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Check out the rhythms of Bounce Metronome Pro and its precise visual bounce, speed drills, and automatic tempo and rhythm changes

Or read on for reviews from Martin Walker of Sound On Sound, Gary Eskow of Mix Online and Aaron Wolf, Ann Abor guitar teacher, to find out about your free book on metronome practice, and read what the classical guitarist Douglas Neidt says about the "vanishing click".

You can use these links to jump to any section:

Top of page - Merging with metronome clicks for timing senstivity - Review by Martin Walker - Video resources - Review by Gary Eskow - Review by Aaron Wolf - Walkthrough videos of Bounce - Choose your version - Buy now

Merging with metronome clicks, until they vanish, for timing sensitivity

(up) - skip to Review by Martin Walker of Sound on Sound

Probably you are just here to get a metronome to go "tick tick" for a click track, or to make sure you play your piece at the right tempo. What you may not know is that a metronome is also a great tool for improving your timing and tempo sensitivity.

Bounce comes with built in exercises for encouraging your ability to keep a steady tempo, and to help with precision of timing, based on Mac Santiago's "Beyond the Metronome".To see if this can help you, try this test. What you have to do with the video below is to play in time with the click, but not only at the same tempo, try to play in the pocket too. So exactly in time that your tap merges with the click. Whatever instrument you play, use something percussive to start with. Tap something or play your instrument percussively.

Can you do that in a relaxed and precise way? Then, try tapping through the silences. Are you exactly in the pocket when the metronome comes back on again? You may be surprised at how much of a challenge this is to do.



Is your Tempo Steady? Tap along through the silences - are you still in time when it returns? And still in the pocket? It is harder to do than it seems :) (Playlist)

For the best results, try to play as if you and the metronome are like two instruments playing in perfect unison so that the sound of your tap merges with the click of the metronome. The two sounds blend together and the metronome click may seem to vanish because you and the metronome are playing as one. If you play randomly away from the beat in order to hear the metronome more clearly, you have almost no chance of learning precise timing with the metronome.

If it sounds as if the metronome click vanishes completely it's hard to stay in time for long, because you literally can't hear it any more. It can be a good starting point to experience that, but then, try to listen out for a distinctive merge sound where you hear both the metronome click and your own tap, merged together as if it is a single instrument. Once you hear that, it can be like a kind of gravitational pull pulling you towards the merge sound as you play.

If you found that easy, there are many other more challenging exercises, including Mac Santiago's "diminishing click" where the clicks get further apart until you have to come back in the pocket after 64 measures of 4/4. If you can do that, and at any tempo, not just at 60 bpm, then your tempo and timing sensitivity is exquisite :). You can try out more videos like that here: How Steady is Your Tempo?

Don't worry that if you do this you learn to play like a metronome. It's the opposite, it helps you to develop sensitivity - you become able to make more and more graduations and nuances in your timing if anything. To keep flexible be sure to practice playing with the clicks anywhere in the beat, as well as drifting slowly from one beat to another. You need to feel that you can, with complete relaxation, play your note anywhere that you like, from on the beat, just after it, just before the next beat or anywhere in between.

If you found that exercise challenging, my video here may help wth a few tips to get started:

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You can watch the other videos in this series here: Enjoyment, Relaxation and Precision in Metronome Technique

Mac Santiago's book has a series of exercises to play in the pocket whenever you want to, or anywhere else in the beat. You can use them with any metronome, and can also use the click tracks on the CD that comes with his book, however Bounce Metronome Pro has been designed with many features and presets to help you along the way. The video above uses a feature available in Bounce Metronome's Tempo drop menu under "Play then SILENT for Measures" and you can use it with any of the rhythyms Bounce can play, for any of the parts or all of them.

This is what the classical guitarist Douglas Neidt (who has played in the Carnegie Hall) says about the "Vanishing Click" in his online page "Come sit in with the Rhythm Section"

"When we are playing the guitar, it can be described as a sweet spot where the sound of a plucked note and the click of the metronome are exactly in sync. The click disappears into the plucked note. We only hear the plucked note, not the click. The only time we do hear the click is when our plucked note is ahead or behind the click! It is a strange but wonderful sensation. We are playing, and we see that the metronome is still working, but we are not hearing any clicks because we are in the pocket, precisely in sync with the metronome.

Check out his page Come sit in with the Rhythm Section where he has some bounce videos covering some of the exercises as my : Enjoyment, Relaxation and Precision in Metronome Technique

Here is Justin Sandercoe for instance talking about the disappearing metronome click

You can also get my free online book Many ways to use a Metronome including Merging with metronome clicks, until they vanish, for timing sensitivity . (Also on kindle)

For other books on metronome technique by Andrew Lewis, Mac Santiago, an older book by Frederick Franz, and several online pages and a PhD thesis on "The Metronomic Performance Practice", see the Metronome Links page of the online book.

You may also enjoy my blog post: Metronomes - Do You Need Them? And A Metronome Using Conducting Techniques For Visual Precision

Review of Bounce Metronome by Martin Walker (Sound on Sound)

(up) - skip to Video resources

Martin Walker, of Sound on Sound magazine focuses on the bounce visuals

Drum rudiments and other rhythms with mixtures of beats of different note values - Playlist of some of the Drum Rudiments.

Bounce Metronome Pro ,,, a clever PC metronome utility with visual options such as 3D bouncing balls, animated drumsticks and conductor’s baton graphics.

... Rather like those used in karaoke machines, their rise and fall incorporates a ‘gravity bounce’ that feels like having your own conductor to help you keep in time.

... 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 ...

Martin Walker, PC Notes, Sound On Sound

Sound On Sound Magazine, 2010, online summary (scroll down a little)

Sound On Sound Magazine, 2010, printed review

Video resources

(up) - skip to - Review by Gary Eskow

These are for everyone, even if sadly you can't use the metronome on your device. They also give you an idea of the flexibility of this metronome.

Check out the video resources. tab for more rhythms

Review by Gary Eskow of Mix Online

(up) - skip to - Review by Aaron Wolf

Bounce Metronome Pro can play just about any rhythm you've heard of or can imagine, and may introduce you to new rhythms you have never come across before.

Gary Eskow of Mix Online picks up on this aspect. First let's see one of the complex rhythms it can play.

Complex polymeters

4/4 : 4/5: 4/3 (Brian Ferneyhough's notation) as a harmonic polyrhythm with gradually changing tempo These rare rhythms are a much desired feature of a metronome for Math Metal and composers who work with complex polymeters. They combine ideas from rhythm phasing and polyrhythms. Unlike normal polyrhythms, the measures as well as the beats differ in size. Played here as harmonic polyrhythms - each rhythm plays a different pitch with the pitches related to each other via the harmonic series

4/4 : 4/5: 4/3 (Brian Ferneyhough's notation) as a harmonic polyrhythm with gradually changing tempo

Have you left the idea of using a metronome in the dusty past? You surely don’t need a standalone timekeeper, do you? Click tracks are easy to generate inside your DAW, so other than getting a reference on tempo when you’re writing away from your workstation, why even consider buying an online metronome?

Bounce Metronome, the brain child of Robert Walker, is a fascinating app that I’d strongly suggest you check out, particularly if you’re interested in polyrhythms. I recently bought the scores of Fred Lerdahl’s three string quartets. They’re brilliant, and the inventiveness of his cross rhythms is inspiring. Bounce Metronome has allowed me to program some of Fred’s rhythms, and I’ve begun creating variations on them.

Gary Eskow MixBlog, in Mix Online Read full text »

Review by Aaron Wolf, guitar teacher

(up) - skip to - Walkthrough videos of Bounce

Aaron Wolf, Ann Abor guitar teacher, calls it "Quite simply the most remarkable metronome for music study"

Syncopated polyrhythms as in African music

Rhythm Phasing as in the music of Steve Reich

"... There are countless basic metronome programs (including built-in metronomes ...), mobile apps, and websites, but nothing else compares to the phenomenal Bounce Metronome.

“It starts with a deceptively simple idea that is beyond compare: the very best visualization for rhythm ever. Add to this support for complete range of swing, accents, polyrhythms, additive rhythms, huge numbers of options to adjust every detail, and some incredible harmonic just intonation rhythmic fractal evolutionary craziness at the advanced level, and much more”



”...Quite simply the most remarkable metronome for music study”

Aaron Wolf, Ann Abor guitar teacher - read his review here

You can read many more testimonials, discussions and reviews - here

Walkthrough videos of Bounce

(up) - skip to - Choose your version

Here is what it is like in action showing some of the many tools available for making rhythms in the program.

See Walkthrough of astonishingly versatile Bounce Metronome Pro for more videos like this.

(This video was actually made on the Mac. Sadly it is no longer available for the Mac now, since High Sierra, when they dropped support for 32 bit apps:)

For more videos of these rhythms see Check out the amazing rhythms Bounce can play and the other rhythms in the video resources

How to choose your version

(up) - skip to - Buy now

If you want the full range of features get Bounce Metronome Pro. This is what most musicians buy. The Lite version is used by a few musicians who don't need all those rhythms.

Bounce Metronome Lite - any time signature including odd time signatures

Bounce Metronome Pro - polyrhythms, polymeters, additive rhythms, drum rudiments like paradiddles and swing.

Both have

tempo features including speed drills and gradual tempo changes

automatic switching of time signatures and tempi.

(this is somewhat more flexible in the Pro version, with automatic switching of instruments, accents, amount of swing and any other feature of the rhythm)

The download includes a free beginner's version of Bounce Metronome. Many beginner musicians will find this is all they need. You can try out the test drive of the pro metronome at any time, but either way the free version is for you to keep. This means that anyone can use the relaxing precise bounce visuals.

Free beginner's bounce metronome, yours to keep. Plays the most commonly used rhythms 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8, 9/8, 12/8 and up to 4 subdivisions e.g. to play sixteenth notes. Also has a drum machine page that lets you make more complex rhythms. Doesn't have the speed drills or other advanced features but still a capable metronome with the relaxing and precise bounce.

For more details, see the Features 0verview

Buy it Now!

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Or maybe you want to get it right away? You can Buy Bounce Metronome now

You have a no quibbles Money-back Guarantee. If you decide it's not for you, for any reason, return your key within 60 days to get a full refund.

Buy FAQ

Or download your 30 day Free Test Drive

This includes your free taster bounce metronome - yours to keep whether you buy it or not.

(up)

For the overview of the different versions of Bounce, see the Features page

And here again are the links if you want to find out moer about particular features,