When you first start to use a metronome you may well find it hard to stay in time with it, which can make it a rather frustrating experience. Actually though this is an excellent opportunity to learn to stay in time not just with a metronome, but if you set about it rightly, you can learn to stay in time better with other musicians as well.
You can use Bounce Metronome Pro to help you stay in time. These tips are from the help for the software.
How can you play exactly in time whenever you want to? The secret is to learn how to play exactly on the beat and an ideal time to do that is when you do your metronome practice.
If this is what you want to learn, as surely any musician does, it isn't enough to use a metronome just in a general way to keep in tempo. In your metronome practice, you have to play along so exactly your note merges with the metronome tick, so much so that the two sound as one, and the metronome may even seem to miss a beat.
That's a tricky thing to learn to do however, and something you can continue to improve on throughout your life. To do that it helps to have a visual aid such as a conductor or conducting metronome for your practice sessions. That's what Bounce Metronome Pro is, a conducting metronome. What's more, it can conduct rhythms with swing and subtle variations of timing, and so help you learn to play exactly on the beat with any type of rhythm, not just a steady metronome tick.
If you listen to amateur musicians, although they are all playing the same tune and the same rhythm, you often find that the rhythm feels "ragged". That's because they hit the beat at different times.
Listen to professional players, and you find every beat is often very crisp, all the instruments together. To someone who just listens for enjoyment, the music sounds maybe smoother, or cleaner, when played by professionals. BTW not saying that the amateur music is less enjoyable! It has its charm too :-).
Anyway - listen carefully to the professionals again, much more carefully, to the individual beats. Though the performance sounds so polished, you may find that they don't come in quite exactly together. In fact the lead instrumentalist may be a bit ahead (for an exciting driving kind of a feel) or fractionally behind the beat (when more laid back perhaps). Often the drums come in a bit early on every beat - just by a few microseconds (for a bit of extra edge). So, there may be quite a bit of variety like that.
But when they do that too, the professionals are consistent in it which is why it still sounds polished and crisp.
Well - they are consistent - but even professionals don't play each beat or bar in exactly the same way. If you try to achieve the same effect in software you may need to introduce little variations in the timing from one bar to the next if you want to try to give it a bit of human like variety. That's part of what gives a real time performance its charm perhaps, and why sometimes even the most amateur playing, even with all its raggedness, may yet still be so heartening and charming and enjoyable and full of life and spirit.
For instance, a mother singing a lullaby to her child, may in her particular way be more musical than any great conductor or orchestra or performer playing to an audience of thousands or millions even. (Think about it :-) ).
Indeed it's something the pros mention that they have to watch out for - that you may find you lose the spirit and enjoyment of actually playing. That's something which you so need, to have anything to give to your audience, and it's something amateurs may often seem to have without trying.
So it can be good to try to achieve this, to play more exactly on the beat than you do at present. You can probably get a little better at this still, no matter how good you are. But don't try so very hard to play exactly on the beat for every beat that you lose the pleasure in playing or it would be a bit sad :-).
BTW interesting link here: Microtiming Studies (from thesis by Vijay Iyar at Berkeley university).
The secret to playing exactly on the beat - conducting
So - how can you learn to play in time and on the beat (or ahead or behind it by the same amount each time) like a professional? The secret is to add visual support to help you to hit the beat exactly. That's where conducting can help.
Depending on the conducting style, a conductor may beat the rhythm somewhat like this:
If you get occasional pauses during playback of this movie - don't worry, the metronome doesn't do that. It's a limitation of this flash movie, and depends on how "busy" your computer is. Download your free test drive to see this and many animations precisely in time.
It may help to clap along first. The baton is raised higher just before the first (loudest) beat of the bar to help you keep your place in the bar.
Try to clap at the exact moment the baton hits the ground. One approach that can help you hit the beat exactly is to do it so that it feels as if the splashes are the result of your claps.
BTW many conductors of orchestras actually conduct well ahead of the beat. This lets them communicate how they want each beat played before the player hits the note. Players still synchronise with the moment of the beat, with a delay. (Conductors of choirs may be more likely to conduct on the beat.)
However, for metronome practice and learning to hit the beat exactly you may find it easier to play as suggested here, at the exact moment of the visual beat rather than with a delay.
To find out more about these animations, and for more example patterns, see Conducting Patterns.
Try to play so that your notes merge with the metronome tick
If you just want to learn to play at a more or less steady tempo, there is no need to synchronise your playing with the metronome tick exactly. But you are missing a trick if that's all you do. Your metronome practice is an ideal time to learn to play exactly on the beat as well.
To do that though, you need to listen more carefully. You know that you are playing on the beat when your note "merges" with the metronome tick. It sounds as if you and the metronome make the note together.
If you normally use Bounce Metronome Pro as a silent metronome, you need to switch on the sound for this exercise. Or you can leave the sound switched off, and try merging visually - try to play so that it feels as if the splash is caused by your note. This may work well too, depends on how sensitive you are to visual / sound coordination.
When you are fractionally out, it may sometimes sound almost as if you are on the beat, so much so that you don't know if you are early or late. But you still know it's not quite on the beat because your note doesn't quite "merge" with the metronome.
When you play a loud note on a loud instrument (piano, drums etc) then the sound of the metronome may seem to vanish when you are exactly in time. It can sound as if someone has switched it off, or as if it missed a beat somehow.
Or if that doesn't happen (maybe you play quietly or are good at hearing quiet sounds simultaneously with loud ones) - still, look out for a "sweet spot".
The metronome should feel quieter, or sound "merged" in a noticeable way, at the sweet spot when you are exactly in time, even if its sound doesn't completely vanish.
This is something you become more sensitive to as you continue to practice in this way. What sounded like merging originally may sound more ragged after practice as you hone your sense of being exactly on the beat.
Percussionists play instruments with a short and loud "attack" and also have to support the rhythm of the band or orchestra quite often, so they may hone their sensitivity to timing to an extraordinary degree. A professional percussionist may be able to detect a raggedness of just a millisecond or two.
Most of us don't need to be as exactly on the beat as that. If it sounds like merging to you - that's your best shot at it and all you need to do even if maybe someone could measure some very tiny time discrepancy still.
The aim is to learn what it feels like to hit the beat, not to play like a metronome
The aim isn't to learn to play with the regularity of a metronome particularly. It's not even to keep a steady tempo either - it is worth while learning to play more exactly on the beat even if you are able to keep a rock steady tempo whenever you want to. And the other way around too, you can play exactly on the beat even with rhythms with swing, or tempi that change gradually or with e.g. bars that vary in timing in a subtle way (very common in lively music).
The idea is to become very familiar with what it feels like to be exactly on the beat. Not just now and again, but for every beat of every bar, to play so exactly on the beat that the merge sweet spot happens every time, on every beat (whenever you want it to).
Once you can do that, your beats within each bar will get steadier, because each beat is exactly where you want it to go to within a few microseconds - so you will be easier for other musicians to play along with as well.
You don't need to play on the beat in the actual music you play, and often you may be fractionally early or late just as the professionals often do, because that's what "feels right" just then. But to have the ability to play exactly on the beat whenever you want to will steady your rhythm and give you more options. It should also make it easier for other musicians to play with you.
Too much practice with a metronome could make your timing too "metronomic" - clock-like or robotic. But it is of course very important to be able to keep to a steady overall tempo.
So try playing your tunes with the metronome set to swing or a lilt, vary the amount, and play in different ways in the same session. This may help counteract this tendency, make your rhythm more flexible - and perhaps even introduce new ideas into your rhythmic vocabulary.
You can also try the lilt bars too. For more about that see Tempo and Rhythm.
Merging with the metronome tick for music with swing or a gentle lilt
This merging may be particularly difficult to achieve, or impossible, if the music you want to practice has swing, such as Jazz or Scottish or Irish dance music. For more about this see Swung Notes.
The problem is, the rhythm you want to play is different from the rhythm the metronome play. The metronome plays its beats all the same, a steady tick. While you perhaps are playing alternating long and short beats. There is no way to get those rhythms to fit each exactly on every beat.
There one tip if using a standard metronome is to set the metronome to play more slowly, half speed say, so that it ticks for only some of the beats in the bar, e.g. set it to tick on the emphasized swung notes only in Jazz, and not on the bar beat or what would normally be thought of as the main beats in the bar.
Or even better, you can use a metronome with swing. There Bounce Metronome Pro can help you as it has swing built in, and even comes with it's own special dedicated Swing Metronome.
But it is good to spend some time with a steady beat too, even if it is just for a few minutes at a time, so that you know what a steady beat feels like if you need it. It may also make it easier to get an idea of what it feels like to truly merge with the metronome ticks because there's less to think about.
A good approach is to play the same piece through, sometimes with a steady beat, sometimes with a gentle lilt (which you can also do in Bounce Metronome Pro), and sometimes with a lot of swing, so you get to try out many different ways of playing the same notes. You can also tap your own new rhythms and grooves to use (another option in Bounce Metronome Pro) then try to follow those too exactly on the beat, using the metronome.
This gives you a lot of flexibility in performance - you can then play the same piece and same rhythm in many subtly different ways with ease.
Conundrum - when you are exactly on the beat you can't hear the metronome so clearly
As we just saw, if your instrument is loud, then the metronome tick vanishes when you are exactly on the beat, and even with a quiet instrument it may be less distinct. But that can be a bit tricky because then how do you continue to keep in time with it? The bar of a pendulum type metronome can give you a pretty good indication of the beat moment, but it is hard to use to learn to play exactly on the beat.
You need a conductor, to help you keep in time visually as well (I'm assuming you are sighted here).
What would be great would be if you could have your own personal conductor, available whenever you want it. Preferably also with flexible rhythms too so that you don't get into the rut of always playing a steady tick with all the beats exactly the same like a clock.
Solution, get a metronome which also conducts for you - Bounce Metronome Pro :-)
Well we don't normally have personal conductors. But that was the inspiration that lead me to develop the conducting features in Bounce Metronome Pro. It can help you to play exactly on the beat in this way. In fact you can also use it with the sound switched off, you don't need the sound at all.
So then it doesn't matter that the sound of the metronome vanishes when you most need to hear it (when you are so exactly in time that the sound merges with the ticks). That will still happen, but you have the visuals as well to help you keep in time. In fact you can also switch the sound off and use it as a silent metronome. So amongst its many advantages, it is also an ideal metronome for players of drum, piano, trombone, tuba etc, instruments capable of very loud notes.
The reason this conducting method works to help you keep in time is that we can easily synchronise with visual cues of a bouncing ball. It is easy to clap in time with the bounces of a ball, drum stick or conductor's baton. So if you play along with the bouncing ball visuals you have a head start as far as playing in time and on the beat, and staying in time.
