I picked up a couple of days ago a digital metronome--
cost about 19 dollars, with battery. I've been using it
to practice jigs. I think it's already proving helpful.
I find that staying on the beat, at a low rate, is a good
way to master jigs. I notice now that before there
were passages which I played fast and others
slow, because I had mastered the fast ones.
Playing too fast is a common problem, I think,
especially in learning tunes.
Seems a good way to improve.
Metronome
- I.D.10-t
- Posts: 7660
- Joined: Wed Dec 17, 2003 9:57 am
- antispam: No
- Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA, Earth
In addition to playing along with good recordings, I find the little box a great way to improve playing. I do not know which model you have, but mine can also play a tone. I find that if a tune has a lot of D,E,F in it that by setting the tone to D helps me stay in tune.
It does make me wonder, are there songs that are suppose to change tempo during the song the way that some change keys? I know some songs that are repeated and each time the tempo gets faster, but the tempo is the same through the section.
It does make me wonder, are there songs that are suppose to change tempo during the song the way that some change keys? I know some songs that are repeated and each time the tempo gets faster, but the tempo is the same through the section.
"Be not deceived by the sweet words of proverbial philosophy. Sugar of lead is a poison."
- Father Emmet
- Posts: 636
- Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2003 1:35 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Craggy Island
- ChrisA
- Posts: 629
- Joined: Wed Apr 24, 2002 6:00 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Central MA
/me counts the seconds until MurphyStout tells us to all throw out our metronomes...
I agree that they are definitely helpful. It's easy to develop a catch where you slow down for a difficult phrase and then speed up again, or to play one section at a slightly different tempo than another section. The metronome will iron that out right away. And keep you from playing faster and faster until your fingers tangle. I brought mine out for the first time in months to hammer out some timing issues.
Mine is a fairly cheap one, but it's plenty loud. I can't set the noises to a particular pitch though.
It does have multiple tones, so you can set it to 2-beat, 3-beat, etc. and every Nth beat will be the other tone. This is kinda useful in setting slipjigs apart from doublejigs, and in being a little less, err, monotonous. Mostly it helps keep my foot-tapping at a fixed pace.
(Technically, then, it isn't monotonous at all, it's ditonous... or something. )
I agree that they are definitely helpful. It's easy to develop a catch where you slow down for a difficult phrase and then speed up again, or to play one section at a slightly different tempo than another section. The metronome will iron that out right away. And keep you from playing faster and faster until your fingers tangle. I brought mine out for the first time in months to hammer out some timing issues.
Mine is a fairly cheap one, but it's plenty loud. I can't set the noises to a particular pitch though.
It does have multiple tones, so you can set it to 2-beat, 3-beat, etc. and every Nth beat will be the other tone. This is kinda useful in setting slipjigs apart from doublejigs, and in being a little less, err, monotonous. Mostly it helps keep my foot-tapping at a fixed pace.
(Technically, then, it isn't monotonous at all, it's ditonous... or something. )
- Jon C.
- Posts: 3526
- Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2001 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: I restore 19th century flutes, specializing in Rudall & Rose, and early American flutes. I occasionally make new flutes. Been at it for about 15 years.
- Location: San Diego
Try the metronome on line. It also has a A=440 htz tone, handy for doing a quick tuning up.
www.metronomeonline.com
www.metronomeonline.com
"I love the flute because it's the one instrument in the world where you can feel your own breath. I can feel my breath with my fingers. It's as if I'm speaking from my soul..."
Michael Flatley
Jon
Michael Flatley
Jon
I live in the inner core of this city does that make a metro gnome
Back on track, I have a metrnome with an earjack that I can slip into my ear that I use when I get to the point when knowing a tune and I have to work on the rhythm.
MarkB
Back on track, I have a metrnome with an earjack that I can slip into my ear that I use when I get to the point when knowing a tune and I have to work on the rhythm.
MarkB
Everybody has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.
- MurphyStout
- Posts: 737
- Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2002 6:00 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: San Francisco
- Wormdiet
- Posts: 2575
- Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 10:17 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: GreenSliabhs
TO which one could reply. . ."Who gives a d@mn?"MurphyStout wrote:You can stop counting now Chris. I wonder what kind of metronome Paddy Canny had :roll:ChrisA wrote:/me counts the seconds until MurphyStout tells us to all throw out our metronomes...
The point is that technology per se is neither good or bad - if people are helped by it, so much the better.
Gotta go hitch up the horses to hit the session guys, later.
OOOXXO
Doing it backwards since 2005.
Doing it backwards since 2005.
- Cathy Wilde
- Posts: 5591
- Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2003 4:17 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Location: Somewhere Off-Topic, probably
I hate metronomes. Despise them. Refuse to use 'em. THAT said, I have been privileged to play with various brilliant conductors, teachers, directors, and now some rock-solid session musicians -- so after 30+ years with such folks, by now I'm inclined to think I've got pretty good tempo sense pounded into my head.
(Plus of course, there were those nasty years in high school and college locked in a practice room with one of the aforementioned Accursed Instruments of Torture).
BUT, for people who don't have the opportunity to play with others (especially, say, a really, really solid accordion player -- check out Paddy O'Brien (RIP) to see what I mean) and have the general "group beat" to either drag or push them through the sticky stuff, I don't see anything wrong with a metronome.
And of course, if you're going to play for dancers, esp. at a feis, you're very, very wise to have one.
Finally, I suspect even a few great players suffered the metronome under the watchful aegis of various and sundry nuns -- at least in their formative years!
So maybe Paddy Canny didn't need one. But then again, Paddy Canny had some pretty solid players around him more than once in a blue moon.
Just a few thoughts from the hinterlands .....
(Plus of course, there were those nasty years in high school and college locked in a practice room with one of the aforementioned Accursed Instruments of Torture).
BUT, for people who don't have the opportunity to play with others (especially, say, a really, really solid accordion player -- check out Paddy O'Brien (RIP) to see what I mean) and have the general "group beat" to either drag or push them through the sticky stuff, I don't see anything wrong with a metronome.
And of course, if you're going to play for dancers, esp. at a feis, you're very, very wise to have one.
Finally, I suspect even a few great players suffered the metronome under the watchful aegis of various and sundry nuns -- at least in their formative years!
So maybe Paddy Canny didn't need one. But then again, Paddy Canny had some pretty solid players around him more than once in a blue moon.
Just a few thoughts from the hinterlands .....
Deja Fu: The sense that somewhere, somehow, you've been kicked in the head exactly like this before.