Now You Can Have a Silent Metronome - with No Annoying Metronome Click
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The conducting visuals are so crisp, they indicate the time with the precision of a conductor's baton. So, you can switch the sound off and use it as a silent metronome. It has the same precision as one with sound. (see Gravity Bounce).
“I found it reliable enough to abandon audio clicks altogether and use as a silent metronome, which also makes it useful for deaf musicians. Studio owners could display it on screen in their live rooms to keep players in time without them requiring headphones, while a special screen reader is available to blind musicians too” Martin Walker, PC Notes column in Sound On Sound Magazine
For studio owners, there is no need to listen to a click track over headphones, just follow the on-screen conductor instead.
Similarly, it's ideal for any situations where you need silence. That could be because you are recording, or because the click of the metronome bothers friends or neighbours.
Or on the positive side - perhaps you want to play more fluidly, while still keeping the tempo and precision when you want to.
The visual metronome, like a conductor, leaves you free to follow the rhythm in your own way. For instance to play ahead or behind some of the beats, or stretch notes for phrasing, while keeping other notes exactly on the beat. There's less feeling that you are tied down to the metronome click for every single tick as there is with a conventional metronome. It can feel like escaping from a straitjacket when you switch off the metronome tick.
Yet the conducting metronome still indicates the time precisely so you can also follow it exactly whenever you want to. To play exactly in time with the metronome - try merging with the visuals so that it feels as though your notes trigger the visual splashes of the metronome. Or you can switch on the sound again when you need to practice "merging the sound with the metronome tick". For more about this see Practicing with a metronome - how to stay in time
Altogether it makes your musical practice with the metronome a more organic and gentle process, and there is something in the natural feel to the bounce that makes it pleasurable to play. It is an uplifting experience, may be one way to put it, and when you need to do long periods of practice, anything you can do to make the experience more pleasurable will help. |