I'm hoping there is a trick out there for this (I tried to search many forms of the question and couldn't find anything - but I think I did see something about this some time ago). I looked through out the practice section in the Preference menu, but couldn't find anything. I'm still on BIAB 2010. I did post this in the Tricks section, but I don't think that was the right place for the question.
I'm trying to get my rhythm better, more consistant. I'd like to setup BIAB to play along and then just mute for a measure or two and then come back in to see if my internal clock can keep steady without the rest of the band present.
Is there any practice section to do this automatically or possibly randomly? I did go in and manually alter the bars to either mute all, or reset to normal. I also set up some measures so the first beat has a single hit and then is muted again until the bar is reset to normal. This works ok, but I was hoping for some sort of automated or random muting.
Thanks!
Rob
Hi Rob,
If your older version has the Practice Window, I think you should have this feature (IIRC).
In BiaB, I went to the Help menu, Topic Search, typed in "practice" and selected Practice Window, scrolled down the page a bit and found this:
Quote:
Chord "Breaks"
This feature is great for practicing tempo control.
Select the # of bars, and Band-in-a-Box will play for, say 4 bars (selectable), and then will rest all instruments for the next 4 bars. During the silence, you keep playing (comping, drums, melody, etc.), trying to stay in tempo. Drummers can mute the drum part. When the band comes back in after the 4 bars, you’ll get instant feedback on how well you have maintained the tempo, if the band comes in time with you or not.
Once set, this feature works automatically with all songs until you turn it off.
--Mac
Yep, that is it. I saw that screen and looked over it too! But I missed that. Thanks so much - hopefully you didn't spend too much time on it and hopefully someone else will see this and it will help them too.
Thanks again!,
Rob
When you're filling up with gas, lock the gas flow thingie and count along with the 10ths of a gallon for a little while, then look away and keep counting for a while and then look back to see how close you are to the correct count.
Being off by only 1/10th in 30 seconds or so is REALLY good!
Not kidding...I do it all the time if for no other reason than to avoid boredom. (I don't do windows!)
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Or, if you have a stop watch...start it going for 10 seconds...close your eyes and open when you think you're at 30 seconds.
Again, not kidding. The more ways you practice rhythm the more deeply you will "feel" it.
I'll bet that great drummers...and bass players too might not be off more than 1 second in a minute. Guitar players....not so much!
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Jim
I've counted along with things like the gas (petrol) pump dispensers like that for years. Good practice for any musioian when you are doing something besides "just practicing".
If you live in an area with tunnels and commute to work, try continuing to sing a song that is on the radio when you enter the tunnel -- and see how close you are to the track when you come out of the tunnel and radio reception is restored.
When at home and playing the "Radio Game" -- which is simp;ly tuning in a station and attempting to find the key, chords, etc. to whatever musicis playing and play along with it in realtime, great ear training excercise -- try turning down the Volume on a song altogether at some point and keep counting and singing the song. Are you dead on the same place as the song when you turn the Volume back up?
The same can be done with any source, CD, tape, etc.
--Mac
Great stuff Mac. However, I'm not sure whether your and/or my or anyone else's "drills" can actually be expected to do anything other than measure how good...or bad...our "internal rhythm clocks" are calibrated.
In other words, I'm not sure drilling will actually improve rhythm.
Personally, I think that some have rhythm and some don't. Some are "speed uppers" and some are "slow downers" by nature.
Similarly, I don't think we can drill for "perfect pitch" in spite of the ads running in Guitar Player Magazine for the past 25 years!!!!
And like my former golf instructor said...when amateurs "practice" all they're doing is "grooving their flaws."!!!! SO true for me. I REALLY have a "repeatable swing." REPEATABLY BAD!!!! (-:
(-:
Anyone can improve their abilities with a proper practice regimen.
I've proven that with far too many students, grad students, master classes, etc.
The French word for "practice" is repetition...
BUT first one must know that the routine they have selected is proper for the best learning curve plus how to go about the few minutes a day it takes to *change* bad habits into ones that *WORK*.
Not excellence, but the *pursuit* of excellence.
If you say that you can't do it, your reward will be that you cannot do it.
Counting the whole time music is going on, plus keeping time, is a *discipline* and any discipline can be improved upon over time.
I encourage you to go for it.
--Mac
I'm with Mac on this.
Of course you can improve your sense of rhythm by practice, you can also eradicate any flaws if your careful about your practice.
One useful skill is knowing where you are in a song. The way I learnt this was by counting:
1234, 2234,3234,3234,......12,2,3,4 (or similar) over songs I heard on the radio in my car. I tapped my foot. I wanted to ensure that I always knew where the one was and also where I was in the song in terms of bars. Now its internalised, I don't have to count and I know which bar and which beat I am on - this intitially took a few months.
There are lots of 'away from your instrument' excercises you can create too, for example listen to a song and count every third beat, or indetify the fifth bar without counting.
All this stuff about some people have and some have not... some work at it and some dont
And BIAB is a great training aid for this - you can slow down as much as you need.