moving your feet?

End result - today I have a problem playing and tapping a foot but I’m working on it. Micho Russel taps so loudly it sound like a bodrhan (sp). i tap feet, hands or fingers ALWAYS when listening to music, though. Hmmmm!

BillG

17

Could also try going to a dance club where you are hit over the head with the beat. Might be a good first step in picking up rythm. Plus, while you’re there, you can check out the all hot women/men, or whatever you’re into.

:wink:

18

Mac OS X users can try Dr. Betotte at http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11915

It’s $10 shareware and a demo is available. It includes a number of click sets, and the ability to add your own.

It’s a bit tricky to figure out at first, as the help is not overly verbose. The best thing for whistle is probably to run the quarter note slider to the top and the others to the bottom.

I think it’s well worth the money if you practice in front of your computer.

19

It just occurred to me that perhaps a more useful way to practice a particular piece is to play along with an ABC-generate version. The timing will be every bit as precise as that of a metronome, but you’ll also have the melody for knowing where you’re supposed to be in the song.

Now that I have BarFly, maybe I’ll use it instead of a metronome. An advantage of ABC is that you can modify the tempo. You can even modify the key, so that you can use different whistles.

20

I’d like to thank everyone who offered input and support regarding metronomes and rhythm. As an experiment, I tried playing a bit using www.metronomeonline.com, and it wasn’t so bad. Got me to thinking that perhaps, for me, the important thing right now is to use the metronome (occasionally, at least), and simply pay attention to whether I’m hitting the beat or not. In the past, I was always trying to count how many quarter or eighth-notes I was fitting between ticks on the metronome, and the process kept me too much in my head. I’m getting the feeling that if I simply have the metronome going, without getting all caught up in whether my rhythm is “right” or “wrong,” things will naturally gravitate in the more rhythmic direction.

[Sorry if the Subject was missing from this post. I did it as a Reply, and the Subject field showed up as blank. Am hoping that it automatically fills in upon Submitting]