I know I am uncoordinated but does anyone else have trouble tapping their foot while playing. I can tap in time to just the music but when I start playing either I can concentrate on one or the other but not both. Metronomes seem to be just as difficult. My instructor keeps pressing the issue and rightly so since my rhythm tends to fall apart at times.
You probably find it difficult because you are not playing in time. Slow right down and get into time, then gradually get your tunes up to a decent speed in regular time.
Mark
If you have trouble playing in time, don't try to fix it with fancy footwork. Tapping should be the music making your feet want to dance, not your feet imposing rhythm on the music. That said, I really have nothing constructive to offer. I know my own rhythm improves when I am playing with people way better than me a few times a week. Metronomes stink.
Don't forget that it could be lack of experience as much as lack of coordination! It takes time to learn to multitask the way an instrumentalist must. After all, when you play you're doing one thing with the left hand/arm and another quite different thing with the right hand/arm. Add in foot-tapping and that's three things to keep track of.
Suggestion? When I was having problems with the same thing lo these many years ago, my very wise and experienced teacher said to cheese it on the foot-tapping. He pointed out that when I had more experience under my belt, I would find I started tapping my foot spontaneously. Sure enough, I did --- and in time, too. So consider not tapping your foot until you find it's tapping away all by itself without any conscious effort from you.
Metronomes definitely stink! You'll play like one if you use one, and mechanical regularity of timing is less than desirable in ITM. (Oh, wait, we've talked about that already.) ;)
Sara
I can't tap my foot to the third part of Fintan McManus', or second part of Leaving Herves. For some serious foot tapping, have a listen to La Bottine Souriante. I thought that was a drum for months.......
Ever try taking Irish dance lessons? I have always been a heavy foot tapper, and it often got in the way (especially during my classical years). Then I started playing ITM. The heavy foot tapping seemed more acceptable, but it still often got in my way. Then, I attempted set and ceili dancing, and after doing that on a consistent basis for the better part of a year, my foot tapping took on a whole new personality. Not only is it more it time, but it also helps me feel out each tune, as I am able to envision dancers doing the steps. Anywho, that's my take on things.
My shoe size is seventeen, so when I start tapping my foot in time with the music, the other musicians are quite aware. It usually works to positive benefit with beginners to bring them into time with the rest of us. Of course too loud is poor taste so I have to temper the volume just long enough, then back off. The only objection occurs if I am slightly off the beat or use it to increase the tempo. I think the problem of not being able to tap gently in time is because of incorrect timing judgement and should probably be corrected ASAP. One of my best buddies has difficulty with this and he is a bit irksome to sit next to in a session where he is not leading, but playing backup. No problem if he is playing lead so I 'm not sure why he has the problem.
If you cannot tap your foot along with your playing (or that of another player), it's a telltale sign that the tempo is irregular. It's quite entertaining to watch people tap their foot who are not quite steady in their tempo: the foot slows down, speeds up, twitches, stops, starts again... It's obvious that their foot is trying to tap to the irregular beat they're playing! It should be the other way round (well, more or less): Your tapping foot should provide you with some steady rhythmic framework, so that even if you play a bit irregular in one bar (or you have players right next to you who are "branching off" into a different tempo), you still don't mess up the overall tempo if you follow the steady beat of your foot.
Don't let yourself be put off by those hating the metronome. They probably hate it because they can't play along with it (no offense - I used to belong to that group myself!). Of course, you should not (and you will not, rest assured!) be playing like a mechanical metronome. But it will help you play so much better. If you learn to play each note at its designated length (the most common problem for tempo issues), you're playing will sound much less rushed even at faster speeds. You gain more control over what you're doing (because you need to be able to control your playing in order to keep the tempo steady), which - in turn - allows you to play faster without the feeling that your fingers are getting into knots. You will be in control of the music (expression, ornamention, deliberate changes in tempo) and not the other way round (as can for instance be seen frequently when players slow down when there are more notes per bar and speed up when there are less). When you can play along fine with the metronome, you will also be able to tap your foot along when you play (without having to concentrate on your foot at all).
When you start practicing with the metronome, slow everything down a lot at first, and then gradually increase the tempo. How long it will take until you can play along with the metronome without problems depends probably on each individual person, but be persistent for a month or two. And you don't have to continue practicing with a metronome for the rest of your life (although a refesher course once in a while is usually good), since a steady beat will become second nature.
being from the classical people's front of judea (yes,i know i'm a splitter),tapping your foot was always frowned upon in the infernal circles i have to move in and so when starting out with this music,i never tapped my foot.but i find myself doing so now and i barely realise i'm doing it so i would n't force it to begin with.
maybe you could just tap the first beats to start off with or just experiment and see how far you get.
as ottery said,starting slow would maybe help.
best wishes
One problem with many metronomes is that they are not loud enough so you have to concentrate so much to hear them that this alone makes you screw up your playing. What I use now is a computer shareware program where I can set the volume as loud as I need it.
I usually tap my foot when playing, but I ocassionally play with metronomes aswell but only if I record something and have to play another instrument over it. Then it does help, otherwise I'm a foottapper.
(NYC fiddler) Patrick Orceau taps *both* his feet: one on the up beat one on the down beat. It's slightly comical but also gives me the impression that he's going to lose his balance and fall out of his chair. But he seems to manage pretty well...
Metronometermusos - try a Seiko quartz metronome - loud sharp precise clicks you can't fail to hear, and you don't have to keep winding it up......best way to discipline your timing.
I couldn't tap my foot in time for the first couple of years when I started playing - it went far too fast and speeded me up. At one workshop Brian McNeill actually stood on my foot to stop it tapping! Then one night I was playing for dancing with a few others, standing up, and it just fell into the right time all on its own and has been OK ever since. I think the suggestion about trying some Irish dancing would be the most helpful.
What about STOMPING? I play with a Cape Breton fiddler a lot, and I've picked up his habit of tapping with my whole, umm, leg. It's a lot of fun though, and when you have three or four people doing it at once in a room with a wood floor, it can actually sound quite good. One less spot for a bodhran player, I suppose, but it's still fun.
There's a Quebecois folk tale about a fiddle player who can't tap his foot to save his life, and finally he makes a deal with the Devil (don't they all?). But now he can't stop tapping his foot, and he can't stop playing the fiddle either, and I think it ends when the Devil is tired out from dancing. So BE WARNED!!
Heike - none of the free/shareware metronome programs for Windows are worth a damn - I've tried five or six personally. The Windows OS itself does not have a stable clock, and the metronome programs don't implement their own stable-reference counters. As such, they drift very noticably. If you have a very good music sequencer program like Cubase, etc., then you can use that as a stable timebase. The Steinberg guys are renowned for their rock-solid timekeeping. It takes some very fancy programming, and the Windows process scheduler tends to fight you every step of the way.
I use the accompaniment tracks on my Yamaha MIDI keyboard when I need to set a tempo. Play them thru headphones, and you can set the volume level to whatever you need to hear it along with your playing.
I tend to tap both of my feet, alternately, so that the left does the down beat and the right does the off beat. I also rock between toes and heels on both feet. It's not quite as regimented as the French-Canadian habit of clogging while playing, but works the same way. And it just came out that way--not something I consciously chose to do.
I used to worry about not tapping my foot or feet and thought it was because I was not relaxed but I agree with the others above that this comes with time and when you know the tunes really well. Recently I've been playing a lot with another flute player who is really lively and feels the music and I find myself tapping along quite naturally when playing with her. Having gone to classes to most of the best flute players in Ireland I have noticed that a few of them don' t tap at all and I know one very good fluter/piper who got a heel injury from tapping continuously. So tapping can be dangerous for your health.
Re. Patrick Ourceau - have you noticed sometimes he also taps his eyebrows? (Left, right, left, right...)
I'm from the Will Harmon school of toe-tappery myself. Sometimes no feet, sometimes both, and sometimes I just wobble back and forth on my chair (particularly with jigs or slip jigs). Since I'm in Quebec I sometimes try to do the francophone two foot stomp but I find it makes my bum sore if I do it for too long. I only know one or two Quebecois tunes though, so I don't get much opportunity to practice...
In my earliest introduction to music, when I was being taught the piano (note that I haven't said I actually learnt to play the piano!) the teacher always used the metronome in the lessons, but not to play to, only to set the tempo for the music. She'd write the metronome marking and the date on the copy and then the following week she'd up the tempo a little. This, I suggest, is the correct way to use a metronome. Your teacher should be there to tell you when you speeding up (in the easy bits) or slowing down (in the hard bits) if you haven't figured it out for yourself. My cello teacher, a few years later, never used the metronome - he considered it an invention of the Devil.
Trevor
It can be entertaining in a session, if you're feeling in a particularly wicked frame of mind, to tap 3 against 2 with both feet - not a very difficult feat (sorry!) with a little practice.
Trevor
LOL -- I think it all just depends on what you need to work on. Some people are going to get good use from a metronome, and some aren't. Either way is just fine.
Recently I've started tapping on the off-beat; this started as a challenge to myself, but now I'll notice halfway through a tune that I'm tapping on beats 2 and 4 in a reel, or 3 and 6 in a jig. It's interesting to watch other musicians notice and try to figure out what's going on while still playing themselves... (no, that's not what I meant. Remove your mind from the gutter right now). I'm now trying to phase it out. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
On a somewhat related topic, you know when you're listening to a really good group/musician, and some idiot starts clapping so you can't hear? If you clap (quietly, preferably ) on the off-beat, they'll generally get so confused that they stop... ;D
I didn't know how far I was bending the beat until my teacher pointed it out to me and suggested that I practice with a metronome, which I haven't done in about 40 years. It reinforces my idea that time itself changes (after all, it's a human invention) --- surely it couldn't be ME who's off, in relation to the metronome, so it must be that time bends, right??? Joking aside, it certainly reinforces my observation from teaching beginners that the tendency is to speed up on the slow, easy, boring parts and slow down on the fast, difficult bits (alluded to above in this thread). I know when you're playing in a session or in a band, everybody (it is hoped) slows down or speeds up together, in a common bond with the music, but it seems to me that the best players keep in time all the time. Allowing for intentional speeding up and slowing down, of course. That's the whole deal. Variances in the tempo should be intentional. Foot-tapping? Well, it needs to flow from the clocklike internal tempo.
By the way: Is it just me, but is it hard to look at the blinking light on an electronic metronome? It seems to me that there's way too much happening, and I can't keep it straight when the beat is supposed to start. There's this little red light, and it expands, and I'm watching it expand and trying to pay attention to whether it starts (with the light small) on the beat or behind the beat, or whether the light reaches its largest size on the beat, and in the meantime I've lost the beat, so I end up just listening to it, maybe with the headphones to block out everything else. Anybody else have this problem? Or am I very weird?
your not weird. i have problems playing along with metronomes; what can i say, its just hard to concentrate. and tapping my foot makes me think that i have to focis more on the tapping then the playing and then i get off beat on the playing and it gets messed up....but thats only if i try to tap. sometimes when my teacher startes tapping when we're playing together, it just comes naturally.
1 - is this foot tapping considered to be an integral part of the fiddling? i.e. is it something actually to be desired?
2 - whether or not the answer to the above is yes, is this just a timing issue? or is it a "doing two things at once" issue?
Consider this: in our regular session, others have remarked or complimented my ability to hold a dead steady beat - either on flute/whistle, or on mandolin (even when others are way out) - but if I try to tap my foot I lose the plot completely - so this suggests that it is not simply the case that if you can't tap your foot to your own playing then it is your timing thats up the creek.
I suffer from the same problem, but once i realised that playing in time was the important bit, and tapping your foot was not a necessity, i seem to play better. I play without tapping my foot and seem to be able to keep in time fairly ok.
celtic1234
i shall studiously avoid any reference to the infernal machinations of the so-called metro-so-called-gnome but with regard to dave's question - i don't know how integral or not it might be but i once saw liz doherty play and she really tapped her foot-very loudly indeed-and the effect was fantastic,to my lugs anyway.it's not essential i suppose but it can add to and not take away in some cases.
best wishes
Haha no, I hadn't noticed the eyebrows! I don't get to see him play too often. His regular gig/session at Mona's downtown is WAY past my working joe bedtime. =(
Kevin Burke does the eyebrow thing too, except that it usually comes slightly before the beat, so it's like a conductor leading the band. And it seems to have more to do with pitch and accents than just the beat itself.
Re: playing like a robot with a metronome, that's a bit stronger than I phrased it, but I've seen plenty of classical players-in-training do exactly that. Of course, I'm a battle-scarred veteran of the Suzuki method, which excels at producing rote players, which is why I ducked out of it as soon as my parents would let me. But I think my own years tied to a metronome in school music classes have a lot to do with my trouble playing jigs with the proper "swing" instead of in actual 6/8.
None of my "real" (ie private, not-tied-to-the-school) teachers would use a metronome as anything other than a way of reminding yourself of the tempo of a piece before starting to play it.
Just my 2c, and not a hatred of metronomes --- merely an explanation of why I think they're less than ideal for ITM.
Sara
ps Andre Brunon's both-feet-stomping is wonderful to watch live --- and his anecdotes about learning it are great fun. The energy of youth! (Sigh.)
I think foot tapping is OK if you use it as a percussive instrument on stage. Or if you do it playing by yourself. But foot tappers usually struggle with both an even speed and the rhythm. This means that in a group the tend to force a slightly wrong beat onto everybody else. No wonder orchestra leaders won't have it.
If you must move your foot wiggle it and don't hit the floor.
By the way - I learned to keep my timing by playing bass guitar along to a J.J. Cale tape.
"But foot tappers usually struggle with both an even speed and the rhythm." Whaaaaaa---? You know, there are lot of folks who tap their feet, and lots who don't, and lots of both groups don't usually struggle with either tempo or rhythm...c'mon, guys...
Kuec, your orchestral reference reminds me of one of my orchestral rehearsals where, in one particularly tricky section with awkward cross-rhythms, several people, including the conductor, the leader, and others were inaudibly tapping their feet.
We had at that time a rather cranky double-bassist, a tall guy, who suddenly bellowed "feet!" in the middle of the music. Everyone stopped, puzzled, for a few seconds and then resumed. A short while later, the shout of "feet!" again came loud and clear. Someone asked him what the problem was and he said the movement of feet was preventing him from playing (I would have thought his eyes should either have been on the music or the conductor, but never mind). This of course was a cue for a wind-up - everyone then started tapping their feet, until the conductor finally had to call things to order.
Some months later the guy resigned from the orchestra for other reasons, much to everyone's relief.
Trevor
I'm not good at tapping my feet, but I often find it helpful when others do. When the pub is loud and everybody is playing at their own tempo, I try to watch the feet of the person who started off the set and stick to that tempo. Without the feet to watch, my ear would gravitate to the loudest player, whose tempo may be all wrong.
Just to play devil's advocate here - remember that the double-bassist has his instrument standing on the floor, and perhaps he is picking up a confusing amount of vibration from a floor which must have been wobbling like a wobbly thing from wobble town.
But then it could have been explained more courteously than by bellowing FEET.
Just checking Trevor - in case you're not the kindly grey haired avuncular gentleman you project yourself as, but some academically pedantic orchestra nazi, dead set on making everyone else do it your way.
orchestral nazis are usually,but not always,to be found on a rostrum either waving their arms about or talking the hind legs off a donkey from said structure.
Just my two cents.Someone mentioned playing with a Cape Breton Fiddler earlier.I learned to play whistle here on Cape Breton since moving here from Norn' Iron many years ago and have always hated the infernal foot stomping that has always existed here and I tell them so. Have you ever tried to mic 6 Caper fiddlers playing on a wooden stage.Oh the horrors! It is quite simple to tap one's foot quietly with a little practice. If you must stomp your foot that loudly,may I suggest you take up Acadian music.They have developed feet music to an art form
Paul
Q. Whats the difference between a cow and an orchestra?
A. One has horns at the front and an h'arse at the back.
One fiddler who I occasionally sit next to, who shall remain nameless (Gerry), stamps his feet that hard, my music has fallen off the stand before now.
I find the knees invaluable to keep order in sessions as it is patently obvious that some people (melodionista?) cannot listen and play at the same time. A bit of judicious knee waving must be used to keep them in time.
Tapping your foot when playing
Tapping your foot when playing
I know I am uncoordinated but does anyone else have trouble tapping their foot while playing. I can tap in time to just the music but when I start playing either I can concentrate on one or the other but not both. Metronomes seem to be just as difficult. My instructor keeps pressing the issue and rightly so since my rhythm tends to fall apart at times.
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by 21
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
You probably find it difficult because you are not playing in time. Slow right down and get into time, then gradually get your tunes up to a decent speed in regular time.
Mark
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Ottery
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
haha yes i know one person like that but i cant be mentioning any famous names now
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by aye
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Well I don't tap my foot, my my jaw moves up and down to the music.
Johnathan
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Harper_Lad
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
but my jaw moves* Haha I guess I have a stutering problem.
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Harper_Lad
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
If you have trouble playing in time, don't try to fix it with fancy footwork. Tapping should be the music making your feet want to dance, not your feet imposing rhythm on the music. That said, I really have nothing constructive to offer. I know my own rhythm improves when I am playing with people way better than me a few times a week. Metronomes stink.
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Don't forget that it could be lack of experience as much as lack of coordination! It takes time to learn to multitask the way an instrumentalist must. After all, when you play you're doing one thing with the left hand/arm and another quite different thing with the right hand/arm. Add in foot-tapping and that's three things to keep track of.
Suggestion? When I was having problems with the same thing lo these many years ago, my very wise and experienced teacher said to cheese it on the foot-tapping. He pointed out that when I had more experience under my belt, I would find I started tapping my foot spontaneously. Sure enough, I did --- and in time, too. So consider not tapping your foot until you find it's tapping away all by itself without any conscious effort from you.
Metronomes definitely stink! You'll play like one if you use one, and mechanical regularity of timing is less than desirable in ITM. (Oh, wait, we've talked about that already.) ;)
Sara
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by sara g
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
I can't tap my foot to the third part of Fintan McManus', or second part of Leaving Herves. For some serious foot tapping, have a listen to La Bottine Souriante. I thought that was a drum for months.......
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by snorre
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Ever try taking Irish dance lessons? I have always been a heavy foot tapper, and it often got in the way (especially during my classical years). Then I started playing ITM. The heavy foot tapping seemed more acceptable, but it still often got in my way. Then, I attempted set and ceili dancing, and after doing that on a consistent basis for the better part of a year, my foot tapping took on a whole new personality. Not only is it more it time, but it also helps me feel out each tune, as I am able to envision dancers doing the steps. Anywho, that's my take on things.
Jason
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Jason G
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
My shoe size is seventeen, so when I start tapping my foot in time with the music, the other musicians are quite aware. It usually works to positive benefit with beginners to bring them into time with the rest of us. Of course too loud is poor taste so I have to temper the volume just long enough, then back off. The only objection occurs if I am slightly off the beat or use it to increase the tempo. I think the problem of not being able to tap gently in time is because of incorrect timing judgement and should probably be corrected ASAP. One of my best buddies has difficulty with this and he is a bit irksome to sit next to in a session where he is not leading, but playing backup. No problem if he is playing lead so I 'm not sure why he has the problem.
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by wvwhistler
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Check out this old thread for some entertaining posts.
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display.php/978/comments#comment14915
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
If you cannot tap your foot along with your playing (or that of another player), it's a telltale sign that the tempo is irregular. It's quite entertaining to watch people tap their foot who are not quite steady in their tempo: the foot slows down, speeds up, twitches, stops, starts again... It's obvious that their foot is trying to tap to the irregular beat they're playing! It should be the other way round (well, more or less): Your tapping foot should provide you with some steady rhythmic framework, so that even if you play a bit irregular in one bar (or you have players right next to you who are "branching off" into a different tempo), you still don't mess up the overall tempo if you follow the steady beat of your foot.
Don't let yourself be put off by those hating the metronome. They probably hate it because they can't play along with it (no offense - I used to belong to that group myself!). Of course, you should not (and you will not, rest assured!) be playing like a mechanical metronome. But it will help you play so much better. If you learn to play each note at its designated length (the most common problem for tempo issues), you're playing will sound much less rushed even at faster speeds. You gain more control over what you're doing (because you need to be able to control your playing in order to keep the tempo steady), which - in turn - allows you to play faster without the feeling that your fingers are getting into knots. You will be in control of the music (expression, ornamention, deliberate changes in tempo) and not the other way round (as can for instance be seen frequently when players slow down when there are more notes per bar and speed up when there are less). When you can play along fine with the metronome, you will also be able to tap your foot along when you play (without having to concentrate on your foot at all).
When you start practicing with the metronome, slow everything down a lot at first, and then gradually increase the tempo. How long it will take until you can play along with the metronome without problems depends probably on each individual person, but be persistent for a month or two. And you don't have to continue practicing with a metronome for the rest of your life (although a refesher course once in a while is usually good), since a steady beat will become second nature.
[end of sermon]
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by heike
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
being from the classical people's front of judea (yes,i know i'm a splitter),tapping your foot was always frowned upon in the infernal circles i have to move in and so when starting out with this music,i never tapped my foot.but i find myself doing so now and i barely realise i'm doing it so i would n't force it to begin with.
maybe you could just tap the first beats to start off with or just experiment and see how far you get.
as ottery said,starting slow would maybe help.
best wishes
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by biggus dave
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
One problem with many metronomes is that they are not loud enough so you have to concentrate so much to hear them that this alone makes you screw up your playing. What I use now is a computer shareware program where I can set the volume as loud as I need it.
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by heike
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
oh dear,i had a look at that old thread,Will,and the metronomes...the metronomes...the horror...the horror...
i'm not going onto all that again
your very own
mr. kurtz
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by biggus dave
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
I usually tap my foot when playing, but I ocassionally play with metronomes aswell but only if I record something and have to play another instrument over it. Then it does help, otherwise I'm a foottapper.
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by AlFonso
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
(NYC fiddler) Patrick Orceau taps *both* his feet: one on the up beat one on the down beat. It's slightly comical but also gives me the impression that he's going to lose his balance and fall out of his chair. But he seems to manage pretty well...
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Test
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Metronometermusos - try a Seiko quartz metronome - loud sharp precise clicks you can't fail to hear, and you don't have to keep winding it up......best way to discipline your timing.
Jim
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Worldfiddler
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
I couldn't tap my foot in time for the first couple of years when I started playing - it went far too fast and speeded me up. At one workshop Brian McNeill actually stood on my foot to stop it tapping! Then one night I was playing for dancing with a few others, standing up, and it just fell into the right time all on its own and has been OK ever since. I think the suggestion about trying some Irish dancing would be the most helpful.
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Lynn W
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
What about STOMPING? I play with a Cape Breton fiddler a lot, and I've picked up his habit of tapping with my whole, umm, leg. It's a lot of fun though, and when you have three or four people doing it at once in a room with a wood floor, it can actually sound quite good. One less spot for a bodhran player, I suppose, but it's still fun.
There's a Quebecois folk tale about a fiddle player who can't tap his foot to save his life, and finally he makes a deal with the Devil (don't they all?). But now he can't stop tapping his foot, and he can't stop playing the fiddle either, and I think it ends when the Devil is tired out from dancing. So BE WARNED!!
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Gzeg
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Heike - none of the free/shareware metronome programs for Windows are worth a damn - I've tried five or six personally. The Windows OS itself does not have a stable clock, and the metronome programs don't implement their own stable-reference counters. As such, they drift very noticably. If you have a very good music sequencer program like Cubase, etc., then you can use that as a stable timebase. The Steinberg guys are renowned for their rock-solid timekeeping. It takes some very fancy programming, and the Windows process scheduler tends to fight you every step of the way.
I use the accompaniment tracks on my Yamaha MIDI keyboard when I need to set a tempo. Play them thru headphones, and you can set the volume level to whatever you need to hear it along with your playing.
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by HighlandSun
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
I tend to tap both of my feet, alternately, so that the left does the down beat and the right does the off beat. I also rock between toes and heels on both feet. It's not quite as regimented as the French-Canadian habit of clogging while playing, but works the same way. And it just came out that way--not something I consciously chose to do.
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
I used to worry about not tapping my foot or feet and thought it was because I was not relaxed but I agree with the others above that this comes with time and when you know the tunes really well. Recently I've been playing a lot with another flute player who is really lively and feels the music and I find myself tapping along quite naturally when playing with her. Having gone to classes to most of the best flute players in Ireland I have noticed that a few of them don' t tap at all and I know one very good fluter/piper who got a heel injury from tapping continuously. So tapping can be dangerous for your health.
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by MollyB
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
This sorta relates...
What's the beat for Polka's?
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Pádraig
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Re. Patrick Ourceau - have you noticed sometimes he also taps his eyebrows? (Left, right, left, right...)
I'm from the Will Harmon school of toe-tappery myself. Sometimes no feet, sometimes both, and sometimes I just wobble back and forth on my chair (particularly with jigs or slip jigs). Since I'm in Quebec I sometimes try to do the francophone two foot stomp but I find it makes my bum sore if I do it for too long. I only know one or two Quebecois tunes though, so I don't get much opportunity to practice...
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
In my earliest introduction to music, when I was being taught the piano (note that I haven't said I actually learnt to play the piano!) the teacher always used the metronome in the lessons, but not to play to, only to set the tempo for the music. She'd write the metronome marking and the date on the copy and then the following week she'd up the tempo a little. This, I suggest, is the correct way to use a metronome. Your teacher should be there to tell you when you speeding up (in the easy bits) or slowing down (in the hard bits) if you haven't figured it out for yourself. My cello teacher, a few years later, never used the metronome - he considered it an invention of the Devil.
Trevor
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
It can be entertaining in a session, if you're feeling in a particularly wicked frame of mind, to tap 3 against 2 with both feet - not a very difficult feat (sorry!) with a little practice.
Trevor
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Tish
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
LOL -- I think it all just depends on what you need to work on. Some people are going to get good use from a metronome, and some aren't. Either way is just fine.
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Recently I've started tapping on the off-beat; this started as a challenge to myself, but now I'll notice halfway through a tune that I'm tapping on beats 2 and 4 in a reel, or 3 and 6 in a jig. It's interesting to watch other musicians notice and try to figure out what's going on while still playing themselves... (no, that's not what I meant. Remove your mind from the gutter right now). I'm now trying to phase it out. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
) on the off-beat, they'll generally get so confused that they stop... ;D
On a somewhat related topic, you know when you're listening to a really good group/musician, and some idiot starts clapping so you can't hear? If you clap (quietly, preferably
Deirdre
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by fluter_d
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
I didn't know how far I was bending the beat until my teacher pointed it out to me and suggested that I practice with a metronome, which I haven't done in about 40 years. It reinforces my idea that time itself changes (after all, it's a human invention) --- surely it couldn't be ME who's off, in relation to the metronome, so it must be that time bends, right??? Joking aside, it certainly reinforces my observation from teaching beginners that the tendency is to speed up on the slow, easy, boring parts and slow down on the fast, difficult bits (alluded to above in this thread). I know when you're playing in a session or in a band, everybody (it is hoped) slows down or speeds up together, in a common bond with the music, but it seems to me that the best players keep in time all the time. Allowing for intentional speeding up and slowing down, of course. That's the whole deal. Variances in the tempo should be intentional. Foot-tapping? Well, it needs to flow from the clocklike internal tempo.
By the way: Is it just me, but is it hard to look at the blinking light on an electronic metronome? It seems to me that there's way too much happening, and I can't keep it straight when the beat is supposed to start. There's this little red light, and it expands, and I'm watching it expand and trying to pay attention to whether it starts (with the light small) on the beat or behind the beat, or whether the light reaches its largest size on the beat, and in the meantime I've lost the beat, so I end up just listening to it, maybe with the headphones to block out everything else. Anybody else have this problem? Or am I very weird?
Carol
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by carolsviolin
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
your not weird. i have problems playing along with metronomes; what can i say, its just hard to concentrate. and tapping my foot makes me think that i have to focis more on the tapping then the playing and then i get off beat on the playing and it gets messed up....but thats only if i try to tap. sometimes when my teacher startes tapping when we're playing together, it just comes naturally.
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by an_all_irish_girl
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Can someone explain to me - as a non-fiddler:
1 - is this foot tapping considered to be an integral part of the fiddling? i.e. is it something actually to be desired?
2 - whether or not the answer to the above is yes, is this just a timing issue? or is it a "doing two things at once" issue?
Consider this: in our regular session, others have remarked or complimented my ability to hold a dead steady beat - either on flute/whistle, or on mandolin (even when others are way out) - but if I try to tap my foot I lose the plot completely - so this suggests that it is not simply the case that if you can't tap your foot to your own playing then it is your timing thats up the creek.
Dave
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by showaddydadito
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
I suffer from the same problem, but once i realised that playing in time was the important bit, and tapping your foot was not a necessity, i seem to play better. I play without tapping my foot and seem to be able to keep in time fairly ok.
celtic1234
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by Celtic1234
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
i shall studiously avoid any reference to the infernal machinations of the so-called metro-so-called-gnome but with regard to dave's question - i don't know how integral or not it might be but i once saw liz doherty play and she really tapped her foot-very loudly indeed-and the effect was fantastic,to my lugs anyway.it's not essential i suppose but it can add to and not take away in some cases.
best wishes
# Posted on April 14th 2004 by biggus dave
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Re Re: Patrick Orceau
Haha no, I hadn't noticed the eyebrows! I don't get to see him play too often. His regular gig/session at Mona's downtown is WAY past my working joe bedtime. =(
# Posted on April 15th 2004 by Test
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Kevin Burke does the eyebrow thing too, except that it usually comes slightly before the beat, so it's like a conductor leading the band. And it seems to have more to do with pitch and accents than just the beat itself.
# Posted on April 15th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Re: playing like a robot with a metronome, that's a bit stronger than I phrased it, but I've seen plenty of classical players-in-training do exactly that. Of course, I'm a battle-scarred veteran of the Suzuki method, which excels at producing rote players, which is why I ducked out of it as soon as my parents would let me. But I think my own years tied to a metronome in school music classes have a lot to do with my trouble playing jigs with the proper "swing" instead of in actual 6/8.
None of my "real" (ie private, not-tied-to-the-school) teachers would use a metronome as anything other than a way of reminding yourself of the tempo of a piece before starting to play it.
Just my 2c, and not a hatred of metronomes --- merely an explanation of why I think they're less than ideal for ITM.
Sara
ps Andre Brunon's both-feet-stomping is wonderful to watch live --- and his anecdotes about learning it are great fun. The energy of youth! (Sigh.)
# Posted on April 15th 2004 by sara g
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
I think foot tapping is OK if you use it as a percussive instrument on stage. Or if you do it playing by yourself. But foot tappers usually struggle with both an even speed and the rhythm. This means that in a group the tend to force a slightly wrong beat onto everybody else. No wonder orchestra leaders won't have it.
If you must move your foot wiggle it and don't hit the floor.
By the way - I learned to keep my timing by playing bass guitar along to a J.J. Cale tape.
# Posted on April 15th 2004 by kuec
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
"But foot tappers usually struggle with both an even speed and the rhythm." Whaaaaaa---? You know, there are lot of folks who tap their feet, and lots who don't, and lots of both groups don't usually struggle with either tempo or rhythm...c'mon, guys...
# Posted on April 15th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Kuec, your orchestral reference reminds me of one of my orchestral rehearsals where, in one particularly tricky section with awkward cross-rhythms, several people, including the conductor, the leader, and others were inaudibly tapping their feet.
We had at that time a rather cranky double-bassist, a tall guy, who suddenly bellowed "feet!" in the middle of the music. Everyone stopped, puzzled, for a few seconds and then resumed. A short while later, the shout of "feet!" again came loud and clear. Someone asked him what the problem was and he said the movement of feet was preventing him from playing (I would have thought his eyes should either have been on the music or the conductor, but never mind). This of course was a cue for a wind-up - everyone then started tapping their feet, until the conductor finally had to call things to order.
Some months later the guy resigned from the orchestra for other reasons, much to everyone's relief.
Trevor
# Posted on April 15th 2004 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
I'm not good at tapping my feet, but I often find it helpful when others do. When the pub is loud and everybody is playing at their own tempo, I try to watch the feet of the person who started off the set and stick to that tempo. Without the feet to watch, my ear would gravitate to the loudest player, whose tempo may be all wrong.
# Posted on April 15th 2004 by GaryAMartin
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Trevor, sounds like the "feet" guy had too much peripheral version and too little sense of humor! Good riddance...
Sara
# Posted on April 15th 2004 by sara g
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Sara, dead right! You've holed in one.
Trevor
# Posted on April 15th 2004 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Just to play devil's advocate here - remember that the double-bassist has his instrument standing on the floor, and perhaps he is picking up a confusing amount of vibration from a floor which must have been wobbling like a wobbly thing from wobble town.
But then it could have been explained more courteously than by bellowing FEET.
Dave
# Posted on April 15th 2004 by showaddydadito
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
No, Dave, I don't think so. The floor was firm, the foot "tapping" was inaudible and no more than a movement, and if you knew the guy ...
Trevor
# Posted on April 15th 2004 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Just checking Trevor - in case you're not the kindly grey haired avuncular gentleman you project yourself as, but some academically pedantic orchestra nazi, dead set on making everyone else do it your way.
# Posted on April 15th 2004 by showaddydadito
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
orchestral nazis are usually,but not always,to be found on a rostrum either waving their arms about or talking the hind legs off a donkey from said structure.
for all the good it does them...
# Posted on April 16th 2004 by biggus dave
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
Just my two cents.Someone mentioned playing with a Cape Breton Fiddler earlier.I learned to play whistle here on Cape Breton since moving here from Norn' Iron many years ago and have always hated the infernal foot stomping that has always existed here and I tell them so. Have you ever tried to mic 6 Caper fiddlers playing on a wooden stage.Oh the horrors! It is quite simple to tap one's foot quietly with a little practice. If you must stomp your foot that loudly,may I suggest you take up Acadian music.They have developed feet music to an art form
Paul
# Posted on April 18th 2004 by Musicofireland
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
"...here and I tell them so."
Best of luck with that!
# Posted on April 19th 2004 by Gzeg
Re: Tapping your foot when playing
All this talk of conductors reminds me -
Q. Whats the difference between a cow and an orchestra?
A. One has horns at the front and an h'arse at the back.
One fiddler who I occasionally sit next to, who shall remain nameless (Gerry), stamps his feet that hard, my music has fallen off the stand before now.
I find the knees invaluable to keep order in sessions as it is patently obvious that some people (melodionista?) cannot listen and play at the same time. A bit of judicious knee waving must be used to keep them in time.
# Posted on April 23rd 2004 by geoffwright