Quote:
Originally Posted by Rocky Dijohn
Can this even be taught? I taped myself years ago attempting to play some celtic O'Carolan arrangements by El McMeen and I quit playing in disgust at how mechanical and rote I sounded. I am coming off a long layoff and wondering how to get to a better level. I have never worked with a metronome either so advice on that is welcome.
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Metronomes are for honing your time-keeping. If you suspect your time-keeping is shaky (get ahead of the beat sometimes?) it's good to do some work with one.
Start easy: set it at a tempo where you can follow the click with no trouble, regardless of how fancy the piece is.
When you have no trouble "sitting on" the click, start to make it harder, but slowing it down, or halving it. I.e., if the bpm of your piece is 140, set the click to 70 and feel it as beats 1 and 3 or (jazz method) 2 and 4). The idea being to make your own internal clock work harder.
Slow metronome speeds are important for teaching you to relax - to feel like the music is carrying you, you're not driving it.
Playing with feeling is a whole other thing (except that really solid control of time is an essential basic). You have to (a) really love the piece, and (b) know it really well - so well you can't make a mistake. You have to be able to play it almost without thinking. It also has to be well below the peak of your technical skill - so that you could play it a lot faster with no mistakes if you wanted to. But of course you don't: you play it at the right speed, and use your spare chops (as it were) to apply the feeling.
In technical terms that amounts to applying dynamic variation creatively (where you feel it ought to come) and maybe a little vibrato here and there.
Always listen to the tone you're producing: could it be sweeter, harsher, warmer? What sound suits the tune, and its different sections? Decide on where and how you're picking the strings (and of course be aware of all the available options and their effects).
Slight variations in tempo can also be effective, if appropriate to the tune - eg slowing down at points of tension.