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Practising with a metronome
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Ricardo
Posts: 14746
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Practising with a metronome (in reply to flyeogh)
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My drum teacher said “practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent”. So you have to be careful with metronome practice too. I tend to lean towards “medium speed” practice for a lot of things. The reason is I find a sort of lower limit on certain phrases where if you drop below the tempo threshold it no longer feels the same. Simply put, if you play 8th notes of any type, but slow them down, they eventually get so slow that you are actually feeling them as quarter notes. I don’t think it makes sense to learn some music phrase as quarter notes, then gradually speed them up until they are 16th note triplets or whatever they are actually supposed to sound and feel like. It’s ok to have a narrow range of tempos to get used to, say 10bpm or so, but what I advocate is to loop a small chunk of a phrase at a relative “medium” tempo.... so that your body and mind are getting used to the actual feel of the phrase as it will sound once you’ve got it all together. Don’t worry about compas cycles and such when doing this, only basic tempo and beat. I might loop 2 or 4 beats of bulerias at or near tempo of a short passage, knowing later as I connect it to the rest of the phrase the 12 count structure will emerge. In regards to functionality of falsetas for baile, well again certain falsetas lose all the feeling at a drastically reduced tempo so I simply avoid using them, eventually creating a separate bag of “slowlea”, falsetas and compas to be distinguished from my normal solea stuff for cante or solo guitar. That might go for other palos too where dancers intentionally are using slow tempo for drama and contrast to the fast sections later.
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CD's and transcriptions available here: www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Sep. 22 2019 14:29:07
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Ricardo
Posts: 14746
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Practising with a metronome (in reply to flyeogh)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: flyeogh I was actually thinking I'd pay a guy to follow me around knocking out compas on a cajon every time I picked up a guitar My prof de Jerez thought if you kept hearing the compas it would sink in over time. Then when you take the wheels away you'd not fall over. I guess what is important is to play the compas whether it is there or not. But thanks Ricardo for the realism The truth is the compas, whether 12 or 4 or whatever, has all kinds of accents patterns and phrases, not unlike language. It’s a disservice to force students to think there is only one set accent pattern to internalize. What is more important is to develop a sense and feel of subdivisions and groove. A basic click teaches or helps with this, whereas a complex accent pattern might confuse the student that ends up chasing accents hit or miss, with no soniquete. Think of something like 12,3,6,8,10, as an emergent property that results from smaller simpler elements that are executed correctly.
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CD's and transcriptions available here: www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Oct. 1 2019 11:24:11
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flyeogh
Posts: 729
Joined: Oct. 13 2004
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RE: Practising with a metronome (in reply to mrstwinkle)
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quote:
I did some classes in Sevilla last year and asked a question about compas. Answer was, if you can't hear it in your head you shouldn't be playing it. So a pre-requisite of the course was to identify compas by ear presumably? To be serious, IMHO. hearing it is one thing. Playing it takes, for most mere mortals, a constructive process building on basics, constructing more complex things from the basics, and finally drilling it till it becomes second nature. And only then, at a high level can one go on a self-learning creative journey of adventure. A level that, as commented on this foro recently, is rarely attained. As with the comparison of language learning offered before, there are basically two approaches. Learn as children (in general thought up to the age of ten), and learn like a muture student, Both are distinct. Many children using the former method do not ever get a good hold of their language. While overseas students often become fluent. I assume Mrstwinkle (love it ) that he did answer your question? And would be great to know what the question was?
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nigel (el raton de Watford - now Puerto de Santa Maria, Cadiz)
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Date Oct. 3 2019 13:20:51
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Filip
Posts: 403
Joined: Apr. 23 2006
From: Paris
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RE: Practising with a metronome (in reply to flyeogh)
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I've been playing guitar for some 16 years, most of the time without metronome. But there was a time around 6 years ago when I sat down to learn Percusion Flamenca by PdL, with a metronome. I started with 60bpm, I would learn a falseta with that tempo and when I had it I would move to the next falseta; then I would increase the tempo. It took me around two months to reach 120bpm with the whole song, and I am convinced that that experience had made me much better guitar player and had made my technique much much better than it was before. Most of the time now I do not use metronome in playing, but I sometimes use it when I am learning new falsetas which definitely improves playing and technique, at least I see the difference. Ricardo's method as shown with Tomatito falseta is very good for me, I learnt parts of Guardian Angel like that. I don't play it regularly anymore, but even now I can play it fairly well and haven't forgotten it. What's interesting is that I can use the same method for warming up and the difference when I play the intro before and after only 5-10 minutes warming can be huge, I have the feeling I get quite a boost especially for the time invested. Currently I am working on Niquelao, I started learning it a few days ago. I also think that starting slowly with a metronome or foot tap (but not too slowly as Ricardo mentioned) is in general very good warm up method. For example, I would start with a falseta, sometimes even whole song, with a metronome slowed down. As early as within 20-30 minutes working like that I gain much better control of my hands and fingers and I have the feeling of the big boost. Whatever I play afterwards is, as far as I can note, much better played and controlled. I do struggle with compas however. With Rio de la Miel falseta for example, I started with a metronome only on accented beats and compas-wise I was playing fine but I noticed that I did not have full control of what was going on in the middle. Then I put a sound tick on every beat and got the falseta perfectly well but I could not play it very well if I used compas metronome, I just got lost. Still working on that. Cheers
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Date Oct. 5 2019 11:38:23
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