EXCERPT 2

The Big Metronome is designed to help you develop a better internal sense of time. This is accomplished by requiring you to "feel time" rather than having you rely on the steady click of a metronome. The idea is to slowly wean yourself away from an external device and rely on your internal/natural sense of time. The exercises presented work in conjunction with the three CDs that accompany this book. CD 1 presents the first 13 settings from a traditional metronome 40-66; the second CD contains metronome markings 69-116, and the third CD contains metronome markings 120-208. The first CD gives you a 2 bar count off and a click every measure, the second CD gives you a 2 bar count off and a click every 2 measures, the 3rd CD gives you a 2 bar count off and a click every 4 measures. By presenting all common metronome markings a student can use these 3 CDs as a replacement for a traditional metronome.

Let's discuss the proper approach to this book and the idea of developing your own internal feel for time. This strong sense of time is not achieved by subdividing it in your head nor is it helped by tapping your foot or moving your body. It is achieved by trusting your internal clock based on a feeling rather than an intellectual or mechanical subdivision. Your goal is to just feel these larger groups of time, not to think about them. Humans have a remarkable built-in sense of time. If you give yourself the proper tools and the proper frame of mind you will find that through working with the CD and exercises presented in this book, you will be able to feel larger spaces of time. If you want to continue this process and work on feeling even larger spaces of time accurately, I recommend getting the Doing Time with the Blues ISBN #1890944173 and Doing Time with 32 Bars ISBN #189094422X

It should be mentioned at this point, that developing time takes time. Stopping your old process of counting time and beginning to just feel it is something that will develop over a period of weeks, not days. Stick with it, though, and you will start to really enjoy practicing with the CDs. For each exercise find a tempo that is comfortable for you to begin with and eventually try more challenging tempos. After you've worked with these CDs you will find it hard to go back to a regular metronome because it will seem overbearing and intrusive.

There are two approaches presented in this book; the technical and the creative. The technical way starts with developing your ability to play simple rhythms and other exercises with a pulse happening every two bars. You have to gain at least partial mastery of this before you can attempt to use the creative approach. The creative approach uses improvisation concepts to help you keep this internal time sense happening as you play and improvise. While the technical side may come more quickly than the creative approach, both compliment each other and help to build a strong internal time sense.