Thank YOU for sharing your thoughts with me. If I can help you in any way, write your thoughts. I'll be reading them. Regards, Jeff
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Jeff Berlin asks - Post Bass Lines that Got You to Practice with a Metronome
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I don't think you've read the majority of opinions on this thread very well.
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It’s still happening all over the world, every day.
The mechanical metronome, with an audible timekeeping component, made its debut around 1815. What did musicians do to develop good time prior to that?
I agree. Every player I admire has probably used every tool available to them to get as good as they are. Private jam, live playing, drum machine, metronome...
I've told this story before and I think that it bears repeating!
I recall a test in the 1970's where doctors checked out if taking copious amounts of vitamins created good health for people that took them. What the test showed was, although many people at that time were scarfing huge amounts of vitamins, they weren't healthier because of it. They were healthy because it was the nature of the people in the test to be healthy. That's it! They would have had good health with or without the vitamins. Despite their belief, the vitamins, it turns out, were incidental to their state of health.
Many bass players used metronomes during their formative years. But, many more did not. And yet, almost all bassists seem to share a similar level of great time if they practiced with one or not. If as many players have good time with a metronome as without it, then logic seems to indicate that the metronome was incidental to their ability to have good time as well.
Good question! Further, what did every native musician on five continents do to develop their own sense of time? How did every blues player, rock musician, R&B players from the early days of rock & roll acquire their time sine none used a metronome to play together? How did every great jazz artists since the early 1900's through the combos of the 1930's, the big bands and the be-bop groups of the 1940's do it. How did Jaco or Hendrix do it? How did James Brown do it. How did Arturo Toscanini acquire great time? If you can't answer these questions, then every metronome proponent really ought to start engaging some logic and deeper thinking into the academic validity of a clicking box because I feel certain that a lot of teachers are truly giving you bad info about this device.
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No, I'm a Democrat!
Seriously, comments that go against the common views are not often welcome, but, are rejected outright if, on the face of it they violate some deep belief or opinion. Research of the new idea is almost always rejected outright.
There are certainly truths, but many of us don't want to hear about it. Winston Churchill said, "The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is."
Gloria Steinem's quote, "The Truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off" gives another view of how the truth over one's beliefs impacts with some people.
In the life of a musician, there are truths about both playing and learning that apply to us all. Not one of us are exempt! Anyone who plays the bass should be curious why, after the years that they spent with the instrument, many players still can't create a bass line that wasn't first played by someone else in the first place. This is one truth of music; so many bass players are without even the basic musical skills to create something on the bass that wasn't already played by another bass player and then learned afterward. Whole careers rest upon the work of other musicians who seemingly had the fortitude to force a more creative musical life for themselves by the dint of their own determination. THIS is where inspiration comes from, from within.
Post your thoughts! I am always interested in what people think about my ideas. And remember; trolling is done to cause trouble. I am here to cause change!
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I agree with you! This is why I state that music education is a disaster, and that many bass players aren't qualified to gig. Lame bass education isn't only an American phenomenon. The pursuing of musically low standards of bass playing isn't confined to this country either. The planet's bass community doesn't realize that if it only HAD the option of learning well to choose from, but instead chose groove or slap as their academic pursuits, I don't feel that things would be so sad in the quality area of learning the bass guitar. At least people would have had a choice.
our last to last album was recorded without any click tracks
i mean just listen to herbie's chameleon
You can have my metronome when you can pry it from my cold dead hands.
If this is true then it's really quite sad. Yet, IME, more often than not when I turn up to play I am lucky if there is a lead sheet to work from. So I have to draw on my own knowledge and experience to develop a part, and more often than not this process begins with sketching out the harmonic structure - 'the chords' then finding an appropriate way to join the dots. Appropriate here, and to me, means calling on many years of exposure to all kinds of music (Albinoni to Zappa through a mix if formal education and self-exploration) to create something in my own small way that serves the music without blowing over it but that also brings some originality to the overall presentation.
Honestly, I can't imagine being able to function as a bass player without this fundamental skill, but at the same time I love the thrill of the busk so I try to leave opportunities to wing it from time to time...
If what you say is true then I share your concerns, but most of what we do is a rehash of what has gone before, if you take the time to look. That's not to say we just regurgitate stuff, but that informative or instructive sources exist way beyond just so-and-so's line on such-and-such version...
Most likely because they didn’t have 80’s guitar magazines telling them than thorough knowledge of modes and rigorous metronome use are the required courses of action to become a better musician?
Some of those guys that MM hung around with as kids 35 years ago are noted players today, on various instruments. I played weddings off and on with one of them for years when I was in the NYC area. Once the technology emerged, they were really into drum machines, but not metronomes. Of course, the drum machines of those days could only be metronomically perfect, and were used for performance and recording or jamming, not as an isolated learning aid.
Thanks for the critique. I may begin using a metronome to tighten up my playing and that's my interest in this thread. We can always improve, right? I do hear myself sometimes rushing or playing behind the tempo and I think the metronome will help with that. The movie Whiplash comes to mind when I hear myself off tempo and it's not a pleasant thought. As for the way the original riff is played, I never intend to cover tunes exactly as they are recorded, so I don't have a problem with that. A close proximity is all I'm after, as well as the shear pleasure I get from playing the instrument.
Again, much appreciated.
Is this where I offer an unsolicited, out-of-place critique of the time issues that the guy hitting the pot has in a Jeff Berlin thread?
I enjoy having a Youtube channel to upload mimicked famous bass lines from popular cover tunes! It gives me the motivation to learn new songs on bass and guitar. It's an outlet, and I'm thankful for it. I honestly prefer not to play in bands. In my opinion, compromise in a band situation, is way overrated, especially now that it's possible to BYOB (Be Your Own Band). For me, besides being an extracurricular activity, playing and making music is simply fun.
I think we have more examples of the musical world pre metronome from the same source in this video.
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