70 Bpm Has Become Very Difficult! Options

[Fingerspasm]

I have been playing for 4 to 5 years without an instructor. I have taught myself some scales and cool licks and can play pretty fast. Recently I have been in a rut and have been getting discouraged so I found a good instructor because I know I needed someone to make me accountable so I would make myself learn some of the things that I do not typically enjoy when I play.
The first thing my instructor did was make me go back to playing the pentatonic scale which I have avoided for the last couple of years and he made me slow the metronome all the way down to 70 BPM (I have been typically playing at 120 to 150 when playing scales). His instructions were to play quarter notes then eight notes etc. etc. Oh and I have to tap my foot on every beat! I have been very humbled by how difficult this is! I am totally stuck on trying to play 5 notes per beat and beyond... not to mention tapping my foot the whole time. He has proven to me that when you do this and play various patterns at 5 or 7 notes per beat it can sound really cool. When you mute it and make it really staccato it really sounds cool. I have already noticed an improvement in my playing when I speed back up. It is much tighter and clean. Just thought I would share this. Try it if you have not done it before and see how difficult it is to play slow while tapping your foot. People who have had formal lessons have probably been through this long ago. But it might be useful for some people that are like me that have been teaching themselves and have skipped some of the more basic stuff that seemed to boring and easy to try. It will make a big difference.

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[Pedja Simovic]

Your instructor gave you some very useful advice.

I used to tap foot all the time for years, then after my first lesson with Mick Goodrick I was told to stop doing it. The reason was quite simple and logical. When you have metronome doing work for you (which is perfect time keeper by the way), if there are two or more players in the room, there will always be some delay or up front tapping by millisecond, sometimes more sometimes less.

So when you play with metronome, your foot is actually your enemy.
I found this hard to believe but thanks to his advice it opened a whole new rhythm world to me and my phrasing became even more tighter then it was when I was tapping foot. Especially with off beat phrasing !!!
Ear was focusing on metronome not on foot, mind was composing melodies and figures - it became greater overall playing.


Hope this helps

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[Muris Varajic]

I used to tap foot all the time for years, then after my first lesson with Mick Goodrick I was told to stop doing it. The reason was quite simple and logical. When you have metronome doing work for you (which is perfect time keeper by the way), if there are two or more players in the room, there will always be some delay or up front tapping by millisecond, sometimes more sometimes less.

So when you play with metronome, your foot is actually your enemy.
I found this hard to believe but thanks to his advice it opened a whole new rhythm world to me and my phrasing became even more tighter then it was when I was tapping foot. Especially with off beat phrasing !!!
Ear was focusing on metronome not on foot, mind was composing melodies and figures - it became greater overall playing.

Well yeah, specially if you tap too loud and not 100% tight as metronome does.
But tapping with your foot is only one and most common way,
you can pretty much "tap" with just moving your shoulders a bit etc,
The idea is to feel the beat and not just play random notes without any real guide,
no one has to tap IF he feels the beat nicely inside, no doubt.

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