ARTIST FEATURE: From Carnegie Hall to Lincoln Center, from electric guitar to classical guitar, from South Korea to USA, meet JIJI, the multi-talented guitarist. We are so happy she is sharing her insights with us this week!

1) How do you practice your rhythm and sense of time?

First, I set the metronome to either eighth note or sixteenth note as a beat to tackle a complex rhythm. I find that it works best for me to practice with the smallest rhythmic subdivision instead of trying to “guess” the rhythm in a big beat. One great thing I learned was from the composer David Lang. He made all of the students in a classroom count to 10 seconds silently in our mind with our eyes closed and clap at 10. We had to repeat five cycles. After the second cycle, everyone’s claps were all over the place. He wanted to point out that we all have different pulses, it was a cool experience to hear everyone’s different sense of time. Sense of time is subjective.. So I think working with the metronome is very essential to approaching any music to get the pulse/sense of time.

2) What are your favorite rhythmic exercises?

I just love having a steady beat going and switching back and forth with (ir)regular subdivision with my students. Such as:
Apple (douple) Ba-na-na (triplet) Hi-ppo-pa-ta-mus (Quintuplet)..etc

3) What exotic rhythms do you like and what can we learn from it?

I love Polyrhythms such as three against two or four against three– it’s just fun to play with more than one different rhythmic subdivisions in a pulse. I’m working on a very new electric guitar concerto piece and uses tons of polyrhythms. Using a metronome and subdividing is literally the only way to tackle this piece!

4) Can you name one thing that you like about the metronome on metronomeonline.com?
The most consistent quality control of my rhythm and pulse!!! It keeps me in place!!! 

VIDEO: Jiji is an avid ambassador for new music! Check out her performance of Harp of Nerves, a guitar concerto by Hilary Purrington played with the ASU Symphony Orchestra: