I think JustinGuitar is wrong about playing slowly to get faster

Lewy

CoffeeAndTV said:

digitalkettle said:

bertie said:

Lewy said:

I believe everyone should at least “check in” with a metronome

from time to time.    

shouldnt that be regular intervals ?

Is this a wind-up?

No, click-bait

Let's take it down a notch, shall we?

bertie

things ticking along nicely I see

Greatape

Dave_Mc said:

simonhpieman said:

Barney said:

I think iff you want to play fast just go for it and then make it less sloppy ...iv heard players who can play fast though and struggle with medium or slow tempos cos the technique will be different ... I think that is where start slow and increase the tempo slowly works 

Playing slowly can be much, much harder, particularly rhythmically.

The gaps between notes are longer at a slow tempo, right? The ear has longer to perceive those gaps accurately. If you miss nailing a note even by a hair your timing can sound massively off at slow tempos.

It's especially true of drummers. The worst drummers I've played with literally cannot play slowly and time gaps between kicks and snares accurately, yet can play the intro to the Eastenders theme at well over 200bpm.

Obviously as you play faster, the gaps between notes are smaller and even if your timing is off, the margin for error is sort of technically larger as you're playing so quick that minor slip won't be as perceptible by human ears compared with slower speeds.

Does that make sense? I realized as I wrote this that it's not that easy to explain!

I think things get much harder at both really slow and really fast speeds. I would guess (citation needed!) that popular music rarely gets slow enough to get to that point, though...

Greatape said:

I would say that her perception of what was good time was out. 

Many of the greats known for good time and awareness of centre of beat e.g. Gadd, Krantz work on it with a Metronome constantly.

Whose? My teacher's?

viz said:

But many don’t because being precisely in time isn’t normally required. (Depending on your definition of precise obviously). Like concert pianists don’t play to a click track. 

Yeah, that's what I would think. Being in time with a metronome isn't always what you want. It can sound mechanical very quickly if you're not careful. It has to sound good to the human ear... it's like those new TVs (or any product) which has all the newest features, so many colours and pixels etc., so objectively it's better, right? Not if you think it looks worse!

If it sounds good it is good, kind of thing. If it sounds good but the metronome says it's wrong... is it really wrong? The music came first, not the metronome. The metronome can surely be used to help, but you have to use it correctly. It's a bit like music theory.

Not sure I'm clear enough here: being in time with the beat does not necessarily (in fact usually doesn't) mean playing on the beat. A good drummer will often stick the snare behind and the kick on or slightly in front of. You know what I'm talking about. And they do it consistently. We are not talking about playing robotically. 

 If it's not just you onstage, do we have five versions (or more) of where that point of reference is? Imagine a horn section of four where three agree on where the beat is (and on the space between beats) and one doesn't....

Also practice exercises are not performed onstage, obvs. It's about having control and the ability to make informed choices. Upgrading an attribute and associated skills. That's why we practice, right? 

Dave_Mc

Greatape said:

Not sure I'm clear enough here: being in time with the beat does not necessarily (in fact usually doesn't) mean playing on the beat. A good drummer will often stick the snare behind and the kick on or slightly in front of. You know what I'm talking about. And they do it consistently. We are not talking about playing robotically. 

 If it's not just you onstage, do we have five versions (or more) of where that point of reference is? Imagine a horn section of four where three agree on where the beat is (and on the space between beats) and one doesn't....

Also practice exercises are not performed onstage, obvs. It's about having control and the ability to make informed choices. Upgrading an attribute and associated skills. That's why we practice, right? 

Ah right yeah I think I know what you mean now. If you're using a metronome like that then that's probably not a problem!