metronome or no?

[doran]

I did looked around on the internet today for other people to play with here in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Depressing... looks like the closest session happens every other week sixty miles away. But, on the bright side I still believe that if I go wander around the music department on campus I may find somebody who plays irish music or even tin whistle.

I first saw a tin whistle close to St. Paul. I was up in Ely last summer guiding canoe trips for the Boy Scouts. Somebody had just bought a whistle, and couldn't play anything on it yet. (I think it was a Clarke.) I saw the whistle and said, "Hey! There's something I could bring camping with me!"

In the fall, I listened to a lot of clips online and ordered a Susato. (None of the local music stores offer any tin whistles.) Now I've got a Dixon with which I'm very happy. My goal is to learn enough tunes by the time this summer is here that I don't drive my Boy Scouts ,or myself, nuts playing the same things over and over!

For now it looks like I'll be playing with books and CDs, and soon a metronome sometimes, instead of people. It's been a lot of fun learning that way so far.

Happy Valentine's Day everybody!

[Kate Dowling]

I don't know where Stillwater is in relation to Tulsa, but I do have a friend in Tulsa who plays fiddle whom I could get you in touch with, if you're interested.

[Wombat]

Actually, I did a very primitive piece of software (Windows) a few weeks ago to help you find out if your rhythm is allright. You can tape yourself play a tune, and then listen to the recording while using the software. You click or hit any key every time there's a beat, and the software is going to give you statistics on the average beat per minute, so every 10 beats you're gonna have a result, so that at the end you see the progress. Anyway, it could be helpful if you're curious to see how bad or good you're doing in term of rhythm.

http://www.metayer.info/tempo/tempoanalyzer.exe

I found out I was allright if I kept conscious about my rhythm, but I'm sure that if I forget about it then all hell breaks loose

I also wonder if there's some software out there that can actually analyze a track and analyze it's rhythm, I'm sure it wouldnt be impossible with sound recognition.

I've been thinking about this, Az, and I was wondering if you might get distorted results from a device like this. I'm not entirely sure but this was the possible problem I saw. Although ITM players don't push or drag the beat to anywhere near the same extent as jazz and blues players, they do phrase a tiny bit off the beat deliberately some times. In particular, I think that to get lift, a player might push the beat ever so slightly for a few measures. I don't have a way of checking this because there is nothing pronounced as with jazz and blues where the effect is obvious. That might mean that when you are pushing the beat, the gadget might tell you your rhythm was poor when it might not be.

In predigital days, rock drummers would even speed up and slow down a bit to build and release tension. This wouldn't be a good idea for Irish dance music and it's what you want your gadget to pick up. These days, almost every record producer uses a click track which is, in effect, a metronome. It makes digital editing so much easier. So drummers no longer speed up and slow down. They have told me though that they try to achieve the same effect by pushing or dragging the beat, hence my concern about that devise.

[Azalin]

Wombat,

I'm really not knowledgeable enough about ITM to have an accurate answer, but my understanding is that you will get this special swing and lift by making certain notes longer and shortening others, not by changing the rhythm itself. But then maybe I don't understand exactly what you're saying. You also have step dancers who require pretty accurate timing, and I know of at least one musician who's going to use a metronome for certain type of step dances because having a steady rhythm is very, very important for the dance.

I know that the tool I wrote is looking at the average beats per minutes, so being faster for a little while wouldnt make much of a difference.

[buddhu]

Actually, I did a very primitive piece of software (Windows) a few weeks ago to help you find out if your rhythm is allright. You can tape yourself play a tune, and then listen to the recording while using the software. You click or hit any key every time there's a beat, and the software is going to give you statistics on the average beat per minute, so every 10 beats you're gonna have a result, so that at the end you see the progress. Anyway, it could be helpful if you're curious to see how bad or good you're doing in term of rhythm.

http://www.metayer.info/tempo/tempoanalyzer.exe

I found out I was allright if I kept conscious about my rhythm, but I'm sure that if I forget about it then all hell breaks loose

I also wonder if there's some software out there that can actually analyze a track and analyze it's rhythm, I'm sure it wouldnt be impossible with sound recognition.

I think there's a facility like that in the sequencer I use. It also has an equivalent of your tap-the-keyboard tempo-grabber. The one I use is Magix Music Maker. A relatively cheap, but very capable sequencer that I've stuck with through several versions.

[dubhlinn]

Wombat,

I'm really not knowledgeable enough about ITM to have an accurate answer, but my understanding is that you will get this special swing and lift by making certain notes longer and shortening others, not by changing the rhythm itself. But then maybe I don't understand exactly what you're saying. You also have step dancers who require pretty accurate timing, and I know of at least one musician who's going to use a metronome for certain type of step dances because having a steady rhythm is very, very important for the dance.

I know that the tool I wrote is looking at the average beats per minutes, so being faster for a little while wouldnt make much of a difference.

I think that both Az and Wombat have valid points here which I believe boil down to the same thing.
Musicians who play together on a regular basis develop an empathy with each other that borders on the telepathic.Minute changes in the length of the note or similar tiny variations in the rhythm combine to give a tune it's swing or ,if you like ,its character.
An almost indiscernable push or pull on the beat here and there will combine with a similar stretching of the notes duration to give something that cannot really be written down for someone else to play,and this is what makes the difference between a cold dull rendition of a tune and a heart warming foot tapping enjoyable feast of good playing may it be Jazz,Blues or Irish Trad.

This is what the conducter does in Classical music and would explain why one version of a Symphony is more highly rated than another.After all the notes are all the same in any classical work.


Slan,
D.

[Wombat]

Az, let me try to explain again although Dubhlinn clearly gets what I'm saying. I'm really not sure what is being measured here so maybe we have crossed wires. I think that, to be useful, something like that would not tell you you are slowing down by two beats every minute. You simply aren't going to be out by that much. What you need is software that tells you where you are placing your notes in relation to the beat ..slightly early ..slightly late ..a bit of both ..and when.

Even if you had that, I'm not sure it would be all that helpful. A good player might push the beat sometimes and delay at others ..then you'd get the averaging giving you the right answer ..nothing wrong with the rhythm. But a bad player whose deviations are random and don't give lift might average out too and then you'd get the wrong answer. Also, I think that some players might push the beat much more than they drag it. I mean they might push sometimes and play on the beat at others. There would be nothing wrong with that. As an example, I'd guess that 'caffeinated' sound Conal O Grada gets is the result of pushing the beat much more than people usually do. So if a player didn't average out that might depend on their style and not on their having bad rhythm. They might still always know very well where the beat is.

All that said, I might simply not be understanding your proposal. Still, even if I've got you completely wrong, the stuff about where you accent in relation to the beat isn't wrong so I guess it won't be doing any harm.

[peeplj]

I have heard many trad musicians who drive the beat by coming down hard and a touch ahead of the beat.

Judging from the recordings I have, this seems to be a fairly common practice.

--James

[Azalin]

All that said, I might simply not be understanding your proposal. Still, even if I've got you completely wrong, the stuff about where you accent in relation to the beat isn't wrong so I guess it won't be doing any harm.

Well, I think you're talking about phrasing, and I'm talking about rhythm. I think a tool can help you work on your rhythm, but I don't think any tool could help you work on phrasing or "swing". Even though a tool might tell you where notes are pushed, or a little bit longer or shorter, it doesnt mean you'll understand it. I think it's only by listening to the real stuff that you'll get some sens out of it.

[Miwokhill]

I agree with PhilO's original suggestion about the Korg metronome. Nice price especially.
It's easy to think that using a metronome will make you sound robotic but I think you should be able to keep a constant beat and then you can work on swing or nuances such as slowing down or speeding up slightly.
What I've found is that when I'm playing I'll slow down at the harder parts and then after even learning the tune still do this. Then if I try to play with a metronome this becomes painfully obvious. It will be the same while playing with others. The whole group will slow down but it's not that they're feeling the ebb and flow of the piece but that everyone is slowing down at the harder parts so no one gets left behind. Bringing out a metronome at this point will actually make people mad because they thought they were playing along just fine and suddenly it's a bunch of beginners.
So even if you're against using a metronome, try using one and see if you can keep time to it. --mike

[ChrisA]

I have heard many trad musicians who drive the beat by coming down hard
and a touch ahead of the beat.

Judging from the recordings I have, this seems to be a fairly common practice.

--James

I have heard this said before, and it still doesn't make sense to me.

The beat of the music is defined (to the listener) by when the instruments play the accented
note. If you had a rhythm section, and the melody was coming in a touch ahead of the
rhythm, then the idea might make sense, but mostly, there's only a melody line.

Still, it's definitely true that there are different 'pacings' of the music (by which I mean,
a reel at 120bpm can sound 'driven' or 'laid back' even though it's the same speed), but
it seems very strange to me that whether one plays the note just before, just on, or just after
one's foot comes down cannot make the difference.

I think the accented notes tend to be attacked differently depending on where the musician is
relative to the beat, and that's what makes the difference, but maybe it's something else in
the phrasing.