Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum I don't practice with a metronome neither I count.

Slowing down is essential! The metronome was invented during Beethoven's lifetime, but I don't think people really started using it while practicing right away.

I tell my students to stop and think carefully about the rhythm of what they are playing. Something like counting out loud while tapping out the notes of the "busier" hand (on the case of the piano for example), first slowly, then gradually up to tempo, is an invaluable exercise.

Rachel, thank you. Does tapping steady beats LH (2 beats/3 beats/4 beats depend on Time Signature) and tapping RH melody count? Or one has to count out loud together with tapping? I count most of the time but sometimes it’s too tiring because counting is like singing, I can’t breath while I count so for some pieces, I just tap both hands and my left foot. When I play, I stop tapping and counting altogether once I know how it goes. I'm practicing tapping my left foot as playing now but that's too tough together with pedaling and playing both hands.

Yes, tapping straight quarter notes in the other hand or with your foot can be okay. However, with my students, I've noticed that that requires even more coordination than counting out loud because it requires moving a part of your body to the beat. For the students who are really having trouble with rhythm, doing that would really not help! Just speaking the beat numbers in a normal tone of voice should not be too tiring.

So, a combination of all the above would be perfect, whichever one is most comfortable with? The goal is to master rhythm?

Absolutely. The aim is to get it right - to have the same number of beats in each bar (preferably the number chosen by the composer), and to have those beats coming steady - not getting faster and not getting slower.

Trouble is, most people at the earlier stages (and some at the later stages too) can't tell if they're getting it right or not. In the absence of a teacher, it can be bad and you don't know it.

Right... A combination of all is best! It's true, too, though, that it's hard to know if you are doing things correctly without a teacher.

Hmmm… The more I ask, the more complicated it gets…

Is Bar and Measure the same? I thought a Bar is either a Treble or Bass staff. Then the Grand Staff has both Bars?

Ya. 12 bars is the same as 12 measures my east coast friend.

Why 12? Why not 1 bar = 1 measure? You just keep adding more question marks to my already overwhelming brain.

Thank you for rubbing it in. It's freezing our rear ends off here and I bet you folks over there are enjoying that Sunny California sky.

Ok. 1 bar = 1 measure. And I am enjoying the 68 degrees and sunny weather here in San Diego. Maybe I'll go to the ocean today and check out what's a happenin.

Brits say 'bar', Yanks say 'measure'. It means the same thing.

Now, I'm not saying everyone wants to play in a band, but. . . I once had to play with a fiddle player who had only played by himself. He didn't count, either, and he didn't realize that he'd learned many things wrong. By that, I mean that he dropped beats all over the place. Things weren't the things he thought they were, we couldn't play with him, and people couldn't dance to him. He had to relearn everything.

My point is that counting is necessary to keep your music within the framework you intend. You can argue that you're making your own framework, but if you don't count, no, actually you aren't--you're just playing a mess that YOU think is good, but not necessarily others, because they realize what's missing.

Okay, I know this is verging on, or even crossing into useless pedantry but "Bar" is short for bar line and those, of course, are the vertical lines that divide measures. So in practice, when someone says, "play for 32 measures" or says "play for 32 bars", yes, it all comes out the same.

Kurt

Well, if we're going to board the train to pedantry, we might as well go to the end of the line. The Harvard Dictionary of Music says "bar" can be used in any of 3 senses: 1) Measure; 2) Bar line; 3) Bar form.

My teacher taught me only to use a metronome to help determine speed, but to never play along with it - the reason was that he wanted me to develop my own sense of rhythm without any outside aid.

At first I did the tap the foot thing, and also counting (whichever worked best at the time) when learning a new piece. After a certain amount of practice, I would no longer have to tap the foot or even count as the rhythm of the piece I now knew 'instinctively'. It was like my hands no longer needed direction from my brain - they knew what to do all on their own. (Wow - sounds like something that would be in a sci-fi movie. LOL)

Eventually I started to recognize rhythm not so much by counting each individual beat, but by analyzing and recognizing the time value of each note relative to the other notes. Its kind of hard to explain, but if the quarter note was the note that beat the measure, I would use it to establish the time value of the other notes comparatively.

But of course, for complex rhythms, or for ones I am not certain of, I slow the tempo way down and do the ole count the beats thing.

I also was taught to give a piece expression, to add a touch of tempo change - IOW don't play a piece in strict, never changing, tempo. In some places speed up a bit - in others slow down a bit. This helps to give the piece expression and less of a mechanical sound to it.

But when learning it, and especially when playing with other musicians, you should initially pay strict attention to a steady tempo. The piece can be worked with once everyone has the basics down.

DancinDigits, there's nothing wrong with using a metronome as you teacher suggests - if it works. Counting is fine. You have a teacher to let you know you are getting it right.



There are some types of music where it is OK, even preferable, to accelerando and ritardando. There are types of music where this is absolutely *not* OK, and you need to keep a steady, even beat, the whole way through. Rock, dance music and march music are like this. I certainly disagree that music with a steady, unchanging beat lacks expression and sounds mechanical.

I use the metronome for a number of things:

- Setting a tempo

- From time to time checking whether I am making unwitting tempo variations. (Sometimes, after having intensively practised a piece tempo variations can creep in.)

- Always, and I do mean *always* running through my parts with a metronome well before playing with other musicians.

As far as varying the tempo with a piece is concerned: the music should live and breath. Metronomic precision kills music. The amount and style of rubato and tempo variation in classical music ('classical' used in its widest sense) depends very much on the period and on the composer. Ideally it should grow out of the music, and isn't something to be imposed onto it - the markings in the score are a guide to this. The sense of what is appropriate grows with getting to know the style of the period and of the composer through listening to lots and lots of music.

As for counting, I confess to not counting, apart from when there are tricky passages, as I can usually 'see' the rhythm. However, I am sure that I would be much better off if I regularly counted. Getting into that habit would have greatly helped on the odd occasions when I've played with other people - as counting is then absolutely essential.

Crossing far beyond pedantry into the realm of pedantryissimo: in the UK 'Bar' means exactly the same as 'Measure'. Here, it is never used as a shortened version of 'Bar Line'.

(What was it the man said: "Two countries divided by a common language." )