I've always dug Jeff Berlin's playing, and I think he's a really interesting dude all-around. Has some sorta unconventional ideas--the evils of the metronome being one of them. I half agree and half disagree with his thoughts, but I do think he makes some very valid and important observations.

This one's from his bulletin. What do you think? It's always cool getting the bassist's perspective...


Jeff, The Metronome, and All The Evil That Comes with it.

Greetings! I wanted to write this bulletin because of the idea that some may have about my "hard" vision about learning music. Each week I receive emails asking me if practicing with a metronome is a good thing to do. In most emails that I get, the metronome is always brought into the discussion because I am totally against them. The metronome will not help you to have good time. When I say these things, it challenges some people’s beliefs and they get mad at me about this. But, it isn’t about what you believe. It is about if your beliefs stand up to scrutiny. In other words, if I believe that putting rocket fuel in my car will boost my speed, it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is true just because I believe it.

Metronomes don’t give you good time and here's some proof:

Jack Bruce, Jack Casady, Time Bogert, Paul McCartney, Dave Holland, Ray Brown, Ron Carter, Flea, Sting, Billy Sheehan, Stu Hamm, Geddy Lee, Victor Wooten, Les Claypool, Steve Swallow, Jaco Pastorius, Tony Levin, Will Lee, Larry Graham, Phil Lesh, Chris Squire, John Paul Jones, Miroslav Vitous, Alphonso Johnson, Mark Johnson, Eberhard Weber, Mark King, etc. etc.

None of these bassists developed their sense of time from a click. Further, the instant that a live playing environment replaces the click that you (or they) have been practicing with, then the lessons learned on a metronome are no longer usable. Why? Because real time has nothing to do with metronomic time. Furhter, a drummer’s job is NOT to supply the band with the time. It is his job to AGREE with the other musicians where the quarter note should be placed. The drummer’s job is to provide percussion sonics to the band’s overall sound. My job is to provide the bass sonic. The guitarist’s job is to provide those tones. But if I have to listen to the drummer for the time but my idea of where the quarter note should go is different that the drummer, then the rhythm section is going to sound bad.

You will get better time if you learn how your instrument works, and where the notes are on the neck. You will play better if you de-mystify the meaning of real musical information. If you practice out of time, you will have the time to learn your exercises. If you practice with a click, then the music that you are practicing becomes secondary to the click you are working with.

I hope that this little message helped. I wish you all the best.

Good luck.
Jeff

I have read Jeff's stuff for a long time, going back to his column in Bass Player.

I have the greatest respect for his playing, and I have seen him live.
A great treat for sure.

But, I honestly think he sometimes writes things for the sake of stirring the pot.

I think his view on use of a metronome is - total nonsense.

OMG what an amazing thread.

Metronomes are a start- good for the practicing beginner, intermediate player and helpful to keep difficult advanced patterns and permutations together when practicing, but for the truly advanced player they can become a crutch.

*my opinion*

Clicks are good to develop time but a truly finished player does not need the click to make the time feel great.

There is a theory out there of an individual's capacity for fills and playing great time which is based on one's actual "talent" for keeping "perfect" time and executing fills "in time".

But then time is elastic and may be interpreted that way.  I'm no physicist, but I think that this is even a scientific theory- don't know if it's relevant or not, but I just thought I would elude to it.  I think we can all agree that time ebbs and flows in our playing (speeds up and slows down) to some degree

I also think one is going to play how they play at a particular point in time (pun intended).  If the time feels great to most listeners and if recorded playback feels great, flows, no interruptions then awesome; the drummer has arrived.

Practicing with a click can be helpful although I've seen it hurt, enter the "stiff" player. 

I've also heard/been taught a great drummer can be "made" through tons of diligent practice.  The theory is anyone can become a great drummer if they put the time in.

I need to practice with a click but I like to practice without one also.  I could easily never turn on a click again tho'.  Well, easily?  What a concept.  Anyone brave enough to go there?

I don't agree with Jeff's comments about the metronome. I completely agree with his comments that the drummer's job isn't to provide time for the band. The drummer's job is to make the music feel good ... and part of that would be what Jeff has said ... "agreeing with the other musicians where the quarter note should be placed".

A metronome won't make you play with good time any more than it will make you sound stiff if you use it. The metronome is a tool, showing you what perfect pulses sound like. You choose to play exactly with it or not. Your feel is your feel ... not the metronome controlling your brain and limbs by mind control.

As humans, if we want to know what "perfect" is, we need a constant or gauge, a plumb line if you will.

Example: A carpenter uses a ruler or measuring tape to get exact measurements. As the carpenter gains experience through his craft, he eventually develops the ability to "eyeball" measurements without a ruler. Although he can get very, very close, he still chooses to use a measuring device at times when "perfection" is absolutely necessary.

Our lives are filled with measuring devices that show us what "perfect" is: clocks, fuel gauges, ruler, thermometer, etc. When we use these devices, we don't always rely on EXACT measurements in order to fulfill our tasks. For most of us, approximate measurements work in our daily tasks. You don't show up to a meeting precisely, to the second, at a particular time. The same goes with many other tasks that we do throughout the day that require our knowledge or use of measuring devices. When I need a teaspoon of salt in a meal I'm preparing, I don't measure out an EXACT, perfect, teaspoon of salt. In fact I typically just "eyeball" the amount by pouring it into my hand. When I was in high-school, I was an assistant to a chef. I got to the point that I could measure out ground beef by hand, getting extremely close to the perfect weight.

As you use devices, you learn what "perfect" is, and get to the point that you can approximate very closely without the need of a measuring device all the time. When it MUST be perfect, we use the device, but often times our use of the device over the years has perfected our natural ability to get so close to the goal that the measuring device simply isn't required. Using a metronome is just like that. The more that you practice with it, the less you need it.

For some, the metronome is only used in the practice room. For others, it's always used. Still others used the metronome in their formative years and have developed such a strong  since of the pulse that they no longer need it.

If a musician has incredible time keeping abilities, and they never, ever practiced or played in their entire life, then I would venture to say that they developed their time by playing with other incredible time keeping musicians ... who may or may not have developed their time by using a tool like the metronome.

With all of THAT ... the other side of the coin ... do we need "perfect" time. In today's music the answer would definitely have to be sometimes yes, sometimes no.

We can listen to all of our music heroes, especially those who are no longer with us, and many of them had an incredible natural feel. However, the time moved around ... yet the pocket and feel that was established felt incredible. How is that? I would suggest that those musicians played music all the time, non-stop, and worked with a lot of other great musicians. It takes time to develop good time. A metronome can be a crutch if you think it's going to make you play with good time, and you don't take the time to develop your own time. But that doesn't mean that a metronome can't help you to DEVELOP good time keeping and feel. This is where I completely disagree with Jeff.

Not everyone is going to play like the list of musician's Jeff has listed. If in fact those players developed their feel and time without the assistance of a metronome ... well, good for them. But those are household named players. Not everyone is going to have the same natural abilities as these players, and to suggest that using a device that CAN help you develop a skill is somehow wrong or a waste of time ... I'm sorry that is just completely nuts!

A tool is there to help you, to make the goal easier or more obtainable ... not do all the work for you!

I can tell you that without a shadow of a doubt that using a metronome in my practice time absolutely helped me develop good time keeping skills. It showed me where the "perfect" was, and I worked with it, just like I would with any musician. The metronome helped me develop (discover) my inner clock ... so now I can play decent time completely on my own. All that goes out the window when I work with musicians who have terrible time. 

Hmmm. . .  perhaps that's why he's not a drummer. 

To me, it's a little like cooking and baking. 

I've always heard that cooking doesn't always require exact measurements.  Some music/musical situations fall into that category.

Baking on the other hand always requires exact measurements.  And to achieve that there are measuring spoons, cups, timers, etc.  Some music/musical situations fall into that category.  They must be exact - for whatever reason.  For those musical situations, we have metronomes.

What is this suppose to mean?


Drummers don't have the luxary of hiding behind anyone. I've played with bass players who do. They don't commit to a note or beat, unsure of the chord or some other reason. On sound recordings, all of a sudden the signal is really low, whoa, where did you go?

For cookin, I don't do exact measurements, I'm more of a guesser and learn from experience. Season to taste. That's a good drummer motto, "Season to taste"

even though i don't entirely agree with jb, i think this is a very important point he elucidates.

it's important to internalize music, not just a pulse. that's what gives your playing life and substance, imho. it's the more esoteric aspect of playing that a lot of musicians don't seem to get. one of the bassists i played with had advanced music degrees, wrote for a ton of music publishers, etc. the dude had the absolute worst time, feel, and timefeel that i ever heard. he didn't even have an opinion about where the quarter-note should be, so forget about finding it. it made it a turn-off to play with him.

so, i think that's the general idea berlin espouses. when you play live, there's a push-pull thing that goes on btw'n the players that can't really be learned only from a click. but i definitely think one has to have a reference point for time.

as for the 'practicing out of time' comment, i am in the dark there. reminds me of this jazz prof. who told me to 'improvise your own way to improvise'.  still, i don't think berlin could ever be seen as hiding. he knows how to support AND how to come way out in front in any situation. awesome, awesome player with total street cred. can't wait to check out the aneurhythms tour.

I like his point of view, and agree with it to a certain extent. You can certainly develop fantastic time without a metronome. Real time breathes.

That's not to say that you shouldn't use one ever or often. It's a great tool that is helpful for time reference, and some people successfully use it to practice good time. At some point you need to learn to play with a click just for situational work anyway.

Who insisted that? When I said Time breathes, I meant in the sense that playing with a click or not, a human is not going to have perfect time. A metronome is a good point of reference, but it is just a tool.

I think we have to put what Jeff is saying in a context of "time in general" rather than "time as it relates to a pop music drum-set player." I agree that many musicians have developed great time from practicing with a metronome. I also see many, many musicians with impeccable time that have never even heard of a metronome. Necessary for practice? No. Useful for practice? Yes.

Maybe he was a little bold with the statement "Practicing with a metronome will not give you good time" (paraphrasing), but I think his larger point stressing the importance of listening to all of the musicians and contributing to the time is a good one.

Well I disagree with JB too.

His main evidence is the list of well known bassists.
I ask him where his evidence is that those bass players have excellent time?
I've played with some excellent and well known musicians who had far from perfect time.
Unless you have perfect time yourself you can't hear any deviation. Other than that you would compare their time to a solid click, via an audio recording for example.
It's well known that you can take many well known recordings, slot them into software like Pro Tools and hear the timing shift all over the place.
it doesn't stop those recordings being regarded as classics, but that's a different issue.
Berlin's argument is not that the slipping of time is irrelevant. Something which many people would agree with. His argument is that you can't improve your timing with a metronome.
The metronome has been around for a very long time. I would assume he's guessing the bassists on his list have never spent time practising with a metronome. In the case of someone like Eberhard Weber, he might be wrong.
In the end, I certainly don't have a good enough sense of steady time, and I'm always looking to improve and looking for tools to enable me to improve.
The metronome, or click track are both well established and time honoured tools in the timing game.