Monday, April 18, 2011

Hanging With the Doctor

Seen the Doctor lately? Sounds like not! If your pulse is unstable, fluctuating, erratic, you are past due for a visit. Just as we don't ignore heart irregularities, so why allow bad rhythm, unsteady tempos, rushing and dragging to threaten our musical lives? Needed badly: a steady ticker!

Prescription: one Dr. Beat. His subdividing options were not available years ago. Remember having to balance that large wooden tic-toc triangle thing on a flat surface? The beat was never perfect, always sounding slightly peg-legged. Even the nifty plastic jobs were frustrating. Drop it once, and it forever limped.

Now with a simple click you can have the perfect Dr. Beat on your case and in your face right next to your ears as loud as you can stand him! The more obnoxious the better. That way the medicine might work and the beat might stick.

Another problem with elderly metronomes was that they could easily be drowned out by exuberant brass belting. In fact, considering the high decibel level required for so much of our demands today, it might be good if someone came out with a DR. BANG! Each click would sound like an empty garbage can being pummeled by a baseball bat! Hey, put it on a dotted quarter note = 120 in 12/8 with subdivided eighth notes and enjoy!