Bounce Metronome Pro
The metronome with Gravity Bounce - as precise as drum stick or conductor's baton

How to sing or play in time How to stay in time Understanding time signatures Counting Music Tempo and Rhythm Tempo is measured in BPM Tempo dial markings Swung notes Polyrhythms Metronome Advantages and Disadvantages

How to Use a Metronome - How to Sing or Play in Time Intro - Finding the rhythm - rhythm and speech - Simple time with lyrics - Compound time with lyrics - Alternative notations for the same rhythm - why do we have these alternative notations - other types of compound time - Rhythm without lyrics - Download your free Test Drive Intro These tips are from the help for Bounce Metronome Pro Read on to find out about how to use a metronome to learn to play in time and on the beat and improve your sense of rhythm. Some of these tips apply to any metronome and some are particularly for Bounce Metronome Pro as they require a metronome with a conductor or with swing etc. You may find a few new things to think about here even if you are an old hand at metronome practice. Do you use your metronome sessions to improve your ability to hit the beat exactly (see How to stay in time)? Do you use them to expand your rhythmic vocabulary with swing and lilt? Does your counting get in the way of the rhythm or help to make your rhythms more lively (see Counting Music)? Do you avoid the main pitfalls of metronome practice that can lead to a too "metronomic" rhythm? (see Metronome Advantages and Disadvantages) Whatever your level of practice, it is probably a worthwhile exercise now and again to review your metronome practice, to see if you are making the best use of the tool. Improve your timing and sense of rhythm Download your Free Test Drive of Bounce Metronome Pro Now!

Part 1 - finding the rhythm (meter) of your tune.

So anyway, to start with the basics, when you use a metronome, often your original aim, especially if you are a beginner, is to learn to keep a steady tempo and to play in time. However, before you can do that, you need to understand rhythm and time signatures.

You need to be able to identify the rhythm of the music. You need to find the basic beat first, and identify the bar, and find out how many beats there are in a bar. Then you can set the metronome appropriately with the correct time signature for your tune.

If you are already very familiar with these concepts, then you can skip this page and go on to How to stay in time

If you have a good feel for and understanding of rhythm, and just want to understand the notation for time signatures like 4/4 and 6/8 visit the page Understanding time signatures instead. See the list to the left for other sections. For instance, if the main thing you want to understand is how to set the tempo on a tempo dial, go to Tempo dial markings.

This page assumes nothing, it is meant for newbies. Perhaps it's most suitable for adults who have got interested in music as an adult but have no background in the basic concepts such as bar or time signature. It may also be interesting because it is written partly from the perspective of a mathematician, so I have maybe an interesting side-light on the subject :-).

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Rhythm and speech

If completely new to all this, then a good start is to start with the rhythm of spoken lyrics, and poetry. There's a very close connection between music, especially musical rhythms, and speech or poetry.

When we speak then we already use rhythm. You never say all the syllables at the same pitch and volume (unless you are pretending to be a dalek, and even then you have some inflection). Your voice rises and falls in pitch and volume, and some syllables are emphasized more than others. However, you can say the same phrase with many different rhythms.

When singing then you fit the rhythm of your speech to the rhythm of the tune. Often there's a natural connection between the two, so that you sing at nearly the same rhythm you speak. Sometimes the rhythm doesn't fit so exactly, and sometimes words and syllables are repeated to fit the words to the music (as often happens in opera for instance).

I'll use a lullaby for my example as many people are very familiar with it from an early age, and the rhythm is straightforward and easy to recognise.

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The rhythm for Twinkle Twinkle little star - simple time

Say or sing the words:

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,
How I wonder what you are".

with the rhythm of the song. Which are the loudest sylllables? If not sure, say the words again, and clap whenever your voice gets a bit louder. You should find that you emphasize the Twink part of Twinkle. You emphasize the How in How I. Then you have a weaker emphasis in other places e.g. the won of wonder.

You probably find that the emphasis falls like this:

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,
How I wonder what you are".

So each line in the lyric has four syllables which are emphasized more than the others. Also naturally you slightly emphasize the first beat in the line more than the other beats.

So, try singing or saying the lyrics, and this time clap along for each emphasis, and clap a little louder for the first word in each line.

These bouncing lyrics may help:

Or you may prefer the bouncing words. There's also a higher resolution version.

You'll find that you clap four times for each line, with the first clap in every four emphasized. Each line is a bar, so each bar has four beats in it.

You are clapping in 4/4! The top number in 4/4 says the number of beats in the bar, here 4.

The bottom number says the type of beat, and it tells you how to notate the rhythm if you put it into music notation. /4 says to notate it with quarter notes (UK crotchets). If it says /8 then you should notate it using eighth notes (UK quavers). It is just a convention, that. If there are 4 beats to the bar, like this tune, the rhythm is most usually notated using quarter notes. That way, a complete bar is notated as a whole note (UK semibreve).

So now - try singing along with the whole tune in 4/4, clap as you go, clapping every fourth beat a little louder for the start of the bar (and start of the line in the song).

So that's the basic idea of what rhythm is all about in music, and what 4/4 is. Here 4/4, 3/4 etc are known as a "Time Signatures" - they tell us the rhythm of a piece of music so that you know what to expect before it starts.

Try listening to songs and tunes. Often you will hear four beats in each bar. Sometimes three. Sometimes six. Sometimes other numbers. It is easiest probably to hear the time signature for music with lyrics, if you are very new to this as the words help you keep track of your place in the rhythm.

When you get to more complicated songs and poems the poet or lyricist may play with your expectations and start the bar with a weak beat - in high spirits as it were.

The bar change is then marked by some other method rather than loudness. Often the harmony changes at the start of the bar, or the melody is phrased in a way that can cue you in to the bar beat even when it is the quietest beat in the bar. And you get some music that break up your concept of a bar beat in various ways, so don't really repeat in a regular way..

But lets keep things simple here. So if you get a bit lost with a song, it may be one of those. Try something else with a simpler rhythm to it.

If the music has a triplet feel to it, 1 & a 2 & a, then it's in compound time. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is in simple time. So let's go on to compound time.

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The rhythm of My bonny lies over the ocean - Compound time

If there are six beats to the bar, as in a jig say, or nine beats (e.g. triple jig) then you may find that the middle beat of each bar is emphasized too.

Let's go back to lyrics again. Many songs are in 6/8, it is a favourite rhythm for song writers. An example is "My bonny lies over the ocean":

"My bonny lies over the ocean,
My bonny lies over the sea.

Try putting in the emphasis as before, speak those words and see which syllables are the loudest

This is what you probably get:

My bonny lies over the oc -ean,
My bonny lies over the sea. _

There oc-ean is two emphasized beats one after another, and the _ is a rest, a silence for one beat.

So - if you haven't heard about compound time, you would probably call this rhythm 4/4 like Twinkle Twinkle little star. It has four beats to each line after all.

Or you might call it 2/4, because there's a very strong emphasis on the third beat in the bar oc -ean, and sea. _, so much so that you could call each line of the song two bars of 2/4 instead of one bar of 4/4.

That's okay, there's nothing wrong with notating it as 4/4 or 2/4, you could do it like that, with lots of triplets, and the performers would perform it to the same rhythm. In fact, when conducted, it may well be conducted in the same way as 2/4 - emphasizing just the first and middle beat of the bar.

But usually this song is notated as 6/8.

There's a sort of lilting feel to it very like sea waves rising and falling, very appropriate to the subject of the song. If you listen carefully, it happens because the syllables fall into threes, with every third beat emphasized:bonn y lies ov er the oc -ean

(where some of the beats are skipped over in the last word oc -ean which covers a full six beats but only two syllables are sung).

This is a very common pattern, and since it sounds like other rhythms with this triplet feel to it, it's natural to use a time signature that brings out this family resemblance of many different tunes.

So one bar will be:

bonny lies over the

with six beats, the fourth beat emphasized at the middle of the bar.

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The alternative notations (which would surprise your performers)

You could notate one bar of 6/8 as 2/4 or you could notate two bars of 6/8 as one bar of 4/4 - each time with triplet eighth notes (UK quavers) - with three notes instead of two for each beat.

You could also notate two bars of this rhythm in 12/8, as

bonny lies over the oc -ean,

all one bar.

But it is more usual to notate it as 6/8. Though not usually notated as 2/4, when the rhythm is too fast to conduct in 6/8 it may often be conducted in the same way as 2/4 with two beats to the bar.

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Why do we have all these alternative notations which are pretty much the same in sound?

Tunes fall into larger and larger patterns naturally, and it is very common for the bars to fall into two bar patterns (then the pairs of bars also fall into pairs as well making four bar patterns, often 8 bars as well and not unusual to go up to 16 bar patterns and higher). So to a certain extent it is a bit arbitrary, what you decide to call the start of the bar.

You could also go the other way and make the bar shorter - you could notate this rhythm as 3/4 with each triplet notated as a very fast bar of 3/4 (or perhaps 3/8 more likely) - that is - it would be an eccentric thing to do - but not exactly wrong, as you would still get the same rhythm played by your performers. It would just be a very eccentric thing to do for a tune that falls easily and naturally into 6/8.

So anyway, conventionally it is normally notated as 6/8, six eighth note (quaver) beats to the bar, so that you beat eighth notes instead of quarter notes. Then conventionally you emphasize not just the first beat of the bar, but also with a weaker emphasis on the fourth beat a well:

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Other types of compound time

This sort of thing also happens with nine beats to a bar e.g. for a slip jig. Any rhythm which naturally falls into patterns of three weak beats like this is known as compound time. 12/8 is a bit more rarely used but quite common in classical music, it has twelve beats, falling into four triplets, to each bar. So one bar of 12/8 will sound like the rhythm of one line of bonn y lies ov er the oc -ean.

Now try Part 2 How to stay in time

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Finding the rhythm of a tune without lyrics

If you listen to a tune without lyrics it may be quite hard for a newbie to pick up what the rhythm is. It is easiest to do this with slower tunes to start with so that you can easily count the beats.

The tune is usually written so that a listener will naturally clap along at the basic beat of the piece. So first, try to clap along, until you get the basic beat without worrying yet about the number of beats to the bar. You may notice that sometimes when you clap, the beat isn't played at all, because the note for the previous beat in the bar was held perhaps for two beats. That's okay, quite normal and just keep clapping.

Then once you have got used to that, try again and this time listen and see if you can hear a pattern to the claps, with some beats emphasized. Once you do that you will probably notice that the pattern repeats over and over again. That pattern of louder and softer claps when you clap along is the bar.

One you find the bar, then just count to see how many claps you have in each bar. That gives you the top number as 4, 3, 2 (e.g. marches), or whatever.

If you find it ambiguous, try listening to the harmony and the melody shape. Often the harmony changes at the start of the bar, or the melody may be phrased or rise and fall or repeat in a way that brings out the bar line.

You may get syncopation - the harmonies or the melodic phrasing may pick out the bar beat - but the second beat gets the stress. In 4/4 the second and fourth beats might be stressed louder than the first beat - but done so that you can still hear that the first is the bar beat. So that's another thing that may throw one at first.

You may also get accents in the middle of the bar, e.g. in 4/4 then often the middle beat is emphasized. Or you may get the first beat of alternate bars emphasized more.

So, it may still be ambiguous. If 4 is one of the possibilities (e.g. 2, 4 or 8), then it's probably 4 beats, unless it is a march or a polka when it may be 2 beats to the bar. For some reason, tunes often fall into 4 beat patterns - if you make up a nice tune, with no thought at all to the bar, perhaps you don't even know what a bar is, you are very likely to make up a tune which falls naturally into 4/4.

For most rhythms, the bottom number is /4 by convention, it is normal to notate using quarter notes (crotchets) even for rhythms with e.g. 3 or 5 beats to the bar, unless there is some very good reason to use something else.

If it has a triplet feel to it with 6 or 9 or 12 beats to the bar then the bottom number is /8.

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Download your free test drive

Download your Free Test Drive of Bounce Metronome Pro Now!

It's extremely user friendly and will help you to play in time with any rhythm. Click the preset button for the rhythm you want to play, and adjust the tempo with the handy dial.

"You can use it with the sound switched off, as a silent metronome."

You get a free 30 day Test drive - with all the features fully unlocked. To get the program go here :

Links

If you want to learn more see the Wikipedia entries Syncopation, Time Signature, Meter (musical).

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