Sometimes the advice you need is not the advice you are looking for. While I don't doubt the validity of KP's advice, I don't think it is any better than any advice you have already received. However, perception is something that can only be understood by the individual. It is after all, only my opinion.
*shrug*
I asked for specific advice, I got some, and I'm acting on it. It's awesome. Why does that bother you?
Jeff
Let me just add that maybe you're not a person who needs specific advice, maybe the vague and general "use a metronome, play slow" works well for you. That's cool, you may have some distinctions in that area I don't have.
I just know that from my personal, experience, I've played with a metronome plenty, and I've played slow, but I never had a really good idea of whether what I was doing was helping or not. It probably did help me to some extent, but I wasn't focusing on it in a specific enough way for me.
But overally, I obviously wasn't doing it right or needed some other distinctions to use that advice properly.
Likewise, if you wanted to lose some weight, maybe somebody could say to you "Eat less and exercise" and that'd be enough to completely get the job done for you, to get the pounds off fast and keep them off. There might be others who would benefit from specific, focused guidelines advising when to work out, how often, what types of weights to lift, and how to manage their diet and nutrition in the long run to make the changes they needed.
Do you see what I'm trying to say?
I have to admit I'm a little baffled by this "argument", since you're just telling me a vague and general version of what kingpatzer told me, but with fewer actual details about what you mean.
All I know is I got some great advice and some weird arguments that accused me of wanting shortcuts when I was actually looking for a structured course of study that I could work on whenever I practice, from now on. That's not a shortcut, that's called practicing smart.
Jeff
Well the specifics were: stick to one tempo until you absolutely nail it. That is the crux of the issue. There is no more specific advice any more helpful than that. It's not an argument. Working toward a slower tempo is in my opinion, backwards.
If you start fast and think you are doing ok, when you slow down you're going to start realizing that maybe you weren't doing ok after all. In fact, as you slow down it will become quite apparent how uneven your rhythm is. When you play fast it isn't as noticeable, only after a minute or so you will realize that somehow you have jumped ahead or behind the rhythm.
Start slow and build speed. It is a tried and true method. Do not advance until you absolutely nail it at the current speed setting.
This is especially true when practicing scales.
If you are particularly looking to improve your picking rhythm then try this:
Set your metronome SLOW. Say 30 bpm. Start playing your scale by the quarter note beat. Do it again as tuplets. Then triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets and by that time although you are at a slow setting, you will be picking a good clip.
IE: a b c d e f g, aa bb cc dd ee ff gg, aaa bbb ccc ddd eee fff ggg.
This will not only help you to build speed, it will force you to maintain evenness in rhythm. Of course I could be totally out of my head.
Thanks.
I PMed kingpatzer and he gave me very similar advice, to stick to one slow tempo until I've nailed it. Works for me.
Jeff
hello all
we all know that playing with a metronome is an excellent tool to develop a good rhythmic consistency and I'm trying to use it quite a lot (and for what it worths my opnion the metronome sessions really works). Just a question: what means playing on beats 2 and 4? Does it mean that If I played i.e. at 120 bpm have i to play patterns only on beats 2 and 4 like this:
1: pause
2: play whatever I like (quavers, triplets etc.)
3: pause
4: play whatever
or does it means that even if the metro is going at 120, I must interpretate in my head like if it was at 60 and so intend beat 2 of teh 120 bpm as beat 1 of a 60 bpm measure?
thanks in adavance
Matteo
Are you referring to the practice of using the metronome to play beats two and four?
In that case, it is indeed playing the metronome at 60bpm and interpreting it as 120bpm. So that each click of the metronome sounds the 2 and 4 beats, and you feel the 1 and 3 beats even though they're not clicked.
ah thanks now i understand...well it seems quite a demanding exercise, must try it
Matteo
NO! If you are meant to play the off beat. Play the off beat at tempo. That means counting the 1 and 3. Do not dismiss them. If the intention is for you to learn to play a syncopated beat, you need to practice a syncopated beat not the beat at half tempo. Is there a difference? Yes. The difference is in perception and how it is applied when you play with other musicians. If they are playing a 120bpm beat and you are intended to play on the off beat, you can't just come in playing half tempo. If you haven't practiced it properly, you're likely to come in on the 1 and 3 only at half tempo. Well, that's pointless now isn't it? The point of the practice is to structure YOUR rhythm. The metronome could be at any tempo. YOU have to impose meter. A metronome can't do that. At least not without some sort of accent.
"Working toward a slower tempo is in my opinion, backwards. "
--He suggested starting at a certain speed and then slowing it down because the OP is trying to learn rhythm, not a particular song or technique. Playing at 20 bpm and being able to play each note on time is a lot harder than doing it a 100 bpm. Playing that slow is supposed to help the OP develop his sense of timing and nothing more. It makes sense because 20 bpm is such an unnatural tempo to play at and the beats are so far apart, and any mistakes are greatly amplified because of the distance between beats. Almost everybody can tap their foot in time at regular tempos, but I'd guess most people would be much farther off if they tried to tap their foot at 20 bpm instead 90 bpm. Somebody with really good timing would be able to do it accurately though. If the OP was trying to learn a particular song, scale, or technique then I'd agree that starting slow and building up speed is the best way to go. That's just my opinion, though.
"Working toward a slower tempo is in my opinion, backwards. "
--He suggested starting at a certain speed and then slowing it down because the OP is trying to learn rhythm, not a particular song or technique. Playing at 20 bpm and being able to play each note on time is a lot harder than doing it a 100 bpm. Playing that slow is supposed to help the OP develop his sense of timing and nothing more. It makes sense because 20 bpm is such an unnatural tempo to play at and the beats are so far apart, and any mistakes are greatly amplified because of the distance between beats. Almost everybody can tap their foot in time at regular tempos, but I'd guess most people would be much farther off if they tried to tap their foot at 20 bpm instead 90 bpm. Somebody with really good timing would be able to do it accurately though. If the OP was trying to learn a particular song, scale, or technique then I'd agree that starting slow and building up speed is the best way to go. That's just my opinion, though.
That's pretty much what I was getting at! You got it.
I have one other suggestion for you, Progressions....
Move your picking hand down on every beat.
If I need to play a half note (or longer), I'm playing the note or strumming the chord... and then I give my picking hand a little "bounce" on the beat. It doesn't have to be a big movement - just enough so your hand keeps moving; that makes it your internal metronome. I may break the rule briefly for an odd rhythmic figure like quintuplets, but if the tempo is slow enough to do it, I'm moving down on every single beat.
I've tried lots of ways to teach rhythm over the years, but I've had the best results with that method. It's easily adaptable to complex patterns, too.
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
Thanks, Noteboat. I think I may have started doing that unconsciously at low tempos while practicing, but I hadn't done it deliberately, which I think is a great idea. I'll see how that works out.
I've been practicing a lot, but haven't done the steady rhythm practice that I need. We've got a couple of big gigs coming up later this month (next week and the week after, actually), and we're starting to use backing tracks with rhythm and bass on them to give me a chance to get more creative with my guitar parts, and to play some lead. I've been working on it a lot but I still just feel really disappointed in my abilities. I feel like after 20 years of playing, I want to be a lot better right now.
After making the first post in this thread, I started practicing one guitar part of one song so intensely and for so long that my first finger just about stopped working on me. So I had to back off a bit and now I've got to find a happy medium, because even that one part I was practicing is STILL not up to snuff, and it's a fairly simple picked rhythm part.
I spent a lot of time this month shopping for pedals and now I've finally got the decent pedal set I've been wanting. But I probably could have spent a lot of that time practicing, and I'd be a lot better now. I dunno.
I'm normally a focused and positive person, but I feel like I'm on one of those plateaus, and I'm ready to move up to the next level! I'm sure with the right practice, that will happen, I just want it to happen NOW! :)
Ok I guess living in a houshold of guitarists,guitar teachers and playing for twenty plus years has done nothing for me.
In art school when they teach you the basics like drawing circles of all things, they don't teach you to draw little circles. They get you to draw big circles freehand. Similarly when you learn to draw the human form they don't get to draw a slender beauty. The person will likely be uh...robust. Why you ask? It's easy to draw small but the likelyhood that you will draw with proper detail is remote. Drawing larger forms trains you in proportion and since the details are larger they become a part of what you would try to incorporate into smaller drawings. You know that the detail is there now. You know how it is involved in the subject.
Okay. How does this apply to rhythm and music? Playing slow lays bare all the detail of your playing. Particularly your mistakes. It's easy to play fast. The faster you play the more mistakes you can make without someone noticing. For some people this is okay but for someone who has been playing a while, you hear the mistakes, the unintentional slurs, the extraneous noises and it sounds sloppy. Practicing at high tempos just ingrains your mistakes.
Conversely, playing slowly and taming your rhythm ingrains it into your playing, making it easier for you to slowly bring that speed up. The better you are at playing slowly, the better you will be at playing fast.
But I suppose, I could be totally full of fluff. I probably have no idea what I'm talking about. :roll:
Further. You don't have to play at 20 bpm. You start at the slowest tempo that you can comfortably play without making any mistakes. That means perfectly. So maybe you can play perfectly at 40bpm or 60 or 80. Great! Start there. If you increase the speed and you start making a lot of mistakes, practice it till it's perfect then increase the tempo.
