by Gary Powell
If you are ready for an entirely different method of keeping better time with your own internal clock, the Body Beat Pulsing Metronome may be just for you. This is the new millennium’s latest version of the good-ole metronome we have all grown to hate and which was only, and almost always, an annoying audio click or beep. Simply put, the Peterson BB-1 Body Beat Pulsing Metronome changes the human interface of the metronomic beat from an aural experience to a vibratory one.
The greatest drummers have always had an exacting sense of time. For the rest of us, the Body Beat just may deliver a similar internal experience that these greatest human metronomes have always felt. It took just one full song for me to get used to the little pulsing vibrations of this machine and to be able to play in time with it. I’ve been listening and playing to clicks since 1970, so I was anxious to see if I could keep time at all without hearing the traditional click in my head. In my very first test, I found that I responded to the Body Beat best when the vibrator was attached to the sleeve of my T-shirt. As a pianist, this put the beat directly into the same appendage that was playing the music – my right arm! Yes, I do understand that the vibratory beat went to my brain first, then back down to the fingers, but it didn’t feel like that. I think I could get used to this and I’m positive that it could make me a tighter player without the annoyance of the audio click that seems to always rush or drag! (That’s an old musician’s joke first credited to Chet Atkins.)
Hopefully, future versions will have some kind of sync input for use in recording studios. Until then, this is a beautifully conceived and executed idea. Thank you, Christopher Parsons, President of DOT Music and the inventor of the Body Beat Metronome.
by Gary Powell
If you are ready for an entirely different method of keeping better time with your own internal clock, the Body Beat Pulsing Metronome may be just for you. This is the new millennium’s latest version of the good-ole metronome we have all grown to hate and which was only, and almost always, an annoying audio click or beep. Simply put, the Peterson BB-1 Body Beat Pulsing Metronome changes the human interface of the metronomic beat from an aural experience to a vibratory one.
The greatest drummers have always had an exacting sense of time. For the rest of us, the Body Beat just may deliver a similar internal experience that these greatest human metronomes have always felt. It took just one full song for me to get used to the little pulsing vibrations of this machine and to be able to play in time with it. I’ve been listening and playing to clicks since 1970, so I was anxious to see if I could keep time at all without hearing the traditional click in my head. In my very first test, I found that I responded to the Body Beat best when the vibrator was attached to the sleeve of my T-shirt. As a pianist, this put the beat directly into the same appendage that was playing the music – my right arm! Yes, I do understand that the vibratory beat went to my brain first, then back down to the fingers, but it didn’t feel like that. I think I could get used to this and I’m positive that it could make me a tighter player without the annoyance of the audio click that seems to always rush or drag! (That’s an old musician’s joke first credited to Chet Atkins.)
Hopefully, future versions will have some kind of sync input for use in recording studios. Until then, this is a beautifully conceived and executed idea. Thank you, Christopher Parsons, President of DOT Music and the inventor of the Body Beat Metronome.