hi i bought a metragnome ages ago to help with timing and really find it puts me off has anyone else found this a problem and does anyone have any advice as to how to set it and play along to to nicely

i end up clapping through a piece before i play to help me play the correct timing but now i have joined a folk band and need to speed up to keep up with them then slow down for my lessons and other pieces

looking forward to replies

I was intrigued as to what sort of instrument a metragnome was
I imagined that it was some sort of garden gnome you can play.

In answer to your question Metronomes can be off putting. I have an old-fashioned one and an electonic one. My nine-year-old daughter found it impossible to play with the electronic one. She can now play with the other one but it took quite some time. Initially she used to watch it moving (rather than listen) and she complained that she never knew when to start. Eventually I got her using it by counting to four with it and then just playing crotchets (at crotchet = 60) on the same note. When she could do this I added one more note and she played the two notes alternately (still as crotchets). After a while she played a scale (one note per beat). As I introduced different values I went back to doing it just on a single note. She can now play pieces using it to help her.

I think it is probably quite a personal thing as my younger (seven-year-old) daughter loves the metronome (she calls it the "tick-tick") and has never had any problem playing along with it.

I tend to put the metronome on then tap my foot with that beat. I find that far easier than just listening to the tick alone.

Play what you feel! Feel what you play!


Click's are rubbish! I only use them for scale work to play up and down my saxophone!

You just need to persevere - it really is worth it to help sort out timing issues. I use mine a lot, I'll set it quite slowly for a piece when I'm learning it, then when it's comfortabl at that speed I'll increase it in increments of 10 bpm until I reach my target. A jazz musician who was helping me with timing / pulse issues recently told me he went through a phase of having the metronome click just on the and of 3.

Try and ease yourself into it, maybe by using it at first just when you're practising scales, or have it on when you're clapping through the piece. Eventually you'll get used to it and it will become your friend!

thank you i am sorry about my bad spelling but i like the thought of a small gnome i write short stories for my friends children so this might get me writing later today

i will try again tonight

thaks all

Korg make it: http://www.zzounds.com/item--KORMM1

It is a tiny-wee little electronic metronome, but unfortunately not decorated in a gnome-ic manner. Which would have been far far better. I'm sure a little time-beating gnome would be a fab thing in a story

Wow! Never new one existed.

oh dear what have i started ( small drum beating gnomes running round hampshire somewhere)

bold words Jenn.

and basically right, but the metronome can be a very useful teaching/learning tool, so long as one remembers it is just a means to an end!
Better to feel an inner pulse if you can than to have the clicks.

Yes, it's great to have an inner pulse - but they're not always that reliable (how many people find that their inner metronome magically slows for difficult spots!)... you need to learn how to play in time before you start playing about with it! Metronomes can help develop inner pulse and can help you learn how to play in time so then you have a framework for rubato etc.

Personally, I quite like my old metronome, but my piano teacher told me to use only 'When I have to.' I think she meant that she didn't want my timing to sound too mechanical. If you're really stuck on the timing of something they are really useful, and they stop you speeding up (or slowing down! With me I tend to speed up because I get carried away!).

Metronomes can be really helpful when faced with difficult time divisions, for example dotted minims followed by dotted quaver-seimquaver- semiqavers in triplets . Sure, an inner beat helps, but I often find that counting is too tricky to do in such situations - got some way learning ta-ta and all that, but it falls to bits for me. Learning tough rhythms by notching up the metronome slowly each time I repeat such a phrase has helped me to get them into the more automatic "this is how it goes" bit of my mind. I've also used metronomes to help get double and triple tonguing even. It's then easier to sound convincing when playing more rubato.

Go on then - how can a metronome help work out quavers against triplted crotchets! Tis nasty!

My piano teahcer sais 'put it on before playing the piece, keep that the pulse in your head, turn it off and play with that pulse' because she is convinced that no musical person could play dead straight with a metronome.

I find it can be incredibly helpful with complex rhythms, and also on things like piano where I am less confident and need as much help as I can get edging the speed up. If I can play something up to speed on the piano with the metronome, chances are that without it, I will be able to play it maybe even a fraction faster than I think I can, but will stay in time, whilst being free to have a little give and take where the music moves me (hopefully!!).

I've been lucky enough to have had lessons from (either regularly or as one offs) from some very highly regarded jazz musicians. Without exception, they all advocate practising with a metronome.

I'm hesitating to make generalisations because I'm sure I'll be shot down for it, but heck, it's Friday evening and I've had a couple of glasses of red wine - in general, I think jazz musicians are more concerned about rhythm and pulse and classical musicians are more concerned about getting the right notes. A jazz teacher I used to have talked about how in many forms of Eastern music, including Eastern Eurpopean, rhythm was right at the heart of it and young musicians would be taught how to play rhythm before they got anywhere near an instrument capable of generating different pitches. In Western Europe classical music has been so heavily influenced by the piano that it's all about melody and harmony. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the result is that in comparison to Balkan or Indian or indeed Latin American musicians our sense of rhythm tends to be a bit pants.

I find a metronome helpful to know what speed I 'should' be playing at.

For example, I'm learning a piece at the moment and I have been playing at a speed I have been comfortable with. Now I'm doing really well with getting the right notes at the right time - and I can start speeding up to the 'proper' speed (this piece has a metronome mark).

So I can set my metronome, get the pulse in my head. I can then go through the piece in my head at the 'proper' speed. I can have a go at doing it that fast in real life, but I can't quite manage it - yet. But I am most definitely speeding up to where it 'should' be.

All the 'should's and 'proper's are in 'quotes' as I know the speed marking is a guide and not a law

Quite right sarah flute! I played my first duets (after a 25 year break) with a very comptent flautist. We played five Devienne studies, all marked at Allegro. It was absolutely a brilliant expereince. Interestingly, we both drifted in and out of time! Ended up by switching on my pocket digital metronome, using it as a common starting point until we could both get into the groove. It worked a treat. We both felt we had done our best to honour the integrity of the studies by keeping in time.

Metronomes are merciless. But the it's good as you soon get used to it. It gives a good idea on the spots that aren't quite in time with the rest of the piece normally, as you will notice an immediate difference (sometimes!).

If, like me, you have an oldfashioned swinging metronome, wind it up! It isn't any use when it just dies away in the middle of a piece...

One thing I do notice when using a metronome is that all dynamics/expression appears to go out of the window...

Yes, they're best for learning the notes and checking rhythms, then I turn the thing off! But (IMO anyway) it's easier to play with expression and to know when to use rubato etc if the notes are REALLY in your head and fingers, which the metronome helps with.

They sell cute penguin metronomes in the shop downstairs from where I teach. The weight is a Bow tie!

I have an old one that was my dads and it winds up but its become very uneven its bizarre trying to play with it! I now have A posh one with a big dial on it and lots of lights!

I need to start using mine more often now! Could really do with one of those ones which divides the beats up. At the moment just using Korg KDM1 which has this sound chamber making the click REALLY loud! When I put it all the way up I can barely hear myself playing!

Ahhh, yes. The dying-in-the-middle-of-the-piece metronome. I have one and it was quite expensive. Although, i haven't really got any other prices to compare it with....

Usually, I am really focused on keeping in time with the metronome that i do usually forget all about dynamics...etc.

The correct spelling for the little man who lives on the Underground is "Metrognome".

Agree with this - when you can play something completely accurately, staying dead on the beat, then you're in control and you can move it around and place things differently because you mean to, not because you can't play it as written. That's when it sounds like rubato, and not like someone who's lost the pulse.

Yes! Exactly, and very well put.

I don't think that *everyone* needs to use a metronome for *every* piece, but it can be an exceptionally good indicator of whether you truly know a piece well and whether your rubato is because you're musical or just incapable. (I find when I'm totally in control technically, then I have the freedom to be the most expressive, and the metronome can help me get there.)

I cant remember who said it, it was either Paul Edmund Davies or Richard Davis, but they mentioned in a masterclass that rubato isnt simply messing about with the tempo, you take more time in some places and make up for it by playing the other bits in shorter time, therefore the length of the piece is the same whether played with or without rubato. This can only be done with metronome practice.

(if only I did half the things I pick up from masterlclasses! )

My oboe teacher told me exactly the same thing a couple of weeks ago.

I don't think it can *only* be done with metronome practice, but I would tend to agree with the definition, and a metronome can help a lot. Rubato means stolen, doesn't it? Time is stolen to give one bit of the music more of a sense of urgency, or to pull out another bit to add space.