Vingt-et-un is a card game in which you have to collect twenty-one points. Here’s a quick summary of the rules:
Everyone makes their bets by putting coins or tokens down in front of them.
- One of the players is the Banker.
- Everyone makes their bets by putting coins or tokens down in front of them. This is the player’s “stake”.
- The Banker deals two cards, face down, to each player.
- The players look at their cards, and the Banker asks each player in turn what they want to do, clockwise around the table. The player must add the points value of their two cards, with honours counting ten and the ace counting either eleven or one, whichever works best.
- Each player says whether they want to “hit” or “stick”. If they choose “hit”, the Banker gives them the top card from the pack, which they must now add to the other two. If the total value now exceeds 21, they are “bust”. They throw their cards down and pay the Banker. If they choose to “stick”, the Banker passes on to the next player.
- When all the players have decided what to do, it’s the Banker’s turn. The Banker deals two cards to himself or herself, but face up this time. The Banker decides whether to “hit” or “stick”. If all the players are “bust”, the Banker wins automatically. But if not, when the Banker has had their turn, anyone not “bust” shows their hand. The nearest to 21 points wins all the stakes. If there’s a tie, the Banker wins!
- If anyone has 21 points from their first two cards, they immediately declare their hand, showing it to the rest, and announcing “vingt-et-un”. They win all the stakes straight away.
I hope you’ll have a go at this age-old gambling game! I grew up on it!
And now the reason we’re diving into “vingt-et-un” today: old-fashioned metronomes are the answer.
Old-fashioned metronomes, those lovely pyramid-shaped ones which you have to wind up with a key, have their numbers set out in increments of two, three, four, six or eight. So you can set it to 92 beats per minute, but not 93, 94 or 95, because the next number after 92 is 96.
This Humoresque is going to show you how to use your metronome effectively.
Although numbers start at 40bpm and go up to 208bpm, I never use the extreme speeds, and nor do my pupils. My rule is that your slowest tempo is 60bpm and your fastest is 144bpm. I never go outside that range.
On a traditional metronome, this gives us these possible speeds in beats per minute:
60, 63, 66, 69, 72, 76, 80, 84, 88, 92, 96, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 126, 132, 138 and 144.
So what about if 60bpm is still too fast? Or if you want to increase your speed beyond 144bpm?
Here’s what to do, and it’s easy:
Change the Value of the Click!
Metronomes do not know what their click represents. Only you know that – and you have the power to decide.
We talk about speeds in “beats per minute”, but it would be more accurate to say “clicks per minute”. Our clicks may not represent the beats. If your music has a time signature of 4/4, the beats are crotchets. But, in the earlier stages of learning, counting in quavers may give you better accuracy and fluency. So if you’re using a metronome, each click will represent one quaver.
Let’s imagine your piece, in 4/4, needs to be practised slowly. You’re using your metronome, and you set it to 60bpm, but each click is a quaver, so you are actually practising at 60 quavers per minute. Don’t forget my advice in last week’s Humoresque: one hand at a time, one bar at a time, build it up, step-by-step.
When you have mastered your piece, or your section of it, at 60 to the quaver (as we say), you can step up the tempo to 63. When you are confident at 63, move the metronome on to 66. Then 69, and so on.
I have a Rule of Three: the piece (or the part of it you’re working on) must be flawless three times consecutively, before you’re allowed to move to the next tempo.
Apply the Rule of Three to each new tempo before you move to the next one.
Eventually you will arrive at 144 to the quaver! Wow, that is real progress, and I mean that. So what now – given that 144 is the “ceiling”? Well, you go all the way back to 60 again – but this time, your clicks will represent crotchets.
Then off you go again, applying the Rule of Three, and ascending through the numbers as far as you need to go.
This will be a mindset change, because you’ve been so used to counting in quavers, and the adjustment can take a little while, but you know you can do it, because 60 to the crotchet is actually much slower than 144 to the quaver. So you have some “adjustment-room” here.
This is a Tried and Tested Technique! Keep to the range 60-144, but change the Value of the Click as necessary. I often have pupils start with a semiquaver click, especially if there are many semiquavers in the music. We can position our notes accurately, and that – as you know from last week’s Humoresque – is more important than anything else.
I have three metronomes, which I use in different contexts and situations. One is my beautiful old-fashioned pyramid metronome, which used to be my mum’s, and which stands proudly on my piano.
The second is a small battery-operated gadget, which I can take with me when gigging or teaching in other venues. It’s easy to use and has a nice loud click.
Like the pyramid-style one, it only has the traditional numbers (60, 63, 66 etc).
It takes a small AA battery, which seems to last forever, and you can also set it to silent, as it has a red flashing light which you can watch as you play. This feature is only useful if you are really accustomed to metronome work, know your piece extremely well, and need to maintain a silent, steady pulse at all times. Not for most learners, but the metronome itself, using the click, is a very good one, and I recommend it.
My third metronome is an app on my phone. It thinks it’s better than the others because it can do all sorts of exciting and unnecessary things. One thing it can do is give you a click for any number you can think of, and another useful feature is the way it can highlight the first (or any) beat of the bar.
This is very useful, especially for beginners and learners. I use Pro-Metronome, which is only available on iPhones, but there are many others, and most of them are free.
So, did you notice anything significant about the range of numbers I gave you? 60 to 144? Count them up, and you’ll find you have twenty-one tempos to play with. (Many more, of course, if you use a digital metronome with all the numbers in between, but I like the traditional ones, and I stick to these numbers even on digital devices.)
So twenty-one tempos, which brings us back to vingt-et-un! I hope you enjoy playing the card game, and I hope this advice is useful in your practising.
To summarise:
1. Buy a metronome, or install an app.
2. Stick to the range 60-144bpm
3. Change the Value of the Click when you need to go faster or slower than this range allows.
4. Apply the Rule of Three before moving up to the next tempo.
5. Re-read last week’s Humoresque (“Enemies to Lovers”) on how to begin working with a metronome when you are not used to it or you find it too confusing.
Humoresque = a whimsical or fanciful piece of music. Be whimsical, be fanciful, but play in time!