A breakthrough.

Buco

Cool, my countryman. I watched him once in Chicago, he's a wonderful player.

Regarding your tensed wrist, that should be straightforward; relax. Grip the pick only enough so it doesn't fly out of your hand. Focus to relax the wrist. At the faster tempo, sacrifice the pick attack and volume for a relaxed hand, at least during practice and focus on your wrist being relaxed rather than loud and strong attack. Once that relaxed feeling sinks in, you can add the attack which if you're also focusing practicing the rest stroke will be easy.
Using a mirror for this help a lot.

Scoredog

I wonder how many true Gypsy guitarists use or used a metronome. It would be interesting to really know. My guess is many didn't even have one at their disposal but I have no knowledge of any of this. What I would guess is proficiency in right hand picking patterns and techniques play and have played a huge roll in defining speed and style. Once one has mastered a certain picking pattern many left hand options become available.

Buco

I'm not completely sold on metronome being indispensable in music practice. It's certainly helpful tool but it will not automatically break your growth as a musician if you're not using one. A lot depends on how well your internal music pulse is developed.
Joscho said he never used a metronome but emphasized that he was very focused on his own internal beat when he practiced in the beginning.
Also Adam Rafferty builds a case against it here:
http://www.adamrafferty.com/2008/02/27/dont-use-a-metronome/
If you haven't heard of him by the way, check him out, the guy is one of the best fingerstyle players alive today and has an incredible sense of groove.
Craig makes a good point too. One thing I noticed in Dorado's playing is a lot of the time he keeps a steady 1/4 note pulse with his right hand in the air when he's giving space between the notes and lines.

wim

Using a metronome is really helpful to prevent you from rushing on the easy parts and then dragging at the difficult part. It's very tempting to start the theme somewhere around the Django tempo, and then you'll flub it later when you get to a fast run. Especially tunes like Blues en Mineur and Mont st Gen.

When practicing you should play the entire tune as slowly as necessary in order to play the fastest parts correctly, to build up good time and not get the bad habits of drifting and loosing the groove. I don't know how guys like Joscho have built up such a good internal beat if not by practicing with a metronome, or some other unwavering reference.

diminishedrun

It amazes me that the top players would not have used a metronome to achieve their level of mastery. Maybe they have extraordinary internal beat and tapping the foot is acting as the metronome. That said I completely agree that it is difficult to believe that the likes of Jimmy Rosenberg would have hadva metronome at their disposal.

It would be great to see some kind of poll to see who uses one and who doesn’t but I always think of the great quote “Never believe what an artist says, only what an artist does”.

Buco

I don't know why developing a good internal beat would be so hard?
I think I have a decent feel for time and I never practiced with the metronome. I did start in recent years though mostly to see if I was missing on something. And to see if it would influence my phrasing if I'm practicing with it on 2 and 4.

But in the culture where I grew up there is a lot of communal playing (guitar or accordion mostly depending what age group you're in), singing and dancing. I'm betting there's only that much of that among Gypsies. When I started playing guitar that's what I did, playing at sing-along parties for hours on end. With a very few exceptions, I didn't play any single note stuff for years. That's how I got the feel for time and most people I'm aware of did the same. I never heard of anybody using a metronome except for classical musicians.

richter4208

Gotta understand a guy like Jimmy Rosenberg played all the time and a good chunk of the day was spent playing rhythm or playing with a rhythm player...:: not many of us here have a human metronome at our disposal. When you grow up in a community of musicians there is always someone around to play with, different process than the isolationist learning most of us do

diminishedrun

richter4208 wrote: »

Gotta understand a guy like Jimmy Rosenberg played all the time and a good chunk of the day was spent playing rhythm or playing with a rhythm player...:: not many of us here have a human metronome at our disposal. When you grow up in a community of musicians there is always someone around to play with, different process than the isolationist learning most of us do

I guess that is a good point. Playing music alone is not as good as being amongst a community. This is the one area of gypsy jazz that concerns me inasmuch as in my loaction there are simply not the musicians on hand to get together on a regular basis.

Bones

Yeah good point. When I first started I didn't have a metronome but I played along with recordings A LOT. A recording or metronome really keeps you 'honest' since it doesn't adjust for you if you mess up.

Jazzaferri

If one is trying to learn to play pushes, on top, and behind the beat a metronome is essential to developing that skill. One needs that absolute accuracy

When learning to play rhythm slowly or at high speed, some sort of stable beat reference that one listens to hone the internal beat (assuming that is there). Keeps one honest.

I have the privilege of know and playing with some very good jazz pop/rock? and R& B musicians. Some with Masters degrees in music even. Every single one of them has spent many hours with Mr. Metro Gnome. The point is to get to a point where timing and rhythmic pulse are at the unconscious competence level. If you have to think about it at all, still needs to be worked on.