Mac Santiago's Diminishing Click and Decreasing Click

Youtube Video

4/4 with decreasing click - fades away to silence every four measures

With his Decreasing Click shown in this vidoe, you play in the pocket at steady volume and also a steady tempo (despite decreasing click).

The aim is to stay "rhythmonous" with the click. Are still in the pocket with the click when it comes back on loud? From Chapter 1,  Lesson 5 of "Beyond the Metronome, becoming an Inchronous Musician" by Mac Santiago.

To set this up in Bounce Metronome

Choose Go Silent Briefly (Ctrl + 260) - in the Tempo drop menu. Switch on "Play then GO SILENT at Measures".  

Enter numbers of measures as
4 0
(plays for 4, silent for 0)

Switch on "Fade out from" & "Visual fade out from". Set both to fade out from 0%.

Diminishing Click

 The next one, his Diminishing Click is a far tougher exercise. You will almost certainly lose track of it at some point before the end (especially if you do it without looking at the visuals).

Youtube Video

4/4 with diminishing click - longer and longer gaps between the clicks. From "Beyond the Metronome" 

 It's an exercise to help with steady tempo. Can you keep the same tempo even through longer and longer silences?

Relaxation is the key, and you can get so you feel that you are playing the click rather than the other way around.

It's okay to micro-adjust as you go, but stop when you feel that you have lost the tempo completely - and see how far you got. Then you can keep track of how far you get each time you do the exercise. It is an exercise that is best done when you are in an alert and relaxed frame of mind.

This is just a brief recap of what Mac Santiago says in his book. If you haven't read the book you should get it and read it first if you can :).

You might find that the visual bounces make it easier than it would be just using the sound. So you can also try doing it without looking at the screen and see if you can still get to the end, or how far you get.

For detailed help and instruction for this exercise see Chapter 4 of his  "Beyond the Metronome, becoming an Inchronous Musician" from:

http://inchronicity.com/

How you set this up in Bounce Metronome

Go to Tempo and Rhythm Progressions (Ctrl + 245)

Tempo progressions - set to Measures tempo as % of first, then enter the numbers as:
100 100 100 100 50 25

Rhythm progressions
2/2 4/4 2/2 1/1 1/0.5 1/0.25 

Numbers of measures for rhythms:
1, 5, 8, 8, 3, 3,