The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Anybody own one of these? Do you recommend it? Is it considered cheating if you wear it on a gig

    The World's First Wearable for Musicians: Soundbrenner Pulse - YouTube

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Anybody own one of these? Do you recommend it? Is it considered cheating if you wear it on a gig

    The World's First Wearable for Musicians: Soundbrenner Pulse - YouTube
    Yet another shit idea for the shit ideas factory that is modern music technology.

    Some modern drummers are apparently incapable of keeping time without a click so it may help them.

    As an antidote to this stupidness, here’s some Ginger Baker. Suggest using a metronome? You’d have come away with a broken leg at least:


  4. #3

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    Only one man can be mentioned here along with Ginger Baker, John Bonham the greatest rock drummer

    Btw if anyone interested to hear swing Ginger Baker and Bill Frisell with Charlie Haden:


  5. #4

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    I agree. But both were borderline insane.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gabor
    Only one man can be mentioned here along with Ginger Baker, John Bonham the greatest rock drummer


  6. #5

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    Amazon.com: Peterson Metronome (BPS1): Musical Instruments

    And you'd be playing like Jack, not some whitebread wannabe...



  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Anybody own one of these? Do you recommend it? Is it considered cheating if you wear it on a gig

    The World's First Wearable for Musicians: Soundbrenner Pulse - YouTube
    So you'd be in time with yourself. What about the other players in the group? Time keeping is everyone's responsibility. Gizmo is OK for solo performers.

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by DRS
    So you'd be in time with yourself. What about the other players in the group? Time keeping is everyone's responsibility. Gizmo is OK for solo performers.
    Yeah it's ridiculous to wear it in a gig with other musicians. I was joking about "cheating".
    I was asking if people like it as a metronome design.

  9. #8

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    I bought one about a year ago for practice, thought the feel of the pulse might work for me better than an audible click. I was wrong. I do like their free android metronome app though. If you are in Toronto and still want one I’ll give you a good deal on my rarely-used unit.

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by pcjazz
    I bought one about a year ago for practice, thought the feel of the pulse might work for me better than an audible click. I was wrong. I do like their free android metronome app though. If you are in Toronto and still want one I’ll give you a good deal on my rarely-used unit.
    What kind of pulse, is it electric? (I do not want this stuff)

  11. #10
    I'm a metronome nut. I don't like to use apps, I like dedicated metronomes. I even made a tone-wood casing for a mechanical metronome once.
    I was itching for a new toy, I ended up ordering one of these:
    BOSS - DB-90 | Dr. Beat

    One thing frustrates me about "non-app" metronomes is that don't go below 30bpm. Yes you can subdivide but sometimes I practice using one click a bar (or two bars). 30bpm is too fast some things
    With DB 90 you control the volume of each beat and accents. So you can only let the accents sound (the first beat) and go down to 30bpm. Now that's slow.
    It's also a small guitar amp, for quiet practice and traveling. It's a drum machine as well. Last but not the least it's got AC ADAPTOR input. No more dying batteries in the middle of practice sessions.

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gabor
    What kind of pulse, is it electric? (I do not want this stuff)
    Any combination of audible, visual, tactile.

  13. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Gabor
    What kind of pulse, is it electric? (I do not want this stuff)
    It gives electric pulse when the user is out of time.
    Last edited by Tal_175; 12-05-2019 at 01:24 PM.

  14. #13

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    The problem is confusing metronomic time with good time.

    I mean, yeah, practice with a metronome. But being able to keep time with a metronome is the beginning, not the end. The idea of using a metronome on a jazz gig gives me the shudders. Recipe for disaster.

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    It gives electric pulse when user is out of time.
    oh yeah I’ve seen those.

    Wearable Metronome-01076d97-ed8d-4aa5-aaad-0f626e8c3ee0-jpg

  16. #15
    Joking aside, a metronome that only gives indication when the user is out of time can actually be very useful.
    It would start with a polite reminder of time in the first violation. Subsequent violations would increase the pain level. Potentially causing permanent damage to prevent user from ever performing in the extreme cases.
    Well I did say joking aside but got carried away.

  17. #16

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    First wearable metronome - the shoe, put it on and tap your foot as needed.

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    It gives electric pulse when the user is out of time.
    Perfect for teaching students with lack of rhythm feel

  19. #18

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    Old thread. I ran across an ad for this thing---they ain't cheap!---and wondered, "Does anyone use one? I'll check the Forum..."

    One thing about them is that they can be used live----they will sync to other ones, so all members of a band could have them. (This could be useful even if all members can keep good time because, live, many musicians play things faster than is ideal because they're keyed up.) You could set the tempo of all the songs in your set in advance and would have the tempo of the next song you're going to play. You would feel it; no one else would hear it. I can see some advantage in that.

    That said, I've never used one. Was just wondering how they might work.

    As for use when playing (or practicing) alone, I see one advantage: you could play to a click without anyone else hearing it. The click can get monotonous.

  20. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    Old thread. I ran across an ad for this thing---they ain't cheap!---and wondered, "Does anyone use one? I'll check the Forum..."

    One thing about them is that they can be used live----they will sync to other ones, so all members of a band could have them. (This could be useful even if all members can keep good time because, live, many musicians play things faster than is ideal because they're keyed up.) You could set the tempo of all the songs in your set in advance and would have the tempo of the next song you're going to play. You would feel it; no one else would hear it. I can see some advantage in that.

    . . .
    To expand on this idea, here is a concept I thought of.
    Every band member gets a collar like those invisible fence dog collars.
    You don't feel anything until you start playing faster or slower - then, ZAPPP!!!

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bosko
    First wearable metronome - the shoe, put it on and tap your foot as needed.
    I can tap my foot like a metronome but not for very long. I can't imagine doing it for the length of a set, much less a full concert. Heck, it's hard for me to keep patting my foot throughout a single tune. I might be better off if I DID do that but I don't.

  22. #21

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    My latest thoughts; practicing with a metronome is not in fact working on your sense of time; actually it’s one way to learn to stop the guitar from taking up too much of your attention.

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    I can tap my foot like a metronome but not for very long. I can't imagine doing it for the length of a set, much less a full concert. Heck, it's hard for me to keep patting my foot throughout a single tune. I might be better off if I DID do that but I don't.
    Just say ‘click’ on the two and four when playing.

    Go on, try it.

  24. #23
    Metronome can be treated as a conductor or it can be treated as a jamming partner.

    If it's treated as a conductor where the musician is waiting for events to react to (clicks) and frequently recalibrate, than it's not a very useful tool. In this case metronome is preventing the musician from developing the skill to know where they are in the bar, where the down beat is etc. (I'm not saying that's how orchestral musicians even treat conductors BTW).

    If the metronome is treated as a jamming partner that provides a groove, than I think it's a useful tool. In this case, the musician is keeping track of the time for him/herself, not listening for clicks for reaffirmation. So it doesn't even matter much whether the metronome is clicking on 2&4 or 1&3 or just on beat 4 or etc. It's like you're playing duo with another player where you are both responsible for the time and listening to each other. It's just that if at one point you realize that you're off by a beat, it's you who flipped the beat, not your partner.

    The difference in the attitude between these two ways of using a metronome is subtle but very crucial I think.

  25. #24

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    Yeah time is one thing though; a fundamental problem is actually keeping track of the beat while playing. Without that you can’t really since with a metronome or anything else. This is not in fact a problem in timing per se; it’s something else, more a problem in multitasking, or more properly being able to direct tour attention to the right things.

    Your natural sense of time is probably fine.

    Try counting out loud 1 2 3 4 with a metronome at 40 in 4/4 on each ‘1’. (Counting is a good way of making sure you are keeping your attention on the pulse. You might prefer to sing a ride cymbal sound, or make some other sound. Doesn’t really matter too much, but it’s good to keep track of the one in some way.)

    Now, remove three clicks out of four until only one remains at 10bpm (you can do this on the app Tempo). Synching with this with four bars of four beats is actually fairly easily especially if you do it this way. I would imagine it would be possible for most people.

    now try to stay in time with the guitar, even playing a scale in quarter tones, and for most this would be a very different story.

    The solution is not gradually improving your performance like training as a runner or something, but actually requires a change of mental frame. When you get it right, your performance will suddenly improve.

    So long as you foreground the guitar in your mental processes you are liable to go out of time. The guitar takes up too much ‘processing time’; because in fact you don’t actually know the stuff well enough to play it in time.

    you are going to struggle counting (or saying click on two and four) because your guitar playing is not yet automatic enough for you to concentrate on the quality of your pulse-keeping.

    (there are some issues with people sometimes not understanding the rhythms they are trying to play but that’s usually solvable by making them count the best though everything.)

    So the metronome is a test for this. In this sense it doesn’t actually have much to do with time.

    Anyway, that’s how I reach a synthesis between the anti metronome camp (Jeff Berlin etc) and pro metronome camp. I’d suggest that noone is actually developing metronomic time by doing metronome exercises. Humans do not feel pulse this way, but are perfectly able to synch with a robotic click if they pay attention to it (an essential skill for a working player obviously.)

    But when players work on these sorts of exercises, they are in fact working on something else, Effortless Mastery etc...you do not in fact need a metronome to do this; you can keep time with your voice, your foot (if you pay attention to it and it’s not an automatic tic), and in Southern India they’ve been marking the pulse with the hands for millennia before the invention of the metronome. But a metronome can be used in conjunction with any of these methods.

    This a slightly different opinion to the one I held about two years ago, but I think better reflects what I’ve noticed about myself and my students.
    Last edited by christianm77; 05-10-2021 at 03:29 PM.

  26. #25

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    I have a Boss metronome. It has a clip on the back for belt/shirt pocket, but I've never used it and it eventually fell off...