metronomes and timing on songs

heyjoe
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Thu Oct 01, 2009 8:11 am

Well I've finally gone and done it, a lot of my guitar time is spent with a metronome close by.

I have a question about guitar tab, time signatures and metronomes.

To illustrate the question, I'm currently working on here comes the sun by the Beatles- I'm using a metronome to help build up my co-ordination with my picking and the song in general.

From Neil's tab it shows the song being in 4/4 time. In measure 1 there are 7 notes to be played (including the 2 pinched notes), so does this mean that every time my metronome hits a beat, i should be hitting a note? If so, 7 beats would be how long measure 1 lasts?

Also measure 6 has 8 notes, so does this correspond to 8 beats of the metronome?

I suppose what I'm getting at is that I'm unsure of the correlation between time signatures, metronomes and their speed and when to play the notes.

Hope that made sense.

Thanks

Joe


reiver
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Thu Oct 01, 2009 9:21 am

Joe

I'm not an expert on this but I'll give it a bash.

The time signature shows there to be 4 beats in each bar. Each beat is represented by a vertical line in the tab. Where these vertical lines are connected by a horzontal line, these become half beats. This would give the first 4 bars a beat of "1 2and 3and 4and, 1 2and 3and 4and, 1and 2and 3and 4, 1and 2and 3and 4" Bar 6 will therefore become "1and 2and 3and 4and". Bars 11 and 12 will be "1 2and 3and 4, 1 2and 3and 4". So the 7 notes in measure 1 are a full beat followed by 6 half beats.

Hope this is clear. It's kinda difficult when you can't actually hear me tapping the desk. I guess the most important thing is to keep a regular 1 2 3 4 beat going in your head, or on your metronome would be better (duh!), and fill in half beats where the "and"s appear.

good luck

r


heyjoe
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Thu Oct 01, 2009 10:01 am

Hi R

I think that makes sense. I'll sit down and go through your explanation more when my head is clearer.

Also,it would be handy if I could see a demonstration of the timingt...maybe you could do a video and upload it onto our student section on youtube, and then link it here?

Thanks for the help

Joe


reiver
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Thu Oct 01, 2009 11:09 am

heyjoe wrote:
Hi R

I think that makes sense. I'll sit down and go through your explanation more when my head is clearer.

Also,it would be handy if I could see a demonstration of the timingt...maybe you could do a video and upload it onto our student section on youtube, and then link it here?

Thanks for the help

Joe
Upload a Video! Joe, it took me four hours to work out how to upload a t-shirt design.
Try sitting with the tab, no guitar, and tap the rhythm on the chair. Start off with just 1 2 3 4, then start trying to add some half beats.

r


helloworld
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Thu Oct 01, 2009 11:23 am

If I'm not mistaken 4/4 means there are 4 quarter notes in the measure. If there are four quarter notes in the measure it means you will hit four notes for a quarter time count each. A simple example of this would be hit on 1 miss on and, hit on 2, miss on and, hit on 3, miss on and, hit on 4, miss on and. If there are 7 notes in a measure then you could have several combinations of possibilities depending on what's going on, but a simple example would be 6 eighth notes, 1 quarter note. So maybe you hit 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 then miss on & making 4 a quarter note. Notice it still all adds up to 4 full quarter beats.

If you have a decent metronome and you set it to 4/4 you'll notice that it clicks (or beeps or whatever) 8 times before the measure starts over. The middle click is the up motion of your hand, what we commonly refer to as &. Each measure will have a total of eight 1/8th beats, even if you don't always hit a note on one of the beats. So, if you find that a measure has 4 notes, they're all quarter notes, if it has six notes, then there's either 2 eight rests in there, or a quarter note, so on and so forth.

I hope this was explained clearly enough to be helpful.


BigBear
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Thu Oct 01, 2009 1:32 pm

I think you guys may be confusing time signature (4/4 time) and tempo (in beats per minute bpm). Joe's question was about time signature.

A metronome is a device to maintain precise tempo and has nothing to do with time signature although it can be set to accent various beats in a measure. For example a metronome is often set to sound on each beat of a four beat measure (one-two-three-four). But electronic metronomes can accent any beat of the measure for example "one and two and three and four and".

Joe's question asked about 7 beats in an eight beat measure. In 4/4 time, each beat would be an 1/8th note (6 1/8th notes) and one note would be a 1/4 note (equal to 2 1/8th notes), the sum of that meeasure is then 1. The metronome could either sound on each 1/4 note or on all 1/8th notes but may sound a little too busy to practice to.

Cheers! :cheer:


reiver
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Thu Oct 01, 2009 2:29 pm

BigBear wrote:
I think you guys may be confusing time signature (4/4 time) and tempo (in beats per minute bpm). Joe's question was about time signature.

A metronome is a device to maintain precise tempo and has nothing to do with time signature although it can be set to accent various beats in a measure. For example a metronome is often set to sound on each beat of a four beat measure (one-two-three-four). But electronic metronomes can accent any beat of the measure for example "one and two and three and four and".

Joe's question asked about 7 beats in an eight beat measure. In 4/4 time, each beat would be an 1/8th note (6 1/8th notes) and one note would be a 1/4 note (equal to 2 1/8th notes), the sum of that meeasure is then 1. The metronome could either sound on each 1/4 note or on all 1/8th notes but may sound a little too busy to practice to.

Cheers! :cheer:
Joe

Sorry if I confused you. I thought that you're question was about how to relate the time signature to the beats of the metronome and the tablature.

r


helloworld
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Fri Oct 02, 2009 11:01 am

BigBear wrote:
I think you guys may be confusing time signature (4/4 time) and tempo (in beats per minute bpm). Joe's question was about time signature.

A metronome is a device to maintain precise tempo and has nothing to do with time signature although it can be set to accent various beats in a measure. For example a metronome is often set to sound on each beat of a four beat measure (one-two-three-four). But electronic metronomes can accent any beat of the measure for example "one and two and three and four and".

Joe's question asked about 7 beats in an eight beat measure. In 4/4 time, each beat would be an 1/8th note (6 1/8th notes) and one note would be a 1/4 note (equal to 2 1/8th notes), the sum of that meeasure is then 1. The metronome could either sound on each 1/4 note or on all 1/8th notes but may sound a little too busy to practice to.

Cheers! :cheer:
Isn't that what I just said?

Modern metronomes are used to practice tempo and timing. My metronome has different settings for just about every time signature. If I set it for 0/4 it sounds off 1 2 3 4 (well really it just says beep, click, click, click), if I set it for 4/4 it sounds of 8 clicks instead of 4; the other four beats are obviously the &'s like you said. At the beginning of each new measure, my metronome beeps the first beat instead of clicking it.


rcsnydley
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Fri Oct 02, 2009 11:59 am

Basically in 4/4 time your mentronome would click for every 1/4 note, i.e. 1 2 3 4. As has been mentioned if there are 1/8 notes as in 1 & 2 & 3& 4 &, the & would fall in between the metronome clicks.

It really doesn't matter how fast or slow your metronome is set for, that only gives you the tempo or pace of the song. Just remember in 4/4 time the beats (downstrokes) are on the clicks and the & (upstrokes) are between the clicks.

Ric


helloworld
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Fri Oct 02, 2009 12:16 pm

No, a digital metronome of decent quality set to 4/4 will click 8 times per measure, once per 1/8 beat. It clicks four times per measure when set to 0/4.


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