 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Josiah Philiposian
Date: 2018-03-22 06:34
I was wondering if anyone had any good reccomendations for good metronome for Polyrhythms (either physical metronome or Android app, I don't own an iPhone). I have looked into the Dr. Beat db-90, but it seems a bit expensive... Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
-Josiah
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Author: dorjepismo ★2017
Date: 2018-03-22 07:33
I use Metronomics. It does a nifty job with the slow section of the third movement of Contrasts.
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Author: Mojo
Date: 2018-03-22 17:36
I use the free Pro Metronome and just upgraded it for $3 to include polyrhythms and subdivisions. Set it up for some 7/8 Bernstein I have been working on. 2-2-3 groupings. Works great for my needs!
MojoMP.com
Mojo Mouthpiece Work LLC
MojoMouthpieceWork@yahoo.com
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Author: Brad Behn
Date: 2018-03-23 01:00
I find it is crucial to be able to do it in my head. If I can't, I will never be able to do it on stage.
By "it" i mean keep time with precision. While I have a fancy metronome, I rarely use it for anything other than a simple tick-tock.
That said, it is sometimes helpful to have something which splices and dices time in eccentric fashion...but for me, that is a rarity.
I remember back in college at Northwestern University many many years ago. We had "pool" auditions. These were three times per year and they were used to determine whether a player did well enough to get in the top group of about a dozen players which would then rotate between Orchestra and WE.
I remember playing Daphnis and a few other excerpts thinking, believing, convinced that I played very well. When I got the comments back from the profs I was shocked that they said my Mendelssohn scherzo didn't have an even pulse, and that my Daphnis rushed.
I thought - NO WAY! I use a metronome EVERY time I practice those excerpts.
Turns out that I relied on the metronome in such a way that in the real world of the fake world of auditions, my internal clock lost some prominence in my body's ability to cope with the circumstances of all that was happening. In other words, I relied on the metronome to do the work of maintaining the pulse for me, and lacked the internal integrity of keeping ROCK SOLID time on my own.
So I started to use the metronome less and less, and substituted the metronome with my mind, and with a tape recorder. I listened back and was amazed by the progress.
In a few short weeks, my excerpts were solid, and my rhythm was improved with integrity.
Brad Behn
http://www.clarinetmouthpiece.com
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2018-03-23 01:42
Point well taken, Brad. That's an important thing to realize. Metronomics has a nice feature that will allow you to set a certain percentage of time that the metronome will be silent, forcing the user to keep time for themselves in the intervals.
TimeGuru is an app that specializes in this approach. You can set it to start like a regular metronome and then have it gradually decrease the amount of information it gives you as it runs. Hearing a beat only once every couple of measures is a great work out of that internal clock. TimeGuru also work well for the purpose the OP was asking about. For me an app that combines the best features of the two I've mentioned here would be close to ideal. I'd also love to have something like this that I could run on my PC. I'm not sure why everything has to be tablet/phone based now.
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Author: Mojo
Date: 2018-03-23 17:37
Part of practicing with a metronome is gradually phasing it out of your practice.
MojoMP.com
Mojo Mouthpiece Work LLC
MojoMouthpieceWork@yahoo.com
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Author: dorjepismo ★2017
Date: 2018-03-23 18:52
Yeah, well . . . anytime you get used to something, there's a possibility of taking it for granted. That can work for both relying on a metronome to practice and thinking you don't need one anymore. Same thing for tuners, unless you've got Strauss-level perfect pitch.
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Author: brycon
Date: 2018-03-23 20:48
Quote:
Yeah, well . . . anytime you get used to something, there's a possibility of taking it for granted. That can work for both relying on a metronome to practice and thinking you don't need one anymore. Same thing for tuners, unless you've got Strauss-level perfect pitch.
Yeah, to piggy-back on Nell's advice, metronomes and tuners are tools to build a sense of pulse and pitch. But just putting your metronome on every beat, or even every eighth-note, then phasing it out of your practice regime doesn't build pulse (likewise with the tuner needle and pitch). It's the underpants gnome problem, that is, there's a gap in the process: step one, practice with metronome; step two, ?; step three, phase metronome out of practice.
So students instead need to do things like put the metronome's beat on upbeats, beat 2 and 4, beat 2 of every bar, etc. Those sorts of exercises force you into subdividing and therefore build a sense of inner pulse. Moreover, they use the metronome as a tool rather than as a substitute for a conductor: the player's now responsible for the sense of time. Or as the great jazz pianist Barry Harris says: "You have to swing by yourself; you can't swing by the drummer."
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Author: dorjepismo ★2017
Date: 2018-03-23 23:18
Heard a lot of performances of Contrasts where people relied on subdividing. Very precise, but it doesn't sound right, because in Eastern Europe, they feel the stuff, they don't figure it out. Bartok doesn't and shouldn't sound like Stravinsky. For those of us who didn't grow up listening to a Bulgarian uncle playing the accordion, a metronome with polyrhythms is a lot more manageable than spending a year in a Balkan band living off cigarettes and ethnic brandy. Unless one is super good and only plays with other super good people, there are times when one doesn't get to the same place at the same time as the others. There's a danger in assuming it's always the other person's fault because one spent many hours in one's student days learning to subdivide with a metronome, and is beyond all that now.
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Author: Mojo
Date: 2018-03-25 20:47
Using it on upbeats, or once a measure, etc is part of phasing it out.
MojoMP.com
Mojo Mouthpiece Work LLC
MojoMouthpieceWork@yahoo.com
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