this is a n ill thought out statement from SteveShaw
"You won't learn much about rhythm by playing along with CDs, etc. You learn by interacting with experienced musicians. The guys on the CD can't hear you".
its not about the guys on the cd hearing you, they dont need to hear you they can already play in time, it is about learner bodhran or percussionists learning to listen to competent players, they can do this from listening and playing along with recordings.
The idea is get an experienced player to play some of the popular local session tunes then play along to those tunes, the percussionist then gets to know the feel of the tune, then when he hears the tunes in that SESSION the tunes will be familiar and his/her percussion will have improved because he knows the tunes.
you are wrong about metronomes too, they do help a player to listen , they also train percussionists to keep steady, they are mechanical , that is their nature., which is why they are not as good as playing with recordings or live musicians, however they train the player to listen to the metronome, that is still teaching the player to listen, but they are better than nothing at all .