So may I assume you use button-flies rather than zippered jeans?
Now, now. I hoped my OP showed that I do in fact appreciate that this is going to be good for me, but I’m having trouble with it right now as I’m just at the start. I do suppose any expression of understanding on my part might have been difficult to read beneath all my “Fuck this” and “I hate” ranting, but really if I didn’t understand what my producer wants me to acheive, I wouldn’t be spending my time with something that is causing me such frustration. I certainly agree with your “Anything that makes me better is good” sentiment.
But it’s gonna take a little time. I’ve got 15 years of bad habits that I’m fighting against. I suspect that a beginner would have an easier time of it.
My Bassist and Drummer, who are incredible and whom I’ve consulted for advice, tell me I’ve got to learn to love the metronome. As I understand it it’s all about getting really solid about the beat and not having to rely on an outside source for the groove. They’re kinda of the opinion that a drum machine would be a crutch in my situation because I could just dig into the groove already set. With the metronome one is no different from two is no different from three is no different from four. It’s my understanding that this simple tempo-keeping is supposed to be more beneficial to me (I expect to understand this better at the end of the process).
So do SDMB musician folks disagree? Would a drum machine be not only easier (which I’m sure it would) but also just as good for building the skills I ought to be building???
Do you play along with recordings? I developed a good real-world sense of time doing that, although it’s not going to turn you into a spit & polish virtuoso with machine gun 8th notes. That’s where the discomfort Hoops mentions becomes necessary.
(Although I would question whether you should do it to frustration. Physical exhaustion might be sufficient…not till you drop, but till you fall behind. Frustration is inevitable in learning, but it should be kept to a minimum, unless you’re going for some kind of headgame.)
Have you seen Sparks video “The Rhythm Thief”? It involves metronomes being stilled in some scenes. You might find it cathartic. You can watch their video on Yahoo Launch, just do a search for Sparks.
You may hate it, but if you plan on ever playing anywhere, dancers will LOVE you for being able to keep time.
I HATE HATE HATeHATEHATEHATE (well, you get the pic, I won’t use megafont :)) bands that can’t or won’t keep time properly.
IMO, they’re right - the metronome is better for what you’re trying to do. The drum machine would help and be easier, true, but you’d be adjusting your timing and playing to its “style”, rather than to a TEMPO.
If the goal is to get you to play YOUR style at a consistent pace, and internalize what, say, 60 beats per minute “feels like”, then it won’t help as much.
Unless of course you get a drum machine that plays nothing but a plain “hit on the snare drum every beat, no variation”, in which case it’s just a metronome that sounds like a snare instead of a tick.
Ow, my stomach… I’m in stitches… ow… 
Seriously, I feel your pain. 99.9999% of the time I want to chuck my metronome across the bloody room and through the window–preferably with a loud satisfying crash and shatter of glass–when I play the piano.
But… I can think of 2 ways to look at this situation-
there is something about that incessant, relentless, unending “tick tick tick” that drives me into higher and higher levels of ecstasy! Yes, yes, yes! Tick away Metro, baby! Give it to me in 2/4, no, 3/4, no! 4/4! time! Stroke, stroke, stroke…
Or…Pretty soon your very pulse is matching the knock knock knock of the beat…pounding thru your brain like a nail gun…until you don’t know where the sound starts and you stop. Time gets distorted as you are hypnotised by the sound of that ever steady bip bip bip bip bip…You cry out, but find that you are even breathing in time to the demon counter from hell. Alarmed, you call out, and jump up, away from the guitar and findr yourself on a ledge. Beat beat beat beat–the metro doesn’t care…you almost plunge but some small scrap of sanity stops you. You turn, grab the object of all your hate and heave it out the window…ah, blessed silence.
And then, from the open window, you faintly hear the tock tock tock tock of monotony…
no worries, my meds should kick in soon.
I am suddenly feeling very thankful to Mother Ribas for never making us use one of those, in 6 years of Music class and one of Music History.
She made us read the music first, marking the rythm with our arm, and then we’d play and she’d direct us like a conductor. But no tick tick tick tick thing…
Holy crap, did we go to the same high school? My band director would do the same thing, and then crank the speakers up so loud the floor would vibrate.
Heh. I started playing the flute when I was 7 years old. By the time I was 14 I was either 1st or 2nd chair in multiple youth symphonies and orchestras in the Twin Cities area (GTCYS, MYO, Minnetonka Orchestra). Thought I was The Shit.
Then I changed teachers. Was informed I couldn’t count the music at all. Spent numerous weeks doing nothing but learning how to keep a beat to the lurvely tock tock tock. I dreamed of menacing metronomes. I hated it. The metronome pointed out my weakness with a Nelson Muntz ha ha ha ha. Urgh.
I pulled it off the shelf a few months ago for LilMiss to use. She hates it also. I went and bought one that will either tocktock or beepbeep, but it still drives her nuts. Informed her it’s either the metronome or me counting the beat for her (now that I know how to!!).
Suffice it to say I hear tocktocktock quite often.
If I were you I’d stick with the metronome. Hate it all you want but it’s going to make you a better player.
My husband (drummer) and I (singer) have this conversation all the time. For him, playing with a musician (usually our pianist) who plays ahead of the beat (or behind the beat) hamstrings the rhythm section into trying to hold the tempo and restrists their creative ability. We’re a jazz group and being creative and improvising on songs that we’ve played a hundred times is what we’re supposed to do. When that becomes static because that gerbil behind the keys is racing ahead it just pisses everyone off and playing with someone who’s dragging is like torture.
Not to get off on my own rant or anything…
It’s good that you’re a secure enough musician that you can take a little constructive criticism to heart and work on your tempo issues. People take critique all different ways, most of them unproductive.
Have fun. And when the CD is done post a link or something.
Interesting. It may be the type of music I perform, but I can’t think of a single classical recording that I like that would offer the time sense of a metronome at the surface level.
Which is not to say that playing with a metronome is a bad thing. At some point in musical training it can be an excellent aid to getting a sense of an even pulse. Once that is mastered, then it’s possible to expressively diverge from that pulse, while still feeling it on a deeper level.
In my experience, listening to recordings/performances by master classical musicians can be problematic for beginners because it’s often easier to recognize the expressive nuancing of the tempo than sense the underlying beat. But YMMV in other musical styles.
(Try getting a young opera singer to perform Puccini “straight” and you’ll see what I mean.)
Fully agreed. I’d never (well, probably never) advocate using a metronome with actual music. Its role is in practice, with repetitive studies, patterns, scales, etc.
The OP should hear Ligeti’s Poeme Symphonique (scored for 100 metronomes)…
Pretend that the metronome is another musician—say a bassist—that is working with you. Thinking of the click that way helped me immeasurably, …
(looks around)
…dammit.
And, for what it’s worth, many, many songs are recorded today with a click (which, incidentally, sounds like a dampened guitar strum in Nashville, so I’m told, to aid in disguising it with the music.
Playing that way has no feel, you say? Approach it as you do that annoying rhythm guitarist who plays three or four clicks ahead—ignore it slightly. You’ll always have the reference when you need to come back.
It depends on the recording environment. With classical music there’s either a conductor making sure everyone is at the same place at the same time or in smaller ensembles (including some jazz & rock combos) the musicians themselves are giving visual cues regarding tempo, “expressive nuances”, and so on. It’s also recorded live (in the everybody-at-once sense, not in the in front of an audience sense). Since no point of future reference (which is a primary reason for a click) is required, the tempo can vary, and a metronome/click is unnecessary for that purpose. I don’t think that’s what bienville’s situation is going to be, though.
That’s a good point. I was thinking a drum machine would make it more fun, but I hadn’t thought of it this way. It forces you to make your own groove.