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I don't think Bollenback or Adam Rogers have any issue with feel. Like anything else it's a balance. Playing with a metronome is just like playing with a drummer with perfect time. Nobody's time is perfect. IMO, it's a strawman argument to suggest that someone will develop perfect time and become a robot if they practice "too much" with a metronome.
Originally Posted by christianm77
I'd be hard pressed to point out anyone with perfect time who plays robotically. OTOH, there are countless musicians out there who can't keep good time and who's time fluctuates radically to the point of never being able to lock in.
Of course you should play with other musicians and along with records. You should play as much as you possibly can with every tool available. Like everything in learning jazz, it's a balancing act.
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09-24-2017 10:47 AM
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P.S.
Some guys practice with a drum machine or recorded drums. I personally have recorded drum and bass parts where I play both parts but I use them for various practice regimes.
I'd highly recommend getting hold of drumgenius and using that as a metronome too...
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I agree with this. You have to be able to do something "straight" before you can mess with it. If you can't play strong, compelling, metronomically accurate lines, you are unlikely to be able play more nuanced lines in good time. I'm mediocre player mostly because, being self-taught, it took me 20 years to realize this. Originally Posted by jzucker
It's no different from everything else concerning human learning, if you skimp on the fundamentals in overeagerness to get to the advanced stuff you always end up in a state of ambiguity/imprecision.
If you want to play jazz *you have to work on your time* and the only way I know to check if you are making progress is to measure against a metronome (or drum machine, or a good human rhythm section).
In response to Uffe: I'm no expert, but 135 or so is where it becomes hard for me to stick to 2&4. But this coincides with where the limits of my chops are, even on 1&3 my time is not real solid on bebop 8th note lines above 140. I'm not sure the 2&4 thing is what matters.
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Well I was surprised to find there is such a thing as a counter argument against metronome use, but Chick Corea, Mike Longo and Jeff Berlin make the case among others. I'm just putting it out there, I'm not anti metronome. Originally Posted by jzucker
There are plenty of players who practice with a metronome and still play very uninteresting, flat, non-rhythmic lines. I was definitely one of them. I practiced it all - click on the 4 every 4 bars, on the & of 1 and 3, you name it. But my performance in these exercises did not improve till I got the wider picture.
In any case,, Adam Rogers a) has one of my favourite feels in contemporary jazz guitar and b) has worked with the best rhythm sections in the business...
AR can of course play with a metronome - in fact he shows us he does it in his workshop vid. But, you don't get that good sitting in a bedroom playing with a click.
Bollenback I don't know.
One of the most bizarre musical experiences I had was playing a session for an advert. The ad had been cut to an Andrews Sisters recording with Glenn Miller - so the click was synched to that. I tried playing the first take and kept going way out with the click. I remember thinking 'I didn't think my time was that bad.' Turned out there were tempo fluctuations of around 30 bpm in the track.I'd be hard pressed to point out anyone with perfect time who plays robotically. OTOH, there are countless musicians out there who can't keep good time and who's time fluctuates radically to the point of never being able to lock in.
Of course you should play with other musicians and along with records. You should play as much as you possibly can with every tool available. Like everything in learning jazz, it's a balancing act.
I'm willing to accept that the Glenn Miller band might not be the best rhythm section in history of jazz, but they were a professional dance orchestra and their job was to keep a tempo. Try setting a click with any great jazz record and it quickly goes out.
So, what is perfect time? I mean is there a definition of it beyond - 'that player has perfect time.' I reject the idea that perfect metronomic time is the definition of perfect time because too much of my music is very much non-metronomic. I'm a little leery of the concept that there is 'perfect time' - I am against perfection in music and for humanity. Groove, feel, swing - that's human.
For instance, Barry Harris has one of my favourite swing feels in music and replied when asked if we worked with a metronome that he never practiced with one. How did he learn to play such great time? Well it helps if you grow up with Elvin Jones and Paul Chambers I suppose.
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None of which contradicts what you are saying jzucker or is intended to. Boring metronomic time beats wildly inconsistent everytime.
But great greasy feel with a bit of appropriate flex? That's my favourite!Last edited by christianm77; 09-24-2017 at 12:11 PM.
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good conversation christian, i'm not disagreeing or arguing with you. Just offering my $0.02. And guys like Hal Galper are very anti-metronome so I'm not going to argue with that. I think it's basically a religious argument that nobody's ever going win. I think if you grew up in the '50s or '60s you could make a case easier that you should play and jam with others instead of using a metronome but I have played with and discussed this with enough world class players who *DO* advocate practicing with a metronome that I'm sticking with that story.
And as much as I love barry harris, chick corea and hal galper, paul bollenback and adam rogers have an equally long resume.
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Christian, you've brought this point up before in these discussions, but drifting away from the metronome over the course of, say, 8 or 16 bars is different from more serious time problems that I think metronomes help with, like Originally Posted by christianm77
losing a beat every few bars due to rushing or dragging,
getting confused when the drummer or bass player gets less explicit with the groove, eg when they
omit the down beat, or play hemiolas or other across the barline stuff
getting off the pulse when your line gets you away from alternate picking
turning the beat around when playing solo
the 2&4 turning into 1&3 at high tempi as in Uffe's question.
Guitarists are particularly bad at this. I suspect piano has an advantage given that playing the piano shares some aspects with playing drums. Bass players have good time because it tends to be their main function in a jazz group.
I suppose in a deeper sense the issue is how to raise one's mastery of time/groove so that one feels as comfortable and strong with the time in a difficult context (fast tempo/odd meter/floaty drummer) as one would if count Basie and Freddy green were our rhythm section.
One way to improve is to find a patient drummer and have him teach you specific stuff and practice it for hours with you pointing out where you are getting it wrong. But barring that, what else is there besides metronome/drum machine exercises?
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Here's another viewpoint from a very good bassist Damian Erskine who's father Peter is one of the seminal drummers in jazz history.
from:
Metronomes: The Debate for Bassists
Originally Posted by Damian Erskine
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Well this is very true. I can't swallow Mike Longos thesis that metronome is actually damaging to ones time feel because many great modern era players have used one. Originally Posted by jzucker
And if it is a suggestion that heavy metronome use de facto produces flat robotic playing.... well
Emily Remler debunks that I'd say...
On the other hand some of the greats didn't use a metronome at all which leads to the inescapable conclusion that using metronome is not necessary to develop good time. But are those who didn't practice this way merely the talented few?
Setting aside those who have naturally good time (Mike Stern) or got to play with say, Cannonball (Mike Longo, Hal Galper) where does that leave us as students and educators?
Well I would say that their are a slew of approaches that don't use the metronome that are very powerful. I think developing a strong sense of body rhythm is key, for instance. Psychology too, and a real understanding of the way rhythms are put together. Things that relate to drumming, dancing and meditation basically. Ancient things.
That's stuff has helped me the most. And it helps me play to a click too.Last edited by christianm77; 09-24-2017 at 09:16 PM.
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How many players in today's world outside of a thriving jazz metropolis have great jazz time who don't use a metronome?
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i think it's easier to say you don't agree with metronome playing if you are in manhattan but if you are in cleveland ohio, you had better get used to playing with a metronome unless you are into hardcore metal, blues or zoot-suit swing. I've been trying to find a local drummer who can play ecm/floating 8th feel for years. Same with bassists.
Some cities just don't have a realistic environment that you can go out and jam on jazz every night of the week in an assortment of sub-genres. NYC does. Not sure where else...
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I dunno - practically everyone learning now is advised to practice with one, so it's a moot point. My advice, gleaned the hard way, is that you need more going on than that.
You need to be close to a jazz scene to be able to progress as a player. Just the way it is... You need to play with the good players... Outside NY the US sounds pretty patchy for that from what people are saying... London is good. Not NY, but good scene. Paris too. Berlin.Last edited by christianm77; 09-24-2017 at 09:15 PM.
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Haha, what do you want a peer reviewed scientific study? :-) (Hmmm... I wonder if that's even possible?) This is an internet forum not the fucking lancet. Originally Posted by djg
I would say in my anecdotal non-peer reviewed perspective that simply putting the hours in is not helpful if you are not practicing the right stuff. Simply practicing with a metronome is not enough, or at least wasn't for me. A musician does need to work hard, but it's quite possible that a strong work ethic won't get you anywhere. Others make great progress on relatively small practice sessions. We call that talent, of course, but what it actually is is efficient learning. (Although some musicians do have naturally good time - bastards.)
But I am not generalising. I'm actually very specific on this stuff and what I would teach, but I'm not going ot info dump for 3 pages on a thread.
Also everyone has different problems and a good teacher will address those:
Perhaps your sense of tempo is shaky and you slow down or speed up.
Perhaps you drop beats.
Perhaps your upbeat placement is inconsistent.
Perhaps you lack a rhythmic vocabulary, and start every phrase on beat 1.
Perhaps you can't accurately execute triplets.
Perhaps you get too involved in what you are playing and lose the beat and speed up.
Perhaps you have absolutely no problems with your time, but your technique is sloppy and that's messing up your execution of rhythms.
Perhaps you simply don't know that tune well enough and you are having to think which is leading to you playing a bit unrhtyhmically
Perhaps you are simply not hearing your lines rhythmically
Perhaps your not choices aren't compatible with the rhythms you are trying to express (more a bebop thing)
Perhaps you are simply trying to hard to play rhythmically and ending up too stiff and emphatic.
Perhaps you are trying to 'play behind the beat' like a cool cat such as Billie or Allan, but you are just dragging because you don't understand the structure of what the cool cats are actually doing.
And so on
Until I hear a student play there is no specific advice I can give... (By the way I have diagnosed all of these foibles in my own playing over the years.)
And TBH the teachers and educators I had contact with as a student kind of lacked as clear a framework for working on time as they did for the other stuff. I found out a lot of things myself through my own research, and this is what I pass on to my students. It seems to help them.Last edited by christianm77; 09-25-2017 at 07:38 AM.
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The problem is that it is an internet discussion, perhaps? But the TBH I find most discussions of 'should I practice x or y' ultimately fruitless. As a space to bang out ideas and experiences, though perhaps not so bad. Originally Posted by djg
Personally I find the metronome most effective not as a training tool but as a diagnosis tool. However the most effective diagnosis tool I have found is simply recording yourself and listening critically to your timing. To do this, it helps if you can hear the details, however.if you put the met at 2 and 4 you get a drummer with a rim-click that *never* moves. plus you can tell him exactly where in the beat you want the rim-clicks. unfortunately you'll have to define the met's place in the beat with *your* playing
you must make it swing.
so for me (anecdotal) i don't try to sync up with the met but try to make the met sync up with me, if that makes any sense.
One big aspect that I'd like to share (and this probably says a lot about me as a person) is that when I was doing a lot of fancy metronome stuff I got very judgemental about other player's time. This isn't because my time was great (it wasn't) but I was judging everyone by the standards of a metronome (usually set to a multiple of 10 bpm - that's another thing.)
So I was actually switched off from the experience of playing with other players because I wasn't listening to them. Now some of these players had rhythm issues, absolutely, but others did not, and I was playing out of time with them because I was being an obstinate ****. A little knowledge, as they say.
Sometimes when I play with musicians who have a metronomic sensibility (often more fusion oriented drummers for instance) I can feel this stubbornness whether it's a appropriate for the music or not. For instance one Middle Eastern peice I play has a natural accelerando... Playing with a certain (excellent contemp/fusion) drummer I got the distinct impression he felt we were rushing and that it was his job to pull us back to the initial click tempo. In short he was imposing an outside critereon on the music, not listening to us and ultimately not playing the gig. This drummer does have great metronomic time BTW, so not quite the same thing, but I like drummers who can switch it on and off.
I would recommend playing with records for this reason. So you know how good human time feels and can compare it to metronomic time, learn the difference.
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Hyperbole has its place in real-world conversation. Most meaning is inferred from the context of the conversation, facial expression etc., and is aided with follow-up questions as well. Meanwhile, people who like for everything to be very literal and concrete may be taking notes , and will post offhand comments on the inter-webs, as if they are some "new law of jazz" handed down from Barry Harris or Jimmy Bruno etc.
Meanwhile statements like: "You should learn to use a metronome properly", "You should learn to play/practice without a metronome", "If you can't play in time with a metronome, you can't play in time", "If you can't play in time WITHOUT a metronome you can't plan time" , and myriad other seemingly contradictory statements can be made. All of these statements are true in some regards , and life isn't some quantifiable , binary right/wrong question.
In the non-jazz real world in which I exist, the metronome comes out when someone has basic trouble with even KNOWING they're playing too fast or too slow at certain points. At the same time, a metronome is useless for some things , like where a student is having basic problems with COUNTING at a fundamental level, either literarily -cognitively/verbally or simply FEELING it.
I don't think it's a problem of anecdotal evidence versus clinical/quantifiable facts etc. I'd say it's more a problem of interpretation - of wanting/needing to have a definitive yes or no answer for something which isn't as simple as that. The yes/no conversation regarding metronomes is tiring, but I think it's the question itself.
The metronome is a valuable tool for what it is. It's not necessarily the answer to the world's problems, but why should it be?Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 09-25-2017 at 09:32 AM.
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I practice with the metronome on 2 & 4 as a way to workon my swing feel
especially when learning a new tune, but I also practice withoutthe metronome
and try keep the groove going on my own as well. When Istudied with Harry Leahey he wanted the metronome
on 40 for playing scales starting with 1 note per beat up to12 notes per beat as a way of internalizing
the pulse
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I think the point of metronome practice in jazz is so you can follow the rhythm when there is no steady pulse in a tune. Once you get past the initial phase of music learning after you pick up your first instrument, you should have no problem keeping time in a typical band, because there is a steady pulse to follow (rock's 1 2 3 4 etc). However, a lot of jazz rhythm sections don't have that pulse, so you need to have a strong sense of that pulse internally... Ari Heonig's bands Originally Posted by christianm77
There is a lot of talk about metronome musicians sounding too mechanical (I think its just a lack of soul), so the solution is to set your metronome to 10 bpm, then play two bars per click. You are paying 80 bpm to 10 bpm metronome. Get it? If you go through two bars and expect the click to be where it isn't, you need to work on your time. In jazz, nobody wants to hear a player follow along with steady mechanical 8th notes, but you also need to keep time... problem and solution.Last edited by eh6794-2.0; 09-25-2017 at 07:08 PM.
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I see the metronome as one of the work tools you can use when working on time, the other important one being playing along with cds (real cds, not playalongs). Metronome will give you the square, absolute time training, cds will give you the different feels and grooves training. Do both. Same with 1-3 or 2-4. They both are needed in different music styles, so work on both, especially on the one that feels the weakest.
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I think this is a great quote from Ethan Iverson interviewing Robert Glasper:
EI: They take the metronome too seriously.
RG: The metronome! That! When did the metronome get so popular? Did cats back in the day use the metronome?EI: Lee Konitz told me he asked John Coltrane if Coltrane practiced with the metronome. Coltrane said, “No.”RG: [laughs] Well, there it is!People worry about the metronome, “I’m not gonna move, I’m not gonna move!” because that means you are good. It you move, that means your time is bad. But Miles and them moved all over the place, and it was fucking awesome.No one ever listens to a tune and says afterwards, “Man, they were at exactly the same tempo the whole time, how hip was that?” Who cares?It was not just tempo, back in the day they didn’t care about tuning, either! Sharp and flat as hell, but the feeling was right.Nowadays people care. It probably has something to do with double-edged sword of schooling and the wrong kind of teachers.Obviously, tuning is good, keeping time is good! If you are ignorant to it, that’s a different thing.
With that said, I think it's pretty key that a lot of groove happens by playing against something, and if you're practicing by yourself, you need some kind of thing to play against. All the people saying "oh you don't need to practice with a metronome" (including Robert) were playing pretty great pretty early on and were of course playing with super swinging drummers pretty consistently for most of their lives.
It's a little like Fred Hersch or even Robert Glasper saying they never practiced much, it works great for Fred and Robert apparently, but not so sure it's great advice for the rest of us.
Long way of saying I agree with Jack here
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I think Glaspar's statement - people worry about the metronome - is key. This is the point I was trying to make.
There shouldn't ever be worry in rhythm, but confidence, boldness and - where necessary - swagger. Tight, worried and over-mechanical rhythm is to be avoided. On the flipside, your rhythm should be accountable to a strong and solid sense of pulse, so that's not a cop out.
But practicing with a metronome? Sure. Why not. (OTOH I think the practicing with a metronome is quite a bad way to improve your ability to synch with a metronome, buts that's another wall of text right there.)
However (and I doubt anyone here would fundamentally disagree with this) developing boldness and feel in rhythm is not to do with the metronome. The metronome is what you check your rhythms against to keep yourself honest, locked in, precise, accountable. But if you have no rhythmic creativity or vocabulary, you need to go elsewhere to find it. And then come back and make that boring pedantic click swing!
Further, the metronome as a gold standard for what is good in music (specifically jazz) - and to measure your performances by that rhythmic reference?
I can imagine you only think this way if you've never heard, say Elvin Jones, John Coltrane, Allan Holdsworth, Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, Grant Green etc etc. Or not paid much attention to what is going on rhythmically in their records. To me, that is pretty much is an open and shut case.
Yeah, if the music moves let it move....Last edited by christianm77; 09-26-2017 at 03:04 PM.
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You might be right, but would you agree that jazz guitarists (I think its 80% to 90% of the non-pros I hear on YT) have a tendency to lack the rhythm skills of a pianist or brass player? My jazz pet peeve is YT instructors who have no sense of what makes jazz music rhythmically exciting for me (let alone keep a study rhythm). Originally Posted by christianm77
I used to give informal lessons to my friends. They all lacked the skill I mentioned earlier. Then I gave my drummer friend a few very informal lessons. This drummer was a studio musician in the 70s; he played on most of the Rose Royce albums, and was a solid 70s funk drummer. In his first week, this guy made the 3 chords of Knocking on Heavens Door sound like the most amazing thing I ever heard. When we'd jam together, he'd always hammer me on my rhythm, but he was used to playing with pros.
Maybe its the metronome work pianists get in high school band, or maybe its something their teacher or something different... I don't know.Last edited by eh6794-2.0; 09-26-2017 at 04:01 PM.
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100%
One aspect - I kind of feel it might be the set of priorities we have as jazz guitarists? It's not our fault... tho
To a pianist, a lot of stuff that is VERY non obvious to a guitarist is completely clear, in black and white. For instance, using chord tones as a basis for soloing. To a pianist, playing on chord tones is trivial. Chords = chord tones. On guitar we have to learn a load of shapes in different octaves. The same is true of bop, CST, you name it.
(They do have to transpose things into different keys TBF)
Also pianists start younger than guitarists, which means they are more musically fluent.
SOO - guitarists spend a lot more time playing catch up while pianists are working on subtleties of phrasing and swing from their favourite players, most of whom swing far more than most guitarists anyway.
Other instruments?
Sax players & Trumpet players play melodies... Their conception of music is a little different to piano. They may double on piano to learn harmony. Plus they play in sections.
Drums are about rhythm of course. They still speed up tho ;-)
Bass is bass... Bass players have to have good time or they don't work (i.e. they put the brakes on the drummer haha)
Oftentimes a drummer brings the feel and vibe, and the bass player brings the steadiness. Not always tho...
A guitarist can be a little sketchy and still get gigs. Usually cos they are making the phone calls.
When guitar players discover this, they become very worried about 'fixing' their time feel. This happened to me - in fact time feel should be about discovery and creativity just like every other area of music. But we are forced into the 'fixing it' mentality because we lag so far behind the other players.
Just a theory.
But I can't tell you how much more fun it is to leave the 'fixing it' thing behind and get into rhythm for its own sake. It's so much more fun.Last edited by christianm77; 09-26-2017 at 04:21 PM.
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I think a lot of it might have to do with why we originally pickup the guitar. I think most of us start as rock guitarists then move over to jazz. Let's face it, rock requires very little rhythmic skill. Matt Sorum of Guns n Roses was talking to Slash about where he wanted him to hit a chord. Matt was talking 1234 quarter notes and Slash looked at him like it was Greek.
Anyways, I really preach rhythm because I want to hear jazz grow, and there are a lot of guys on this forum who will be the next Lage Lund, or Gilad or Julian Lage or ______.
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That too... I am from this background....
BTW - something else... There are quite a few awesome rhythm guitarists in funk, soul, rock etc who really lock it down. OTOH rock lead players often have a somewhat shall we say floating feel and sound great anyway because they are playing over a locked in section.
It's quite interesting when these two things exist in the same player, as well...
Why? Well it's easier to lock in repeating patterns and riffs than improvisations, and it may not even occur to a lead guitarist that the accuracy of one's rhythm is of importance in lead playing.
In Rock there is a distinction made between 'lead' and 'rhythm' - often separated out as two completely different things. Some lead players understand the importance of rhythm of course, but it's not strongly stated. And players that combine the two ala Jimi Hendrix are quite unusual these days, hence the prevalence of two guitar line ups.Last edited by christianm77; 09-26-2017 at 04:32 PM.
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I think it has more to do with basic subdivision work that all of these instrumentalists get. When you play all those Bach pieces which are basically études of solid sixteenths or eighth notes arpeggiated for the entire piece, you get a feeling for all of the different hemiola's and polyrhythmic possibilities, even in classical music. Meanwhile, drummers are working things on every subdivision of the beat , around an entire set of drums. Guitarists don't get this kind of stuff in school or in private lessons a lot of times. We're skipping basic steps of subdivision etc. Originally Posted by eh6794-2.0
Teenage bluegrass banjo players and cross picking guitarists are down with some pretty advanced polyrhythmic play , if you stop to analyze it. But it's not really a thought process, it's not because they're more sophisticated, and it's probably nota metronome. It's pretty basic and easy when you're literally playing something on every subdivision of the beat . The melodies implied by the patterns teach you the polyrhythms. Most of us as guitarists simply approximate what we think we are hearing rhythmically. Listening is fundamentally important in jazz, but far too often (I think) this is interpreted as ONLY listening.
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