Hope no-one minds me posting this as a new topic here but I thought I might get a better response to this question in general music rather than in my other thread. Thanks. the following is my inital question and the response so far. Any thoughts most welcome.

Invaluable.

Very useful for me. I have the tendency to rush during loud passages and to slow down during soft ones. Hence the metronome reminds me to keep a constant pace.

My digital metronome from Korg can subdivide into different rhythms. The volume can also be adjusted, so it is still possible to practice quietly at night.

How valuable is a metronome to a musician? Invaluable may be overstating the case: Maelzel only started manufacturing usable metronomes in about 1816 so any musicians before that almost certainly would have had to manage without. I mention for example the entire Bach family, the Mozarts, Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, Purcell, etc. etc. I believe that these people achieved some quite reasonable standards of music!

However, merely because it is possible to manage without a metronome does not mean that a metronome is useless - far from it. Essential? No. Highly desirable? Unquestionably.

I wouldn't be without mine

handel had a metronome - not a clicking one but a pendulum that rocks back and forth at adjustable tempi. its in the RNCM museum.

I stand corrected, slightly.

To clarify: The metronome that Maelzel manufactured was based on the principle of a short pendulum weighted at both ends to make the oscillations stable at low tempi, a principle only discovered by Winkel in 1812. There were certainly metronomes before that, the first recorded attempt being by Loulie in 1696, and it was Galileo a century earlier who discovered that the tempo of a pendulum depended on its length not the weights at the ends. (Incidentally, although Julius Caesar listens to the chiming of a clock in Shakespeare's play, this is anachronistic by about 1.5 millennia). However, prior to Winkels discovery (and Maelzels manufactured metronome) low tempi required an impracticably long pendulum so that although metronomes existed, and apparently Handel had one, they were no-where near as useful or ubiquitous as models since 1816 have become.

I looked all this up last year (and checked the dates just now) when I was foolish enough to wonder whether Metronomes existed in Chopin's day and whether the apparently humanly impossible tempo markings of some of his etudes (for example) might have been explained by such a lack: It is clear they did exist, and therefore by implication Chopin was merely inhuman!

Despite all of which, I stand by my final statement:

Are metronomes essential? No. Are they highly desirable? Unquestionably.

OK so if a metronome is highly desirable + then what key features should I look for - I think I'd like something visual for the beats as Flossie mentioned (would equate more with watching a conductor rather than someone counting/clapping aloud as I find this can be off putting) but what else? And what kind of price am I looking at? Are they very expensive?
Thanks

I bought this: http://www.amazon.com/Korg-KDM-2-Advanced-...e/dp/B000EECU46


When I was out looking for a metronome, I wanted these features:

1) A dial-type tempo control (much faster than using up/down buttons)
2) Adjustable volume (because my own analog and first digital one are too loud)
3) Tap-in functionality (so that you know how fast others are playing )
4) Subdivision of beats (recommended by my teacher as useful)
5) Ability to stand steadily (my first digital one can only lay down)
6) Smaller than the analog type
7) A clear flashing light so that I can practise in silence (I couldn't understand the running lights on my first digital one)

Mine's an Intelli Metro Tuner - IMT202. Cost just under £20 when I got it. Purchased by mail order (online) from Just flutes (Jonathan Myall Music). Even with postage added it was cheaper than the more limited metronomes available locally.

Ditto. It's brilliant. I especially like that the chromatic drone note can be adjusted to a pitch other than A=440, since my violin resonates best at A=442, and the tap-in rhythm function.

We have two - one of the traditional pyramidal flip-flop clockwork ones, and one with a dial and tuning note: the latter's dial knob fell off at one point and was a pain to reaffix with the correct orientation, and the tuning note isn't really that useful to us anyway as we have tuning forks in any case. The pyramid one doesn't do a ping for any given number of beats, but I'd find that off-putting, I think: it's taken me years to learn to use a metronome anyway, and it still tends if anything to make me flustered when I get out of step. I'm not convinced that it has been the metronome which has helped my to develop my relatively poor sense of rhythm, but I do resort to one when I have horribly difficult combinations of beats to get round. It is just a tool which provides an external beat - it's internalising a sense of pulse that gives me the trouble.

I have two as well. A traditional clockwork one and a digital one. I find the tick on the clockwork one easier to hear than the digital one when playing the oboe and the clockwork one is quicker to adjust than the digital one (which has a button to push). I use the digital one when I want the first beat of the bar to be marked. The digital one also has beats subdivided but I have never used this and I turn it round so that I don't have to see its flashing lights (it's also louder turned round).

At the moment I use it mainly for isolated bars with a tricky rhythm and for speeding passages up. In the past I used it to get myself into the habit of breathing out before breathing in (but this is oboe specific). Occasionally I use it all the way through a piece but this is more to do with attempting to improve my stamina than with rhythm - having the metronome means I can't "cheat" and take leisurely breaths.

Also the Pleyel and Erard pianos that he played had shallower and lighter actions than the instrument we have today.

"I must tell you, Chopin's etudes are impossible on the modern piano. Chopin would have changed lots of things if he have (sic) the Steinway. Of that I am sure. oh yes! You can't play the etudes well if you follow Chopin's metronome markings. They are too fast"

Vladimir Horowitz in conversation with David Dubal

For most ordinary humans (we except the Purcells, Bachs, Haydns and Mozarts amongst us) that are trying to become musicians the metronome really is invaluable. We get so hung about hitting the right notes that we forget the other dimensions in which music moves - the most important of which is time.

I wonder if anyone can make any suggestions about what I should do with the metronome I have at home. It seems a friendly, unassuming little thing and, once the key has been wound and a tempo set, it seems quite happy to tick away at a regular pulse. However, problems start the moment I begin to play the organ along with it. The thing keeps changing speed! Some bars it gets faster, other bars slower, and it rarely keeps in time with me. As soon as I stop playing, in order for me to reprimand it for not keeping a steady tempo, it returns to a regular tempo straight away! It's quite happy to continue this little game all day long. Other organists have complained to me that their metronomes malfunction similarly, but those belonging to other musicians seem to behave rather better. Does anyone else here have any experience of wayward metronomes too???

When in my lesson my piano teacher complained that hers was doing this to her and I was in the wrong because I was playing in time with what was clearly a broken metronome, I realised it was time to change teachers

NOPE!


Dawn, I've had a couple of digitals and found that my clarinet drowned them out. Then I bought a traditional wind-up metronome and I love it. I've now got two of the same kind - one for my piano and one for clarinet I'll find you a link in a minute - they were about 20 quid online. I like the fact that they have a very loud tick (much louder than any digital I've heard), I can see the pendulum out of the corner of my eye, I can set it to various standard beats, and it sounds a bell on the first beat.


edit: I got it from the Really Useful Music Company - they're showing it in white and onyx options on this link, although the ones I've got are black and burgundy.

Omigod - I have this exact same problem!

At first, because I have a traditional clockwork metronome, I assumed it was because it was sitting on top of the piano, so the vibrations from my playing must have been setting it out of synch (obviously), so I put it on the floor next to me, but it continued to change to different speeds and it wouldn't maintain an even beat. Then I realised that our floors are very thin (we can hear the flat upstairs very clearly) so of course the vibrations from my playing were still affcecting it.

So now it is on the other side of the room on the windowsill and I can still just about hear it, but I swear the damn thing has decided that it likes to mess around with me, because sometimes, at really fast difficult bits, it still keeps changing speed!

I don't know what to do with the damn thing because how can I work out the right tempo if it won't make up it's mind? I haven't used it for a while as the last time I used it, I was playing a very fast passage that needed to be perfectly in time and I played it perfectly, except mr metronome decided to start changing speed in the middle to throw me. But I know I had it right ...

THanks for reminding us all about this. But it is not that big a problem. My metronomes do this too - but they are very predictable. They speed up in the fast passages and slow down in the slow ones.

But thinking some more about this - there IS something spooky going on here. Because my metronomes also speed up in the sections that I don't know very well. Do they have mind-reading abilities too?

Just toss the irritating little beggar over your shoulder. If it hits the wall hard enough it will soon learn to be quiet.

(Mine, incidentally, has fallen down the back of the piano and is currently gathering dust and dog hairs to keep it warm in its enforced spell of hibernation.)

Comment deleted in case I got smacked for insubordination

I used to have two and they would not keep time with each other. I would set the tempi and then start them both and within a few seconds the digital one would be different from the pyramid.

Which one was right? I used to struggle greatly to keep in time with my teacher's (as in teacher of many years ago) pyramid one, but I've never struggled with a digital one!

The digi one. The other really was quite irregular.

I bet my teacher knew her metronome was up the left. She never really liked me much because I wouldn't practise scales.

I swear mine has developed a limp recently! Especially on slow speeds.

I've been using the metronome a lot these weeks (for scales, to secure they don's slow down at the difficult bits, Bach's Gigue, to ensure I don's speed up when it's easier, Scarlatti's Allegro to gradually speed it up, etc.) and I'm now thinking I'll buy the digital one mainly due to the volume the mechanical one has. It sounds so loud and reverberates so much in the room (even if I place it on a compact surface, or on a notepad to dampen the vibrations) that I'm finding it very annoying ... does the digi one offer better performances volume-wise?

I know what you mean. The analog one that I have is so loud that I get a headache. My new digital one has a volume control, so it is possible to lower the volume of the click.

OK quite a wealth of differing opinion here then. Thanks for the pointers. I guess I'll probably be better to go look in some music shops and see what they've got as I won't be able to test volume etc or mechanical versus digital online. Thanks for the suggestions and discussion I'd love to say it's helped BUT it's actually made me more :confused:

Yes. The best thing is to wear some kind of metal head gear - then they can't hear your thoughts

That's assuming you have any to hear....

Yes - you would probably not need to bother yourself

Go and try some out, and see which suits you best - doesn't matter if it won't suit other people. Take your clari with you if possible.

Update: Still not got a metronome but now think one'd be really useful.

This one's on offer in a number of places at a little over £30-£35 Korg LMA-120
Like the idea of the conductor's motion. What do you all think?

All those years I never used a metronome, indeed didn't really know how to use a metronome (and teachers definitely please note, students don't necessarily understand the point of these beasts, no matter how simple an idea they seem and how advanced the student!) until I got a digital piano. It's almost entirely necessary to play to the metronome if you are recording pieces on the sequencer, and I really, really like that one. Shame it's not really that portable, being a piano and all but the best thing for me is how heavy it is on the first beat of the bar as opposed to the random tick tick tick tick ones. I don't find 3/4 time very instinctive, so I really need something to yell at me not to try to fit a 4th beat in somewhere!

I confess that I have never liked using a metronome and find them very distracting. Actually, my teacher clicks his fingers to keep time and sometimes I have to be honest with him and ask him to stop. Usually it's after I've had a hard day. He knows the signs and usually humours me. The paramedics here have probably never had to 'remove an oboe' before, so just as well!!

I know that they can be essential items, but there's something about the noise that I can't stand. Perhaps it's just my electronic Korg metronome. I should go back to a good old fashioned wind-up one.

Steve

I use mine a fair bit - I have a clock work one which has lasted me nearly 20 years so far!! I use it to check what tempos, to help work out tricky rhythms, mainly to play scales to and to gradually edge the speed up while maintaining the regularity, and recently to start vibrato and to make sure I could control it (and also speed it up and control it).




I think I need to try that as well, I need to learn to breath out and in quicker.
How did you use it to get into the habit of breathing out?

So what does anyone think about the supposed natural conductor deel of this one?? I don't like clicks too much myself so am looking perhaps for something a little more visual.....

I did consider this one myself when it first came out (last year I think and at a much higher price). However I didn't go for one and with my current one I tend to listen to the clicks rather than watch the beat.

Im not a fan of "normal" metronomes and so when I started playing violin in March, I saw some in "strings" magazine.

I ended up ordering Peterson Body beat. It doesnt make that tick tock sound...its silent but vibrates the beat instead.

You select the frequency of beats - how many beats to a bar & type of note ie crotchet, quaver etc. Clip it to point eg back of neck and you get pulses rather than tick tocks.

Cost about £69 but well worth it...

A total torture device for me, but I find it very useful lol. Its so easy to slip out of beat without it, even if hearing it tick does make me want to foam at the mouth lol!

I need a metronome that can rall, rit and A tempo with me. I know it sounds like that defeats the point, but if you want to sort out the rhythm in a piece but also go along with its structure that's really useful. I am practicing things with the Quick Study in mind, and I find it useful to play with the metronome to make sure I have picked up the awkward rhythms correctly, but you also have to make sure you follow the markings.