Customer Reviews

A Big Metronome: Time Development Studies

5 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(1)
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This book is awesome! I would'nt recommend it to beginning students unless they are pretty dedicated. For me, (been playing for 10 years) it has been great. To develop your own internal sense of time has helped me already and I've only been using it for a month. Probably will take me much longer to go through all the exercises. Some of the exercises may take me years though they are pretty hard. If your tired of the constant tick of a metronome this book offers you way to slowly wean yourself away from that crutch.

I have been using Arnold's ear training books with satisfaction. I recently decided to start on time-training with 'The big metronome'. Unfortunately, the courses seem to be written for a teacher-student set up, with a teacher experienced in these methods. I have read and reread the introduction and instructions, but I haven't a clue how to proceed. The ear training courses are fine - one simply listens and lets the information sink in. But what is one supposed to do with the time exercises? Listen passively, or play/sing along, or what? Arnold teaches his techniques in a University setting, and that is the setting for which this course is composed. The instructions should be written in a simple, step by step format for the guy who does the course at home alone. I shall submit another review on the content, once I have been able to access it.

First let me say I would not recommend this book for beginners. I suppose because of the email support Mr. Arnold gives you could still work with the book but it really requires you to have some basic skills already down. For instances you need to be able to read music and have a fair amount of technique on your instrument. Other than that anything you might have problems with Mr. Arnold will answer via the publisher's FAQ section. Personally I think anyone serious about music should check this book out. The concepts of feeling rhythm not counting rhythm and hearing larger amounts of time as your basic time unit is key to many types of advanced playing skills.