Speed on a metronome

[pipersgrip]

Nice info Hans, thanks.

[MarkP]

I'd agree with Hans (Gary's analysis), excluding ceili bands, those sound about right.

[Julia Delaney]

Big so-what. It's the wrong question. If you worry about speed you're worried about the wrong thing. Worry about playing it right and the speed will come. There isn't any way to work on speed, per se. You want to stay within your comfort zone as much as possible. That way you can play ornaments and variations effortlessly, as they come to mind. Frankie Gavin and Matt Molloy didn't get fast by trying to play fast. They got fast by becoming totally secure in the flow of the tune - and that won't happen if you push yourself to play faster than you can whilst still retaining good rhythm and phrasing.

[hans]

I agree, Julia. Personally I prefer to play reels quite slow, like a tune with 32 bars in about 45 seconds, which makes it about 85 bpm, sort of jogging speed, rather than running. I find the phenomenon of rattling down reels often quite unpleasant, not because I can't join in at such lightning speeds, but I find the melodic character gets lost, and after a few high-speed reels they all sound alike to me.

Maybe I am getting old , but I like it slow and comfortable

And for learning new tunes it is so much nicer to go about it in a slow way, and explore the melodic riches, and play around with ornamentation as one can only do at slower speed.

[Gordon]

120 BPM sounds quite fast.

Some good points here:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/18725

quoting Gary:

I spent an hour or so timing some of the videos at http://comhaltas.ie (actually downloads of the audio). I included many of my favorites and mostly excluded ceili bands, though I threw in two Under-18 bands out of curiosity. The format is Players, Rhythm, Video Clip #, Tempo. I don't think this site will allow me to line things up, so sorry if it's hard to read. Tempo is in beats per minute with two beats per bar. Listed from slow to fast in each rhythm.

Michael King hornpipes 244_2 72
Tara Breen hornpipes 244_1 76
Edel Fox hornpipes 260_1 77
Dylan Foley hornpipes 251_4 77
Bronwyn de Paor hornpipes 241_3 78
Maeve Flanagan hornpipes 250_2 84
Peter Horan hornpipes 252_5 92

Mairaid Corridan jigs 258_2 101
Maeve Flanagan jigs 242_3 110
James Mahon jigs 241_2 111
Sorcha Costello jigs 265_5 113
Kylie Moynagh jigs 257_3 113
Emma Sweeney jigs 241_4 116
Mike & Mary Rafferty jigs 242_5 116
Rowsome Family jigs 249_4 117
Billy McComiskey jigs 243_3 119
Peter Horan & Gerry Harrington jigs 252_6 121
Seamus Bugler & Paddy O'Donoghue jigs 257_5 125
John Whelan jigs 250_3 126
John McEvoy & John Wynne jigs 245_1 128
Mulcahy Family jigs 252_3 129

Carmel O'Dea reels 241_1 90
Carmel O'Dea reels 241_1 96
Erin McGeown reels 244_3 97
Kylie Moynagh reels 257_4 97
Maeve Flanagan reels 256_3 97
Bronwyn de Paor reels 241_3 97
Keith Gildea reels 244_5 98
Joan Hanrahan & Dympna O'Sullivan reels 266_5 99
Peter Horan & Gerry Harrington reels 252_4 99
Ernestine Healy reels 245_2 103
Joe & Joannie Madden reels 242_6 103
Fr. Charlie Coen reels 251_5 103
Jack Talty & David O'Brien reels 266_3 104
Session led by Billy McComiskey reels 250_5 104
Brian Conway & Maeve Flanagan reels 242_2 104
Joe & Joannie Madden reels 243_2 105
Laura Beagon reels 266_1 106
Billy McComiskey reels 242_4 106
Eugene Bender reels 250_1 107
Sean Walsh reels 245_4 107
O'Raghallaigh, O'Mahoney reels 240_6 107
Dylan Foley reels 252_2 107
Garry Shannon reels 246_3 108
5 young American fiddlers reels 250_4 109
Rose Flanagan & Dylan Foley reels 252_1 109
Deirdre & Eimear Reilly reels 258_5 109
Bobby Gardiner & Marcus Maloney reels 249_2 110
Tigh Na Coille Ceili Band reels 256_5 110
MacDarra O'Raghallaigh reels 254_1 110
Cruinniu reels 246_1 110
John McEvoy & John Wynne reels 245_1 111
Peter Staunton reels 245_3 111
Fergus McGorman reels 244_4 111
Mulcahy Family reels 248_1 111
Michael King reels 244_2 112
Tara Breen reels 244_1 112
Innis Og Ceili Band reels 256_6 112
Mick O'Connor & Oliver Diviney reels 241_5 113
John McEvoy & John Wynne reels 246_5 114
John Whelan reels 243_1 115
Brian Conway, Joannie Madden & Billy McComiskey reels 242_1 117

My rule of thumb for reels would be roughly:
Below 96 - unusually slow
97-103 - slow but not uncommonly so
104-112 - normal
113-120 - fast but not uncommonly so
Above 120 - warp speed

For reference, the time it takes to play 32 bars (typically AABB at 8 bars per part) is:
40 seconds = 96 bpm
39 seconds = 98 bpm
38 seconds = 101 bpm
37 seconds = 104 bpm
36 seconds = 107 bpm
35 seconds = 110 bpm
34 seconds = 113 bpm
33 seconds = 116 bpm
32 seconds = 120 bpm
31 seconds = 124 bpm
30 seconds = 128 bpm

I feel silly. All these years, I was just tapping my foot.

[Julia Delaney]

I don't know what this means: All these years, I was just tapping my foot. I think it's a very good thing to be tapping your foot while you play. It helps keep the beat.

Speed is often nice for dancers. And sometimes speed can enhance rhythm and phrasing. But it is never a substitute.
A player is good or not regardless of his tempo. Lively isn't the same as fast.
And if speed matters and you do want to play fast then you have to learn to play slowly.

[pipersgrip]

I don't know what this means: All these years, I was just tapping my foot. I think it's a very good thing to be tapping your foot while you play. It helps keep the beat.

Speed is often nice for dancers. And sometimes speed can enhance rhythm and phrasing. But it is never a substitute.
A player is good or not regardless of his tempo. Lively isn't the same as fast.
And if speed matters and you do want to play fast then you have to learn to play slowly.

I think it was a joke towards the simplicity of the rhythm.

[MTGuru]

And if speed matters and you do want to play fast then you have to learn to play slowly.

And then you have to learn how to play fast. The one doesn't guarantee the other.

As a descriptive, not prescriptive, overview, I think Gary Martin's analysis is very interesting. When it comes to self-reporting, we all know that musicians often do not do what they say they do. A bit of objective, quantitative reporting is a good thing.

[straycat82]

Lets say I want to play Miss McLeod's in 4/4 time at 120 BPM. Do I:

1) play it so that 1/4 note = 120 and feel all wonderfully competent (2G 2g ed eg); or
2) play it so that two 1/2 notes = 120 and feel like a finger tangled duffer? (2G2g edeg)

I fear the latter...

Well ...

By definition, 4/4 means 4 beats per measure and a quarter note gets one beat. That's your #1.

But ...

Reels are usually counted in Cut Time = 2/2. Which is 2 beats per measure and a half note gets one beat. So that's your #2.

Your fear is justified.

Whatever you do, don't get so caught up with the idea of needing to make it to 120 BPM that you over-simplify the tunes and "fake" your phrasing. I've seen way too many people do that these days and it makes for extremely boring and monotonous fast music. I've sat in sessions with folks who were incapable of playing at a pace below 120 because they really didn't have all of the notes to the tunes.
I would always rather hear a skilled rendition of a tune played at a pace below 120 than a sloppy fast-paced tune with half the notes faked with rolls and fluttering fingers. That said, I've nothing against a fast paced tune and have stood in awe of some great musicians who were able to skillfully take it there without compromising the tunes.
Practicing slowly was good advice but so was the comment about slow leading to fast. Truth is, you need to really practice both (though the slow must come first, IMO).

[AaronMalcomb]

120 bpm on a reel should have 1 beat = 2 quarter notes.

But I agree it's too fast.

Metronome use is not so much for increasing tempo but controlling it. It's also good for rhythm control too and for playing to an external reference.

If you find the tune and/or tempo getting away from you, even when tapping your foot, this is where a metronome is a good tool.

When I do metronome work I pick a moderate tempo, double it and use different sounds. Instead of 120 bpm, I'd drop it to 80-90 bpm, double that and then have a "tick" for the first beat and a "tock" for the next. So on the 1-2-3-4 rhythm I play 1 on the "tick" and 3 on the "tock," putting extra accent on the 1. It's also important to tap your feet to the metronome too.

[Gordon]

I don't know what this means: All these years, I was just tapping my foot. I think it's a very good thing to be tapping your foot while you play. It helps keep the beat.

Yes, it was a joke...

[Cathy Wilde]

Very interesting. Thanks for passing on that info, Hans!

My fellow plays for feis (feisanna? I can never keep how plural(s) work straight ) periodically and has one coming up next weekend, so !what a coicidence!, we actually spent a fair amount of time this weekend with a metronome -- around 110 for jigs, 72 for traditional hornpipes, 112-114 for reels & some other tempos for things like set dances, open hornpipes, treble jigs and the like. (Can't/don't want to keep all that straight, either, sorry.)

But more important, we spent considerable time and energy pinpointing a larger body of specific tunes that work best at those speeds (The Mountain Road, The Silver Spear and The Star of Munster get kinda old after 400 times ). Anyway, it all cemented our belief that there are some tunes that work grand at 120, and some that just flat don't (at least not for us), and that it's up to the musician to be smart about what works where.

Just figured I'd throw that in as a general consideration -- while most people recover from speed syndrome eventually, I have run into players who rigidly hew to a set tempo like 120 on every reel because "that's the tempo reels are supposed to be played," and IMO it makes for some really boring, flat music after a while -- two hours under a firehose of notes. And in the too-many sad cases where the musicians are overfaced, it makes for stuff where the ends of phrases are dropped/scrambled, ornaments are gobbledygook, turns & changes are nonexistent or worst of all, the tempo just keeps speeding up and a train wreck is inevitable.

We all know the real trick is not to *sound* like you're going fast; an even tougher trick is to sound lively.

But for fast stuff, it also helps to choose a tune that's built for speed.

[Clinton]

All very good stuff so far. And it I am heartened to hear that, for the most part, musicality still trumps raw speed for most folks (except perhaps for when playing for dancers). I am very much in the "play it well before you play it fast" school, and am comforted to find a few others who are there as well!.

I do, as part of learning a tune (an ongoing process), spend some of my practice time pushing the speed limit, sort of a "testing to destruction" exercise. I find it is a fast way to highlight tricky technical passages, and it also helps me decide if the breathing points I have chosen actually work or not.

Clinton