Eliminating the Metronome for technical studies?

[sgcim]

Would it be more beneficial to eliminate any pulse at all in technical studies and just write out the studies on a program like MuseScore, indicate the tempo, and then play along with them?

[Bobby Timmons]

It's more challenging to play to only a click, easier to play along to a drum track, easier still to play along to some sort of accompaniment track.

I don't think you need to only do 1 method because practicing your time in different ways cross trains you.

[SoftwareGuy]

Is there some reason you think this would be "more beneficial" ?

Playing with a metronome is a time tested technique for improving a player's timing.

[AllanAllen]

What's your goal? Be really good at musescore, or to play music?

I actually think copying exercises into musescore and playing along with them might be a good way to learn the program. But the best way to learn to play is to get away from screens and play the guitar.

[pamosmusic]

Would it be more beneficial to eliminate any pulse at all in technical studies and just write out the studies on a program like MuseScore, indicate the tempo, and then play along with them?

It definitely would not be beneficial.

Two big reasons:

1. Time feel is a big part of what we're working on with any practice and a program will have none of that, so you'll be copying a very poor representation of what you should actually be playing.

2. When we start out using a metronome, we use it to give us time. That is absolutely not how we want to use a metronome long-term. The metronome should be there to check our time. That means, as we progress, we want to use it less and less and less.

So eventually we want to be using it not clicking on every beat, but on every other. Or maybe just on beat one. Romain Pilon likes to post videos of himself with the metronome clicking on the first beat of every four measure. We have to make our own time. MuseScore will be like a metronome clicking on every single note. It will be ?bad for your time.

[Ukena]

It definitely would not be beneficial.

Two big reasons:

1. Time feel is a big part of what we're working on with any practice and a program will have none of that, so you'll be copying a very poor representation of what you should actually be playing.

2. When we start out using a metronome, we use it to give us time. That is absolutely not how we want to use a metronome long-term. The metronome should be there to check our time. That means, as we progress, we want to use it less and less and less.

So eventually we want to be using it not clicking on every beat, but on every other. Or maybe just on beat one. Romain Pilon likes to post videos of himself with the metronome clicking on the first beat of every four measure. We have to make our own time. MuseScore will be like a metronome clicking on every single note. It will be ?bad for your time.

It's easy to make Musescore beat only on 2 and 4, or only on 1. Or, actually, not at all.

So, Peter, in this case, is it still not beneficial?

Also, to the O.P.: are these technical studies online, or on paper? If they are online, you might be able to export the notes (perhaps as XML?) and import them into Musescore.

[pamosmusic]

It's easy to make Musescore beat only on 2 and 4, or only on 1. Or, actually, not at all.

So, Peter, in this case, is it still not beneficial?

Also, to the O.P.: are these technical studies online, or on paper? If they are online, you might be able to export the notes (perhaps as XML?) and import them into Musescore.

Yes. Still not beneficial.

Because you’re playing along with the MIDI, yes? So it’s kind of irrelevant where the metronome clicks when it’s giving you every single note.

[pamosmusic]

To clarify here, this is different than, say, playing a Charlie Christian solo along with Charlie Christian. Charlie is obviously giving you the time, but he’s also giving you everything else, and the goal there is copy the “everything else.”

Not the case with the Musescore situation.

[Mick-7]

To clarify here, this is different than, say, playing a Charlie Christian solo along with Charlie Christian. Charlie is obviously giving you the time, but he’s also giving you everything else, and the goal there is copy the “everything else.”

Not the case with the Musescore situation.

Good point, an electronic score is going to be artificially rigid, and lacking the subtleties of a musician's rendition because how they play/phrase the notes is at least as important, or possibly more important, than the actual notes they play.

[Ukena]

I suppose, since the OP was talking about technical studies, and not learning a Charlie Christian solo, it might depend on the particular technical studies to which the OP refers, and what technique is being studied.

[sgcim]

Let me say that I'm talking strictly in terms of technical studies that have nothing to do with playing jazz.
Many people have recommended not using the metronome as a crutch.
In this case, you're not using anything as a crutch to give you a pulse.
Jimmy Giuffre experimented with this on his "Tangents in Jazz" album, which didn't use the drums and bass as 'pulse' instruments, and gave the bass non-walking parts, and the drums non-beat pattern parts.

When you use a metronome, like I've been doing every day for about 50 years, there's always that pulse (on 2&4 or 1&3) to keep you in line. But when you do what I've been experimenting with for the last few days, it's a lot more difficult, especially since I've been playing only 16th note exercises. I have to use a preparatory measure of quarter notes to know when to come in, because after that, the exercise I'm playing just runs off on you like a speeding train. If you're doing things like 5 NPS scales, there's no way to get back on that train if you make the slightest time error or sloppy technique.

[sgcim]

It's more challenging to play to only a click, easier to play along to a drum track, easier still to play along to some sort of accompaniment track.

I don't think you need to only do 1 method because practicing your time in different ways cross trains you.

Yeah, that's what I'm getting at.

[sgcim]

It definitely would not be beneficial.

Two big reasons:

1. Time feel is a big part of what we're working on with any practice and a program will have none of that, so you'll be copying a very poor representation of what you should actually be playing.

2. When we start out using a metronome, we use it to give us time. That is absolutely not how we want to use a metronome long-term. The metronome should be there to check our time. That means, as we progress, we want to use it less and less and less.

So eventually we want to be using it not clicking on every beat, but on every other. Or maybe just on beat one. Romain Pilon likes to post videos of himself with the metronome clicking on the first beat of every four measure. We have to make our own time. MuseScore will be like a metronome clicking on every single note. It will be ?bad for your time.

This really isn't the case with 16th note exercises at above the tempo of 200bpm. It's playing it back so fast that it reveals every weakness in your time/technique..
I find using the metronome to click only on beat one to be fairly simple. It's like doing a stop chorus solo.
But using this method on five NPS is advantageous, because there's no way to practice such an exercise like this in perpetuity, because it only lands up starting on beat one again after playing the 59 note pattern nine times, and doing that with a metronome doesn't give you the slightest idea if you're messing it up.

[sgcim]

It's easy to make Musescore beat only on 2 and 4, or only on 1. Or, actually, not at all.

So, Peter, in this case, is it still not beneficial?

Also, to the O.P.: are these technical studies online, or on paper? If they are online, you might be able to export the notes (perhaps as XML?) and import them into Musescore.

They're not presented online played in perpetuity, so that would be impossible. It means a bit more work copying out the notes into MS, but once you've done one copy of the 59 note exercise (in this case) you can just copy and paste in a minute.

[sgcim]

Is there some reason you think this would be "more beneficial" ?

Playing with a metronome is a time tested technique for improving a player's timing.

See post #13.

[sgcim]

To clarify here, this is different than, say, playing a Charlie Christian solo along with Charlie Christian. Charlie is obviously giving you the time, but he’s also giving you everything else, and the goal there is copy the “everything else.”

Not the case with the Musescore situation.

The numerous times I've played "Solo Flight" in concert with a big band, I always practiced for it by playing with the recording, but I'm not talking about that here.

[pamosmusic]

I find using the metronome to click only on beat one to be fairly simple. It's like doing a stop chorus solo.

The thing Romain was doing was the first beat of every four measures.

Anyway, it sounds like you were asking a question to which you’ve already arrived at an answer.

And also the post said replacing metronome practice with this musescore idea, but it sounds like you want to do both which doesn’t seem as weird.

[sgcim]

The thing Romain was doing was the first beat of every four measures.

Anyway, it sounds like you were asking a question to which you’ve already arrived at an answer.

And also the post said replacing metronome practice with this musescore idea, but it sounds like you want to do both which doesn’t seem as weird.

I better keep doing both, or my chops will fall apart!
I wasn't referring to the Romaine comment, I was referring to you're suggestion to have the metronome playing on 2&4, only 4, or on one every 4 beats.

[sgcim]

It's easy to make Musescore beat only on 2 and 4, or only on 1. Or, actually, not at all.

So, Peter, in this case, is it still not beneficial?

Also, to the O.P.: are these technical studies online, or on paper? If they are online, you might be able to export the notes (perhaps as XML?) and import them into Musescore.

You sound like you know a lot about using MS. I've written about 75 big band charts on MS, but don't know how to send them to people. You know how to do that? I've had a lot of them played by 'real' bands I'm in, but when I asked that German band how to send it to them, they told me in German:
"You vill drop them off at the office."
Yeah, right, and you vill fly me to Germany from NYC!

[Mick-7]

You sound like you know a lot about using MS. I've written about 75 big band charts on MS, but don't know how to send them to people. You know how to do that? I've had a lot of them played by 'real' bands I'm in, but when I asked that German band how to send it to them, they told me in German:
"You vill drop them off at the office."
Yeah, right, and you vill fly me to Germany from NYC!

I'm not familiar with MuseScore, can't it export the score to pdf? That's a basic function for music notation apps, I wouldn't use one that doesn't have it.

[AllanAllen]

Like Mick says, Print to pdf.

[sgcim]

Like Mick says, Print to pdf.

I was lucky to find one of my own compositions on PDF for a grant competition, but all the others say mscz. file.
There are a lot of choices under files:
Import PDF
Export- then there are several choices, and PDF is the first, so that may be correct one
Save To Cloud
Publish to MuseScore.com
Share on Audio.com
I'm afraid to do the wrong thing. I did that with one chart, and it's unrecoverable, even though the MuseScore guy I wrote to said it's got to be somewhere in the computer.
Anyway, let me know if any of this makes sense. I'm not a computer file guy, but I'm able to use MS 4.3.1 without any problems.

[Mick-7]

Export- then there are several choices, and PDF is the first

That's it, export to pdf. But just to be safe, save a copy of it first in a different folder than the one you'd normally store it in - or just rename the saved copy.

It would be difficult to delete it by mistake but you never know with computers.... "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

I was lucky to find one of my own compositions on PDF for a grant competition, but all the others say mscz. file.

I would think that if you opened those up in MuseScore you would be able to export them as pdf files.

[Christian Miller]

Regarding technical exercises (rather than solo transcriptions etc), my inclination is to say no.

Play with a metronome. When you are comfortable, take out half the beats. Move the click to other beats.

Rinse and repeat

Playing with a track is fine at first but it’s easy to use it as a crutch. If your aim is to develop that’s unhelpful. Imo

Usually with exercises a major goal is evenness. Metronomes are great for putting that stuff under the microscope (they are also not the alpha and omega.)

[Christian Miller]

I like to record with a click on a DAW and then obsess about the way the little waves don’t line up with the beat. I’m sure this is very helpful and productive.


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