TIME
HAS COME TODAY!!
There is no more basic element of music than time. Time is what
holds the band together, time makes us dance, time gives even
basic speech a musical quality (rap, anyone?). Time is also,
unfortunately, the one area where aspiring musicians suffer
the most and inflict the most harm on their audiences (outside
of harmony vocals, that is.). That guy who always has to stop
between chords and the band no one wants to dance to? Time bandits,
both. In this, my first Tip Of The Month contribution, I will
give you the simplest, most direct path to rhythmic righteousness
and proper time travel.
What is that path, you ask? Why, it is the use of one of the
most time-honored and true-tested practice devices to ever enter
the practice room. I mean, of course, the humble metronome.
You don't have to get the giant old-lady piano teacher kind
that swings back and forth; the modern, compact digital kind
will do nicely. Start at a setting of 60 to 80 bests per minute
(bpm). That click you are hearing is a quarter note. It is worth
one beat and is what you tap your foot to instinctively. Start
by playing one note on each click of the metronome. Stay with
it as best you can without slowing down or speeding up. Practice
that until you can do it without thinking about it too much.
When that gets easy, try to play a song along with the click,
again without getting ahead or behind. This type of practicing
to a perfect time source will help you internalize that quarter
note so, no matter what your hands may be doing, your heart
holds it together.
More advanced players can play their scales and exercises to
the metronome. Play them two notes per click (eighth notes)
and four notes per click (sixteenth notes), striving for accuracy
over velocity. Start out at a comfortable speed and work up
a couple bpm at a time until you can't keep up. Keep a log of
your tempos and over the course of a few
weeks you should see your numbers get higher and higher. Make
metronoming part of your daily practice routine for a while
and the results will surprise you. What once was a butter knife
will have turned into a razor blade. See you in the shed!
Mike
O'Cull
Mike
O'Cull is a guitar instructor at Goodtime Music in Streamwood,
3 W. Streamwood Blvd, Streamwood, and can be reached at (630)-837-3733
if you're interested in lessons with him. Visit their MySpace
page here...www.myspace.com/goodtimemusicinstructors