Metronome exercise

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HootsmonHootsmon Frets: 15925

John McLaughlin below.....I'm lost, what does he mean here......i understand the playing 4 quarter notes per measure (bar) then, he says, sub divide into 6 quarter notes......huh?


I have developed a series that is tremendous for articulation and rhythm. Start with the first string and slowly play four quarter notes to the measure, all with down strokes. Then, while maintaining the same tempo - preferably keeping time with your foot, although you can use a metronome—subdivide the measure into six quarter-notes or two quarter-note triplets. Next, switch to alternate strokes and start progressing from eighths to triplets to sixteenths to sextuplets to thirty-seconds to forty-eighths to sixty-fourths. Finally, go back down again. This involves simple mathematics, but to execute it without losing tempo is quite a challenge for the right hand. Of course, you can approach it a little at a time. Now, that's just the beginning. Instead of progressing through multiples of two and three, you can work with odd-numbered figures, moving from one to two to three to four to five to six to seven and so on.
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  • vizviz Frets: 10647
    edited August 2020
    He’s saying divide the bar in half (50%), and each half has 3 notes (16.6% each), but - crucially - still played over an underlying beat structure of 4 crotchets per bar. These 16.6% beats cause a cross-rhythm over the 4/4 rhythm (25% beats). 

    The groups of three notes are called triplets, but they’re notated as crotchets or “quarter notes” even though they’re only 16.6% each, and there’s a little arc drawn over each group, with the number 3 over it. 

    Check out Pictures of Home when the guitar comes in, playing triplets over a 4/4 beat. 




    ————————————

    By the way - IF however, there is no underlying 4/4 beat, and all you’re hearing is a relatively quick 3+3 in a bar, then it’s 6/8, which is called a compound rhythm because each bar is made up of 2 sets of 3 genuine beats. You don’t get that cross-rhythm effect that you get with triplets over 4/4. Instead you get what I think of as a sort of tick-tock rocking horse effect. 

    Check Elton John as he starts singing:

    https://youtu.be/h6KYAVn8ons

    These are not notated as crotchets - they’re quavers or “eighth notes”, even though there are 6 to the bar. And now there’s no need for the little arc and ‘3’ number. It’s just accepted that there are 6 quavers to the bar. 


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  • HootsmonHootsmon Frets: 15925
    You again Viz  :)  :)
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  • GrangousierGrangousier Frets: 2621
    It sounds like the way I was taught to do right hand warmup - put the metronome on at a moderate pace (say 80bpm), starting with downstrokes on the click, then get faster - two strokes per click, three, four, six, eight, etc. Also three strokes per two clicks (so the second click comes between the second and third strokes). Or five strokes per four clicks, though that can drive you mad. It's really good practice for getting away from the click while staying in time. 

    "Right hand warmup" sounds like the kind of euphemism you used to find on cards in phone boxes, though. 
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