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That problem I didn't have because I usually just slept on my desk

I used to have to sit next to the teacher in assembly because as soon as the music started so we could sing, I would immediately start rocking back and forth. The teacher would put her hand on my shoulder to make me stop and I would desperately try to sit still. This was when I stopped doing it in public, as the school made a fuss and sent me to see a doctor as they thought maybe I was ill or unhappy... But this wasn't the case, I just really like music.

I also remember that I used to have to sit outside during music lessons at school when I was about five or six years old, as they clearly thought I was upset because I rocked when we sang and played percussion. I used to peep through the door. Remembering that makes me quite sad because I really wanted to join in!!!!

I just realised I went completely off topic, sorry, please carry on!! Metronome, yeah

Don't try to stop your swaying; it is natural to you. See my post w/the Ray Charles video several posts above.

Thank you, I do think it is natural, yes, though other people's reactions to it are not always positive. I think perhaps because swaying (when there is no music) may be associated with disorders or mental illnesses, so healthy musical swaying then looks kind of strange.

Not off topic at all, you're obviously a human metronome! You just need to add sound...

If I start saying DING-tock-tock-tock I think that's most definitely going to help people see I'm not crazy, yes.

Maybe we should just go practice

I, too, have a natural sense of rhythm. I've danced all my life. I actually have a reputation as one whose beat one should follow.

I use the metronome all the time.

One of the fiddlers in the dance band I'm in has one with a really loud tock, and when we're prepping for a dance there's usually 2 or 3 sets when he sets it out in the middle of the floor and the whole band plays to it.

It's surprising what it reveals

One time I put my metronome on and played right along with it (I'm the oom pah in the band) and a hot new young fiddler with some great styling played the melody. He finished a couple of measures ahead of me. His was fun music, tho. It was just too fast by the time he was done to dance to.

It was frustrating the first couple of times I tried it lo these many years ago. But - if I couldn't play it with the metronome, I didn't know it as well as I thought I did.

I haven't used a drum or rhythm backing, but indeed it might be less annoying than a "click." But there are drummers who use "click tracks" both for practising and for performing.

So I find it useful, even tho I have excellent rhythm. It lets me know if I'm not as solid on a tune as I would like to think I am. It lets me know if I'm speeding up parts (I usually speed up the hard parts and hold the end of phrase a fraction too long). It helps me find exactly where the beat is that I need to syncopate against (another time when it's easy to rush), so that my ear/body begins to hear/feel the groove. It helps the band as whole to be on the same tempo, and to listen to each other so we synch.

Yup, frustrating at first. But as someone else said, a useful tool once one understands and uses it well.

YMMV, of course. And maybe, just maybe, you, too, may not be as solid on a tune as you want to think you are. Most people I know occasionally like to fool themselves

Cathy

This discussion (about body movement) is a good illustration that you play the piano with your entire mind and body, not as a statue frozen on the seat, moving fingers and hands.



Famous pianists are typically great pianists; Perhaps breaking the rules regarding body movement is part of what makes them great pianists.

It took me a very long time before I could play with a metronome. I still can't play hands together with my mechanical one - I thought it was because it's too loud, but maybe it's because of the irregularities Richard mentioned. I still use it once in a while, but just playing one hand or the other, not together. But the metronome on my computer (GarageBand) I can use & play hands together. It takes practice, though - I just had to desensitize myself to the sound.

My wife used to play bass in the local symphony orchestra. Even though she had been playing most of her life, she used the metronome as a significant tool. When I would hear her practicing, I would hear the metronome. She would play through a section of the music, then move the metronome a notch faster and play it again. She would continue in that fashion until she had it at performance speed. She also had a good sense of rhythm.

When I play through a section of music with the metronome going ... and I get it right on ... It gives me a sense of accomplishment. I know then that I have nailed it and may be ready to move on ... either faster ... or to the next part.

When I struggle with it on, I know it is because I really have not mastered it yet and I am trying to move through it too fast. The metronome tells me to stop and work on that part a bit more.

I don't like to hear that either. I, like all of us, wants to move on to the next part or the next piece of music. And, I can still do that. But I know the truth anyway. What I do with that truth is up to me.

Then again maybe I do. But only when it comes to rhythm. I have a lot of other problems. I am not one of those people who fool themselves, unfortunately quite opposite. I would just love to be able to ingore my mistakes and lack of fine touch. As my teacher says, my playing would be a lot better if I didn't require perfection all the time.

I'm afraid I'm not like all the rest then, because I am never satisfied until I think it's perfect and because that can never happen I just keep working with the sections/pieces forever. When I leave them behind I leave them behind knowing that I never mastered them.

As a working drummer 20 years ago, I simply had to get used to playing with a click track. 30 years of playing drums has given me a pretty easy feel for rhythm but I still keep the metronome close when I practice the piano and probably use it for some reason almost every day I practice.

A musician "hating" the metronome is like a carpenter hating the tape measure. If you've ever played any kind of flight or flying game on a game console, you may remember how at the beginning you over controlled and "chased" the plane with the joystick. This is what most people do when they start out on the metronome. If you want the benefits that accrue from well applied metronome practice, you need to slow down and introduce it on easier material. Scales, Short etudes, pieces from your easier books etc. If you do that for 5-15 minutes every day for a few weeks, I think you'll find that the hate diminishes and you'll reach for it when the need arises just like the carpenter reaches for his tape measure.

Kurt

I don't like the metronome. I did find it useful when learning basic arpeggios.

/edit to add: outo's post which comes after this one, hits upon a good point. There are plenty of excellent musicians that don't use the metronome. Just because one person finds it valuable doesn't mean that the next person will. To personalize it, in terms of not having good rhythm, or being lazy, or not wanting the "truth" is inaccurate. For some the tension that it causes costs more than the benefits.

Can these musicians that don't like metronomes, learn to use it properly? Probably. However, it will take effort, and for some with tons of effort. People often think that everyone is like them, that if they took a day or a week to learn to use the metronome as a useful tool, it will take others the same time, and those that don't use it are lazy. For another person, for whatever reasons, it might be a year of dedicated work to get it to be a positive, and that year could be much better spent on learning other things and using other tools.

Listen to what the others are saying. If someone uses the word hate, it often is a visceral emotional response, that will take a lot of effort to overcome. I do not believe it has much to do with the case that the metronome users and lovers seem to be forwarding.

This discussion has sort of lost focus. Yes, the thread says metronome hatred, but I don't think it is what were were talking about. I don't like the sound of the metronome and I also do not think it is as important in learning to play piano as some of you think. I have used it and will use it, but definitely not daily, not even weekly.
There are competent pianists who think it is an absolute must and those who don't. Results are what matters. And people get good results without a metronome.

One factor to consider if you hate your metronome: is it an electronic one that makes nasty little beepy sounds? Ugh, yes, metronomes with electronic beeps are annoying. They do make electronic ones that make nice realistic "tock" sounds, like the analog/mechanical kind. There is a site (metrnonomes.com, I think) which lets you listen to the sounds their various metronomes make.

I used to hate metronomes. Then, after a while, I learned to use them as tools to stress myself out. Often it's useful to see whether you can do a musical task under stress, since one is under stress when performing, accompanying, etc. So I started out by using the metronome as a purposeful stressor.

If you choose to do this, but find the metronome "impossible to play along with" then you need to slow it down. Just keep slowing it down until you find a tempo that you can play along without issues (philosophical digression: this is somewhat akin to the wisdom of experience where you learn to slow down your practice to where you make no mistakes).

I often use a brisk metronome to make slightly-too-easy sight reading material more stressful. Works wonders.

After I'd done this sort of stress-testing via metronome for a while, I completely got over my phobia, and the metronome became an extremely useful tool for polishing difficult bits of pieces. At this point, it's no skin off my ego to admit that if I can't play it with a metronome, then I don't really know it.

And no, I don't use a metronome because I suffer from some sort of broken sense of rhythm in need of repair. When I was younger and went out dancing at nightclubs, members of various bands asked if I was a musician, then told me I should be, because the rhythmic awareness in dancing kept catching their eye. (Back then I believed I was tone deaf and musically hopeless, so I got my musical "fix" via dancing).

Mine is one of those yes. If I used it more I guess I could get one with a less annoying sound...

I wonder, if you really use the metronome that much, what kind of music do you play? Because the difficulties in my pieces definitely are not in keeping time, they are in phrasing, dynamics and touch...

Let me add another note concerning the notion that using a metronome in some way is the cause of tension and therefore you choose not to use it.

I might suggest this ...

Set the metronome to 90 bpm and play a single half-note on middle C for each beat of the metronome.

I am going to guess that you experience absolutely no tension.

That is because you have no anxiety with which note you need to play on that beat.

If you do experience tension, then you are right ... you have a phobia connected to a metronome and probably will not find it useful.

If you do not experience tension, believe it or not you can experience that same calm and lack of tension while playing a piece of music with the metronome going. All that is required is that you play it at a speed which gives you adequate time to determine the next note that is to be played.

Every teacher I have ever had always told me to not worry about playing it fast. Just get everything else right and with continued practice ... speed just happens.

After years of hearing it, I am finally a believer.