I usually practice and play solo. I used to practice 4 or 5 times a week but work commitments have prevented me from practicing that much in the past year or so. These days, I’m back to basics, such as practicing with a metronome, something I haven’t done in years.
I’ve noticed that I tend to play triplets and crans too quickly, and play long rolls too slowly. This is not something I would have spotted without the metronome.
I’ve also noticed that I play much faster than I used to. In the past, I would play certain jigs at 92 bmp, whereas these days I feel more comfortable playing the same jigs at 104 bmp.
I know there’s sometimes controversy around using a metronome for practicing Irish music, but I have also found it helpful for “checking in” with how my general tempo is doing. For the first couple years with the pipes I had the hardest time keeping the tempo consistent. Someone mentioned to me it might have to do with bellows movement throwing off general timing. Whatever it was, I sometimes will just turn on a metronome and play tunes at different speeds for 30 mins or so. I’ve found that it has helped me greatly.
I think this is yet another of those cases where people nowadays can’t think in nuanced ways. I don’t mean you, walrii, but some of those ‘reasons’ you give illustrate what I’m talking about, and it’s just as bad when people say things that imply putting absolute faith in metronomes for sorting out rhythm issues. A lot of people these days can’t see things as “potentially good, providing [… x, y, z]”; instead they have to classify things as “good” or “bad”.
In my opinion, metronomes have a useful function when used thoughtfully, but can be counter-productive when used without sufficient thought. I strongly believe that developing a good, inner rhythm and learning to listen to oneself through slow practice is the best way to develop good rhythm. However, in passages where ones rhythm is falling apart, it can be illuminating to use a metronome to flag up where one is speeding up or slowing down. Then I think you should go back to the slow practice, listening intently, and maybe try it with the metronome again and note any improvement.
The above is my argument for why a metronome can be useful. On the other hand, I have found over many years that there is a species of person who swears that their rhythm is perfect because they “always practice with a metronome” or some such comment. I have found that such people invariably have dreadful rhythm. I think this is because they stop thinking and, instead, let the metronome do their thinking for them. What seems to happen is that, within beats there is a constant sense of ‘catching up’ with the beat, with precious little in the way of good rhythm for the notes in between. It’s a strange thing, but I think you can hear when people have relied on metronomes too much and haven’t developed a good inner ear for what they’re playing.
Well said, Ben. The metronome is a tool to aid learning. One could learn to play a whistle (or any instrument) with no tools at all other than the whistle itself but that would be reinventing the music starting about a million years ago. Recordings, YouTube videos, live music, sessions, formal instruction, informal instruction, online instruction, C&F posts, sheet music, abc’s, tabs, metronomes and others are all tools to aid learning. Some tools work better in some situations than others but deliberately ignoring an available tool is just as wasteful as persevering with a tool that has proved unsuitable to the situation at hand.
My earlier post was deliberately black-and-white to point out the flimsy reasons sometimes given for not using a metronome. A similar list of flimsy reasons could be made for using one as a silver bullet to solve all one’s musical problems.
I agree with the above comments as well. The “controversy” I was referring to was outlined well by walrii. I was originally trained as a kid on the clarinet and sax, and in that world the metronome was often a required teaching device. So for me it was natural to use in it the trad world, smoothing out places I stumble, like Ben mentioned.
I found my phone’s volume wasn’t loud enough to run a metronome app effectively unless I listened through headphones, which then blocks out a bit of your actual playing. Are people using those old style tock-tock wooden metronomes? Or what devices have people found effective?
For the metronome on my phone, the volume is just loud enough. But sometimes when learning a tune or song by ear it isn’t quite loud enough to pick up the nuances. In those cases I use a Bluetooth speaker. I’ve heard of people using the old school metronomes because they like seeing the movement.
No,no,no to metromone . Use your internal metronome , we all have one, learn to use it. Your music will be more human, natural and appealing and you will be a better piper for it.
Why, by training it with an external metronome, of course.
Not necessarily. Playing with people who have things right and/or playing for dancers are both well established means of training rhythms in Irish music, external, but no metronome. Knowing how to dance a set is another means of becoming familiar with the rhythms of Irish music. Developing your inner ear to become attuned to beat, pulse and internal rhythms of a tune does not depend on mechanical devices. They can be a help but are by no means a necessity.
And yes, you do get people who have their beats right but their internal rhythms all garbled up, they are just about the worst to play with as, generally, they cannot understand what they are doing wrong. People who know how to dance a set well on the other hand, they usually have a well developed sense of rhythm when they take up an instrument.
Playing with others to develop good rhythms is definitely ideal. For me the metronome is just a way to touch base. My internal rhythms are usually pretty solid, there’s just something about the pipes where I sometimes speed up a phrase or two. But both playing with others and checking in with a metronome has helped greatly and made me especially aware of where I need to slow down.
Like others have mentioned, I too don’t use a metronome very often, but as a touchstone to see how things stand.
But my question to metronome detractors is this: I assume for Irish music that you need to play the notes that fall on the beat on the beat. So if you set a metronome to only go on the beat, how is it not a helpful tool?
Yes metronomes are mongrel things!
They all slow down in the easy bits and speed up in the tricky parts of a tune.
Seriously though,
I find that if I am playing a new tune or one that I have not played for a long time,
and it is just not sounding right, that it is often a timing issue.
The simplest way I know around this is to use a metronome set to a tempo that I can easily play
the most difficult part of a tune.
The easy bits feel dead slow but after a few times around it starts to sound like it should.
When it is sounding solid then I can increase the tempo by small increments.
I don’t know many musicians or dancers that have the patience to play or dance
at a tempo that is just right for me and my new tune.
Mr Gumby has a valid point though: many dancers and experienced traditional musicians
have very good sense of rythm or internal metronome if you wish to think of it that way.
You can use a metronome to set the tempo.
The rhythm in a tune is up to the player.
There can be a lot of fluctuation even within
a set tempo.
This is true.
An example is ‘the Dusty Miller’ set from Tommy Keane’s ‘Piper’s Apron’ album;
where he switches from 9/8 to 12/8 and back again, finally finishing in 12/8.
All at the same tempo, I think beautifully.
The point I was trying to make earlier was that
rythmic integrity will not be maintained if the tempo varies
with the technical difficulty of a patrticular phrase or part thereof.
I am not too proud to use a metronome when I need to
iron out some tempo issues that are causing a loss of rythmic integrity in my music.
