Metronome - the Musician's Friend

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metronome - the musician's friend
When I use my Amazing Slow Downer to slow down the music of my favorite musicians, I can take the most rip-roaring tune to half speed and find that each note is precisely on the beat. There are a couple of lessons here for all of us:

1. If you're not practicing with a metronome, you're not practicing. 
2. If you can't play it slow, you'll never play it fast.
I posted this on Facebook a couple of weeks ago and got a lot of response from people saying they wished the others they play with would listen to my words. Well, since you can't control others till you control yourself (one of my Sensei's favorite aphorisms), I decided to approach my metronome with renewed enthusiasm.

Stage 1 of practice with the metronome is of course to make sure you don't generally slow down or speed up, or both. I have to say that was the goal my first 2 years of practice with a metronome. A lot of people go this far and they think "OK, done practicing with the metronome."
But Stage 2 is the best part: Stage 2 is to do your regular practice and focus on trying to come down right in the middle of every beat.

Lots of stuff happens when I do this:
  • I get better at listening. 
  • I get better at making minute adjustments in tempo to stay in time. 
  • I get better at just relaxing into the beat; 
  • Rather than playing on my own, I'm playing with something...even if it is just a metronome, my brain is learning how to sync up perfectly with a rhythm section or even another melody player.
Irish Music Seisiun - Frenchtown - River Blue Cafe
Even one day practicing with this focused attention paid off: I did a gig the next day (on accordion) with one other melody player and we sounded great! I'm convinced it wasn't because we played any differently, we were just together.

If you are wondering how this relates to aikido or any martial arts practice: First, refer to #2 above. If you can't do it slow, you'll never do it fast. Slow your practice down and pay attention to each movement. There's a reason they call it a martial art.

Second... well I think I'll save that for another post...

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