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Applied Techniques: What About the Metronome
Applied Techniques With Igor Saavedra: What About the Metronome… is it Important for Developing Fundamental Abilities on an Electric Bass Student?
Meet Igor Saavedra –
Lately, this debate has gotten really very intense in the music world, so I think it’s very convenient to clarify many misunderstandings that “in my opinion” are very common regarding this matter. In fact, a couple of very well known and respected bass players on the scene are blaming and condemning this poor artifact in every place where they address their audiences.
They argue that studying with a Metronome will affect your capability to learn anything you are trying to incorporate to your brain because the Metronome will urge your process in an unnatural way… setting a learning speed that is not the one you are actually needing for that particular lesson or exercise… so really… you are the one entitled to manage that speed, “Not the Metronome”.
I share this opinion, but only in the moment when you are approaching a melody for the first time and trying to get the notes while placing them on the fingerboard in a logical way. Obviously the Metronome will become a nuisance on that process. The problem with that very understandable position is that teachers are going to the extreme with it and proposing that the Metronome should be BANNED from Music Schools and NEVER be used for studying bass and perhaps any other instrument, and that we should be throwing our metronomes literally to the garbage. So… that extreme and fundamentalist position is the one that I don’t share at all.
Everybody knows that 99% of the music that we play as bass players is based on the “Ontological Tempo”, that means the “Mathematic Pulse” or the commonly named “Beat”. So… Rock, Pop, Funk, Blues, Jazz, Fusion, Country, Vals, Salsa, Merengue, Songo, Tango, Latin American music such as the Candombe, Joropo, Landó, Huaino, Cueca, Bossa Nova, Samba, Zamba, Chacarera, Tonadas, etc., are fully based on that “Ontological Tempo”.
Also, is very important to consider that we as bass players are 99% of the time setting and establishing this Ontological Pulse along with the drummers, so that the other musicians can play comfortably and unload their ideas that are usually also expressed on mathematical divisions of the time.
So, which do you think is the most important rhythmical ability that a bass player should be developing to be able to offer that comfort to the other musicians that are relying on him to express their ideas and musicality? For me the answer is obvious, and that is “THE ONTOLOGICAL PULSE”.
As far as I know, the only reliable way to develop this ability is to get accustomed to follow and establishing a relationship with a device of unquestionable reliability. This innocent and hardworking device will always set a “Non Cartesian” or “Non Relative” sense of pulse for any musician that will rely on it (that’s so democratic indeed)… eventually allowing every musician to communicate in “Objective Time Terms” with each other. By the way, this device’s name is “THE METRONOME”.
I know that not everything in music is “measurable” and “quantifiable”, and that sometimes in music we have to follow our emotions and leave the mathematical aspects behind so to embrace for example the “Psychological Pulse” (Rubato, Ad Libitum, A Piaccere, etc.), as the ones to reign on some particular music pieces, but the “Real Life” of a bass player is not that, because in reality he will be 99% of the time playing or trying to play “Ahead of the Beat”, “Behind the Beat” or “On the Beat” closely with a drummer, and that means always closely related with the “Ontological Pulse”.
It is because of that simple fundament that I DO NOT AGREE with my respectable colleagues that think quite the opposite. I think that the first victim after this “Non Metronomical Approach to the Bass Rhythmics” will be our indefinable and intangible best friend “The Groove”.
Pulse needs for a bassist are first of all Ontological in real life, so I think Tempo must not be relativized. We should learn to “Construct” for later, being able to “Deconstruct”, so after we “The Bass Players” have been able to achieve the sufficient skills to “Master the Groove” thanks to, in my opinion, our reliable friend The Metronome. Perhaps we’ll be entitled and allowed to take that Metronome and grab a Hammer, Kerosene, Muriatic acid or whatever destruction device or substance that we may know about, and destroy that Metronome for good, so then being able to submerge ourselves into the fickle waters of the Psychological Expressions of the Pulse, which on my opinion is as the real musician’s life should be, “The derivation and deconstruction of the Ontological Pulse and not an entity in itself”.
Well, a slight detail that I forgot to mention… This process of construction and deconstruction might take about 15 years of hard work on average… so you better start right now if you haven’t yet.
Finally, it’s important to stress the fact that what I’m expressing here is circumscribed exclusively under the ambit of the IDEAS, and has nothing to do with personal issues. The colleagues that have a different opinion than mine have all my respect as musicians and as Human Beings which is far away more important.
¡¡Long live to the Metronome!!
See you on my next article.
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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