Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Question for Teachers - Metronome or Not?

Actually it's not in 3/4 but you know what I mean. One counts in threes.

one TWO three breath PLAY

Or in the drummer's case :

one TWO dribble PLAY.

The invention of the wheel again - thousands of years ago, the Hindus created connacol : ||:Taki-taki -takita |Taki-taki -takita :|| Last week my workshop played in concert a Macedonian song at 7/8 .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7n2MBXEknk

With the use of taki-taki , it still took only 3 rehearsals to master the rhythm.

Thinking about this:

I like the idea of subdivision for several reasons. The first is that it drives me batty when teachers write that "the quarter note is a beat". Maybe the first music they teaching is all in 4/4 and 3/4, but it raises havoc later with different time signatures (3/8 etc.). Note values are proportional to each other.-- two of these fit in one of those. With what you are describing, ones gets flexibility early - can shift from one note value to the other for figuring out timing.

It might also go a long way to preventing the Fear of the Flags (or beams), where eighths, sixteenths, become Scary Fast Notes in people's minds. You've been using them as counting tools from the beginning, like friendly toy building blocks.


A nice progression from one to the next.



I like the flexibility of this.

An afterthought: I taught theory once to someone who had been playing for a number of years but mostly on her own. These three concepts were originally jumbled together and had to be separated:
- note value
- time signature
- beat

I have one question to you: why do you always write as if you're the only guy in the universe who understands anything, and the rest of us are fools that might finally catch up to you in 1000 years?

Of COURSE anything in 7 is going to be 2+2+3, 3+2+2 or 2+3+2. You can call it anything you want, but if the people you are working with are not used to this rhythm, it will be new. Some people will pick it up in seconds, others will take longer, and taki-taki-takita is not a magic trick that suddenly will solve all rhythm problems.

The above can also be 4+3 or 3+4, with any syllables, including scat, that gets the job done.

Sometimes I hit my pupils over the head sharply with the metronome if they're not playing in time. I find this to be an efficient method.

So yes. A metronome is extremely effective in making your pupils play in time.

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Yup. These concepts are all blurred together. And I have to warn beginners not to read lines and spaces differently when there are beams. Believe it or not, they often do. The get confused about where the notes are when there are beams, or even when stems flip.

Once you know the tempo, for the most part time signatures are extra information you don't need. You need to know the pulse, and the speed. Then things have to be timed so X number of a note with Y value fit in.

I have two metronomes, the old fashioned kind with the weight and another that uses a battery. I also have one somewhere in an app on my computer or cell phone, and at the moment I don't even know where.

I used these things at some time with every student, to illustrate how and why to use it. But like you I only use it for a few seconds, and for the same reason. Sometimes I want to find out if a marking on a page is close to what I'm playing, mostly out of curiosity, because if I'm convinced by a tempo I have chosen, I'm not likely to change because of a marking. In fact, that's probably the only reason I use it for myself. For students I use it for a number of reasons.

1. To prove that they are out of rhythm, when they don't believe me.
2. To illustrate changing a beat subdivision to anything, like switching from triplets to groups of 4 to 5 tuplets, and so on.
3. As a very cheap and crude drummer, to illustrate how we can play very flexibly over a steady beat. (You mentioned this talking about singers who are obviously behind or ahead of the beat in a way that is effective, mostly to do with the words and the freedom of text.)
4. In some cases to show that there are times when we slow up from section to section, or speed up, when it is not audible, where a very slow section may actually be faster than a later section, marked with the same tempo, that has many notes per beat..
5. To prove that top ensembles sometimes come in early after rests, all together, in a way that is either planned as an ensemble or just happens, because it is effective.

Who said it? Are you quoting me?

I'm saying that it's a huge waste of time when people do not address WHY a metronome should not be used, or why it SHOULD be used.

I'm also suggesting that the most practical and down-to-earth replies are lost.

As a teacher I can tell you, off the top of my head, a good 10 reasons why the metronome is important and should be used.

And I can tell you a good 10 reasons why using it is a bad idea.

And if your teacher can't do this, you have a poor teacher.

I often find, when I read explanations students are given, or see quotes from books, that there is such a hurry to get to the playing of music, that the explanations are rushed. Thus "The quarter note is a beat." No, it is not! The quarter note lasts twice as long as an eighth note; two quarter notes fit inside the timing of a half note. That is the definition or duration of a quarter note. It has nothing to do with the beat, which is a distinct and separate thing.

The beat has to do with a measure, and an underlying pulse. In 3/4 time, the beat is indeed the length of a quarter note and there are three of them. But the ratio of note values (half, quarter, eighth) is still as it is. In 3/8 time the beat lasts the time of 3 eighth notes. But the value of the notes remains the same: 2 eighth notes = 1 quarter note, etc.

If you do use a metronome as a tool - or if you use counting to work out your music or work with it - then this distinction also gives you flexibility. Quarter note = 60 in 3/4 time, I could set my metronome at 60. I could also set it at 120 for eighth notes. I can work with the music all kinds of ways if I truly understand, in my bones, the actual concepts. How many of us, as students, have ended up vaguely mucking about? And did so for years?

It would be useful to set it to 20 and work one beat per measure. The speed would be the same. It might have a waltz feel. <g>

But my phone app only goes down to 40, and there are times when I would like it slower - not to play a piece more slowly, but to have less frequent ticks. There are metronome apps, I think tonal energy might be one, that can be set to randomly drop ticks.

Last night at bells rehearsal I started them on a new piece, with 6 quarter notes per measure. There is nothing difficult in this one, it is actually easier than the piece in 4/4 we had just played through. However the struggle was immense. I had to patiently explain measure by measure. Yes, a quarter note still gets one beat. No, you must give a half note two beats. If you have a whole note and two quarter, we will not play the quarter notes until beats 5 and 6. Tries it, plays whole note on beat one, quarter notes on two and three. We only meet once a week and the forgetting in between makes it hard for these concepts to stick, with a couple of people who have zero musical background. And sometimes I think they understand, but they really don't.

I tend to use the metronome a lot more than you do. For at least three more reasons:

1) Gradual speeding up of difficult sections. You start at 60, then work your way up to 200.

2) Polyrhythm. For 3-against-4, you set the metronome at either the 3 or the 4 and work on fitting other rhythm to "sync up" at the right places.

3) The "bell" function. Get students to practice matching the downbeats of every measure. It helps them feel 3/4 vs. 6/8 vs. 4/4 and so on. Get the sense of meter in their playing.

I agree on 2 and 3, but here's a take on 1) I found useful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9X4h-cY1uw&spfreload=10

You ban exposure to extreme performance examples of a work UNTIL the student is able to maintain a steady internal pulse.

It's interesting you put Debussy up as an example. One student (not mine) at a recent performance workshop played that piece with capricious changes of rhythm. His teacher blamed Youtube. I agree.

As a teacher, you have to make the judgment call. You have to provide students with proper guidance at the right time. There will be a time when listening to composer's own rendition of a work might be appropriate. Also, I wouldn't take a composer's performance of his own work to be THE definitive way of playing a piece. You can gain ideas and insights, but you're certainly not obligated to parrot them all.

OMG, if I am this verbose 90% of my students will quit piano. I can't sit through all of it.

I offer two counterarguments--

1) You slow down difficult sections intentionally so that all the notes and fingerings will be accounted for. You also have to account for possible wide leaps and big chords that may take extra time to prepare.

2) There are times when you do reach a physical (or mental) limit on how fast you can play a section. If that limit is reached, you simply play the entire piece at that tempo (e.g., Chopin Op. 10 No. 1). Going any faster than your physical (or mental) limitation is pure stupidity.

There are also times where you must adjust to faster and faster metronome markings. For example, a fingering that works all good and fine at a slower tempo might not work at 200. Sometimes a very outlandish fingering may have to be deployed. Also, you may have to "group" more notes into one broad movement. You discover this as you practice faster and faster.

However, these are extreme examples from very advanced music. Most of the stuff students play won't even reach what we're discussing here. If they can't physically or mentally play at 144, they need more practice!

He does ramble on a bit. There is some good content included. In general I dislike watching videos unless there's a visual reason, like demonstrating a physical motion. I can read a page in a minute or two, rather than spend 15 or 20 watching.

But I digress.

You don't have to worry about speed walls, you already have a mature technique. A lot of what he says wouldn't apply to you but might to a student.

If I can't play something technically, to work on it I have to simplify it. One way is to slow it way down. But that's not the only way, though beginners think it is. You can shorten it as much as you need, for example.



Yes, that's what he claims in the video - further, that practicing too long at the slow tempo may well solidify that fingering that can never work at the fast one. At the least it's time wasted learning technique that will have to unlearned later.

ALL students muck things up without a teacher. The only questions are:

How bad does it get?
How long does it take?

It is absolutely invaluable to understand that you can set 6 beats for 3/4, or three beats, or one.

Or if you have 16th notes, you can set 16 beats.

All advanced students understand this. A student who does not can't use the metronome effectively.

Every player on the planet struggles with speed walls. A speed wall simply means there is something you can't play as fast as you want to play it.

Regardless, fingering is the bedrock of technique, and there is not a student on the planet who will make the best choices without help. You cannot know what fingering will work at top speed before you are able to play top speed, but a good teacher will already be thinking ahead to that.

There is irony here. If you want to test the fingering of a Chopin Etude, you won't know for sure it is going to work until you finally get it up to tempo. That's why we have teachers. The TEACHERS should know already, from THEIR experience, what fingering we start using, at slow tempo, will work later when we can go full speed.

That's why bad teachers are a disaster, and I have a horrible teacher in high school. She told to just work things out on my own. She was the WORST...