You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Metronome Practice

Episode Date: June 7, 2019

Peter's still away, but that's okay because he's calling in today. Peter and Adam are talking all about practicing with a metronome.Be one of the first 20 people to leave us a rating or review at https://www.youllhearit.com/sticker and you can score a FREE You'll Hear It sticker.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey Adam. What's up? You still in my chairman? Oh, my God. What is that? What is that horrid sound? Horrible, horrible, horrible. I'm Adam Manus. I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast.

Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Coming at you today brought to you by Open Studio. Go to Open Studio Network.com to check out some amazing courses by some amazing musicians. Hey, check out the All Access Pass, which is all of the courses by all of the musicians. and you can get an amazing sense of what we're doing over here. It's really incredible, Pete, how much we have now. It's like too much almost. I mean, it's not, but it's a lot.

No, it's too much. Let's go ahead and say it's an embarrassment of riches. Shut her down. Shut her down. It's totally overwhelming. And you didn't see, but as you were talking about Open Studio, I opened my outer shirt to expose my inner shirt, which says Open Studio and I did a little dance.

The people will see it on YouTube. You can't see it because I'm in another place from you. But how's it going there? It's going okay. Yeah, it's going great. You know, we've been chilling over here while you're out of town, rehearsing that opera. Hopefully it happens. Well, let's do the episode about that next week.

We'll be able to do a deep dive on jazz operas. Right on. So, yeah, well, what are we talking about today? Because you did. I think you gave a little foreshadowing as you are such a storyteller with that intro. I have the feeling something metronomic is about to happen. It might. We got an email from Christian.

McBrzy! What's up, Big Bride? That's my boy. What's up? No, not that. Not that one. Okay, that's good. He says, Christian says,

Hello. Christian stands? No. No, not that Christian either. I hope not. Hello with an A, H-A-L-O. Hello. First of all, congratulations on your podcast.

It's very interesting and useful. Why, thank you. My name is Christian, and I'm from Italy. I have a request of an advice about how to practice, in particular about the value of slow practice in jazz improvisation. Every day I study with metronome slowly. Sometimes when I speed up tunes or exercises, I feel that the quality of the study decreases, even if the fingers correctly perform the exercise. In what doses do I balance things?

Thank you for your attention. If you could reply in some way, I would be very happy. Well, we're applying in the best way possible, Christian. We're doing an episode about your question. We are doing a remote podcast answer to your question. How about that, Christian in Italy? So this is, man, this is for me, this is two-parter. Not a two-part episode, but this is like a two,

it's a question in two parts, because there's an idea of slow practice, and then there's an idea of practicing with a metronome, two different things. And it sounds like Christians combining the two and he used the word doses. So we will reiterate that we both have doctors and have been to doctors and even have friends that are doctors, but we are not doctors.

No. We are doctors of jazz advice, but not medical doctors, so we can only give out certain doses of advice at different times. We're not even technically doctors of jazz, either one of us. Like, I know doctors of jazz, like jazz. Who? Like people who have doctorates in jazz perform. I don't think that that exists on a serious note. I mean, I've heard of a few programs that are, are there doctorates in jazz?

There has to be, right? There's going to be soon, I think. Maybe. Yeah. But either way, we're not that either. No, not even close. We're not medical or doctors. However, we are experts at practicing slowly and with metronomes.

That's right. Never together, because that's dangerous. Can't we done. No, but I think he's saying that he's doing both. And then I love the idea and the slowly moving things up. But make sure you're moving that metronome up slowly enough. It sounds like he is to notice when there's some kind of degradation. But I'm wondering if he's not being a little bit hard on himself because sometimes we can, you know, like we'll say things and I think it's valuable as far as like practice slowly with dimension, and then slowly raise the tempo.

We're not looking for perfection. We're looking for improvement. We're looking for consistency. We're looking for getting into good habits with whatever technical and or musical aspect of your playing that you're working on. But we want to keep things rolling. Sometimes we can get into this. And it's all a part of, you know, what we're starting to call that analysis paralysis where it's like, oh, I heard a little bit of perfection. Let's keep it slow again.

Like, we're never going to get out of slow. You got to kind of keep pushing forward. You have to know, you know, kind of law of diminishing return. So, yes, we're starting slowly and we're easing it up. But we're not going to wait until all the stars aligned because we're musicians today. We are musicians today. And we are great who we are. We are somebody.

No, but I mean, we're ready to go and to keep moving things. This is not something that we can kind of decide for you. But to me, the tone of the email is a little bit. Maybe Christian is being a little too careful even with moving the tempo up. Yeah, I think there's two ways to do this slow metronome practice. And the way that he's describing, I agree with you, it seems like he's doing it out of necessity before he can uptick the tempos. Which I agree. You can't be too scared about being too precious, right?

it's either going to be comfortable, an uncomfortable tempo and perfect, or a little uncomfortable and maybe a little less perfect, but that's how you get, you know, those tempos up. But then, man, there's another thing which is purposely practicing ridiculously slow tempos, which has a lot of value. Yeah. In, you know, going the other way, like we think about always upticking

until we get to like, you know, 350 beats per minute or whatever. But it's just as hard to play at 45 beats. per minute. You know what I mean? Like that kind of practice. Well, certain things are harder. Oh, my goodness. And if you're really listening, it's actually harder. Most things are harder at that temple. So I like where you're going with this, which I think is that it's not always start slow and go fast. It could be just start slow and stay there. And that's your metronal practice for this. Start fast and keep, edging down. Try that. That's difficult to do, man. It's like the space widens. The other thing I think about this is, I think he's getting, I also get the tone from the tone in the email, too, that he's like,

he feels like he's getting a lot out of the slow tempos, which I think is super cool. But think about this, Chris. So actually, there's no reason to stop doing that. But think about this when you go to fast tempos. One of the reasons why you feel like you're getting so much out of slow tempos is because there's a wider duration of time between the metronome clicks. You can do that at fast tempos. Just don't have it on every beat or even every other beat.

Try putting the metronome on one beat per measure. Start off on the first beat because that's the easiest one to feel. but then you can move it to the second beat, third beat, put it on beat four, and try to keep it there. It's a great way to practice with the metronome. Some people do it on the end of two or the end of three, you know what I mean? Yeah. Which is like super good practice. Some people get to the point where they can do it, you know, one beat, depending on the tempo, one beat per two measures, one p per four measures and stick with it.

Like when you get into faster tempos, like if I'm anywhere near 300, I'm usually at one. beat per measure if not trying to do one beat per two measures. You know what I'm saying? Just trying to like feel the pulse in a slower way and keep my time so solid that I'm locking up the metronome at longer durations. Absolutely. I mean look if you're trying to get to 280 BPM you know you don't want to have the metronome going there. That's not going to work. You want to be 70. Put it at 70 and that's once a met is that right. My math is correct. No, 90.

Wait, what? 90. No. No, you're right. 80? Ah, whatever. Whatever. Well, 90's even better.

That's faster. Not doctors of math either. What the hell are we doctors of? Yeah, I think that's such an important thing. And look, metronome practice is, I love this precious word that you brought up and don't be precious. Like, it's all good. You know what I mean? Yep.

practice with the metron. And sometimes when the, when the, when the, metro is getting aggravating to you, stop practicing with it. Don't stop practicing, though, because the metron is speeding up. First of all, you're dragging. And don't stop to stop practicing because you're like,

my metronome is all on the fritz. It keeps slowing down. You're a rushing, buddy. But I mean, if you're locked in and stuff and you're cool with that, spend some time away from it. It's, this is not, there's no right or wrong way to do it except to not practice with the metrono.

I mean, I used to hear this garbage. People like, don't practice with a metronome because you won't be able to. to swing. Come on. You know, don't, that's like, you know, eat barbecue ribs and you'll learn how to swing. That's as stupid as that. That's true.

That's true. That is true. That is true. Hashtag plant base. But I mean, I think, you know, man, everything, it's, it's so freeing when you start to realize we don't want to be random about a price. I'm not saying that. But, you know, stick with it as long as it's going good.

Like you're, you're saying certain things are not feeling right or whatever. So back off of that. But there's all, it's not just starting slow and moving fast. are starting fast, moving slowly. There's all different ways to do it. And, you know, for me, I, like, I get them a little bit, like, I'll practice with a metronome if it happens to be sitting there plugged in. I'm like, oh, that's a cool little thing.

Let me turn that thing on. And then if I'm feeling off with it, then I know I need to have a little bit more. But I think that, like, in terms of, like, a metrono to start to teach you, it doesn't teach you groove, but it teaches you how to play in time. But it doesn't teach you how to play in groove. You learn how to play in groove by just being an open. person open to your story and how you're going to connect with the music and dance and all that kind of stuff. But it'll start to tell you, tell you, it's not going to teach you to not speed up or

slow down, but it's going to tell you when you are doing that so that you can start. Because ultimately, you have to learn how to play without the metronome. And even like if you're playing with a great drummer, that's not a metronome. That's just going to make things easy, but you want to be able to ride the wave in the same way. You don't want to totally rely on them. They don't want to totally rely on you. So this is just kind of like part of the homework. It's like if you're going to be like a football player, you know, obviously lifting weights if you play certain positions is very important that you become strong. But when you get out on the field, it's not like you get with the team and like, now it's all lift weights as we run down the field. You don't actually use the weights.

But what that does is kind of build you to the point where the actual game is going on with the football. And that's, you know, what playing is not with the metronome, but it's one of the tools that we use, you know, and look, it gets irritating sometimes. So put it to the side. It's good point, actually. To be honest. That's a good point. Yeah, yeah. Clack, click. I mean, it was irritating when you put it on earlier. Yeah, no, that's why I did it. Hey, Christian, thanks so much for the email. Yep. Pete, good to talk to you, man. When you coming home.

Good to talk to you, man. Good to see you. I can't see you. I can't see you either. How long are you gone? How long are you gone? I'm coming back next week. I'll be back. Oh, right on. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And I think that, you know, we've got, you know, it's great that we're getting these questions. I like that you did the email wherever. You can speak by. Because, Scoot, you'll hear it. You've got all the things you'll hear.

We've got swag as we say, oh, wait, let's keep talking because I'm going to show them something that you can't see. I've actually got some here. You got some swag with you? Yeah, we still do the stickers. I'm showing a sticker right now. Is it you'll hear.com slash stickers, Andrew? Is that what I'm going? Yeah.

Nice. Yeah, we're doing stickers. Leave a rating and review and get a sticker. By the time they hear this, we might be out of them and say, oh, but I've got some in D.C. So find me. Say you'll hear it and you might get one. Come on. That's how we do it.

We will. I'll pass you a sticker in the park by the White House like we were doing a drug deal. It's all good. All right, man. Drugs are bad. Well, until tomorrow next week. You'll hear it.