Week 3: Keep the Momentum

Ken Radford I tend to use it about 10% of the time I'm working on a piece, rarely the entire way through (unless I need it to add a bit of pressure, or if it's just really working for me in the moment). I find it most helpful in places I tend to rush, or less often if the tempo drags. I wish I could have a voice activated metronome that could turn on for certain sections or only for the beginning of a piece. My teacher generally prefers non-metronome ways of feeling the pulse (using a yoga ball to bounce on while playing, marching while playing, counting out loud, etc....), that way I'm feeling the pulse physically in my body rather than having an external machine feel the pulse for me.

Ken Radford If you are an advanced player your teacher is echoing what the very great Leon Fleischer along with the legend Yo Yo Ma said about rhythm. 

At a beginner level ( like mine ) I feel it is better to use the metronome correctly and eventually our internal rhythm will set in and then most likely you won't need the metronome( most conservatory types - have little use for the metronome apart from occasionally checking their work - is what I have read). Here is the link to Leon Fleischer's master class.. just by chance I watched it a few days ago.  You will get a lot more out of it than I would  :-) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9TDlYq95zk&t=6s

Peter William To add you your point, a metronome is also invaluable for ensemble work. Even in a duet, you now have two people with their own internal rhythm and little agogic moments, rubato, unintentional slowing due to insecurities or acceleration from adrenaline all compound quickly if the players have not also trained to play to an external beat as a baseline.

I find that most people (including myself) overestimate their ability to maintain a steady pulse throughout their playing of new pieces. In the past, when pianists would have multiple lessons in a week and would play for, and with, others constantly, there were many opportunities for little corrections from a teacher / colleague. With the culture of piano studies today, we practice in isolation for long periods so checking passages with a metronome is an objective stress-test that our internal rhythm is not being overwhelmed by the act of playing.

Someone was discussing Molly Gebrian's book recently in a thread. She talks about how the metronome can be used positively and negatively. Most pedagogy books discuss it as something to use in moderation and for checking tricky passages / small sections, but not while playing through a large section or the whole piece. 

Dustin Anderson I am in complete agreement with what you have said. For years since my first exposure to the piano I totally neglected !! the metronome. I heard statements like "oh the metronome is a royal pain.. just play by feel - you will be automatically musical " lol!... Nothing that my past 2.5 years of serious playing validates the previous statement. On the contrary when I used the metronome I immediately found that I couldn't keep time to save my life . ha ha ha lol!.. Then on a bit of thought I slowed it down for a line and found wow this may even be possible. So every piece I start with the metronome. So as a result my reading became a lot more fluent as I started using music scores like a library. Play a bit - on time and move on.. This method actually works for me. The proof is that scores which were totally inaccessible before are now readable slowly.  The one "super power" that I would love to have is what I have seen some musicians do that is they look at the score and can hear the music or hum it without touching the keyboard. This I have 0 ability for.  Unless I am at the keys I cannot hear the music at all. 

For whatever I play no one will convince me that using a metronome to check the time initially at least is a bad idea  - at least for me. Others may have an innate sense of timing where they don't need it but for me it is absolutely necessary. :-).

Also I have seen some wonderful musicians use harmony to great benefit. In real time I have seen a friend say things like " oh we are in the dominant .. now we move to the sub.. and back to the dominant.. oh just a cadence here.." and almost immediately they have played out 4 lines of dense lines from a Beethoven Sonata effortlessly to my absolute wonderment.. Then they proceed to read through 3 pages and it looks rather hopeless for us.. loL.. But the most important point is beginners will  save so much time understanding harmony, understanding sequences of chords and playing blocked chords.. This can be learn't quite quickly is what I think.. 

Ken Radford There are teachers who say that you should count the piece out loud all the way through every time and not use a metronome. 

I think that’s useful but I still use a metronome to find out where I am not able to maintain the beat. It’s common to lose time in complicated measures.

Which analog metronome did you buy? I have the bell one from Wittner but I am very excited about a true analog metronome that is shipping at the end of the year. 
 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lupine/ap-1

I can’t wait to play with a cowbell, wooden block, or maybe a xylophone key. 

Yes, I am Backer #1, lol. I will be able to upload a midi track to it so that I can create any kind of click track.

Larry K I have a Wittner and I last used it around 3 years ago.

Peter William Thanks for sharing the video Peter. Leon’s playing captures for me the concept of freedom and it sounds so, well, human.

Ken Radford I use my Wittners a lot, pretty much every day.

I’m not buying the dire warnings against the use of metronomes after thirty years of private lessons on violin, classical guitar, and piano.

My classical guitar teacher studied at Juilliard with Sharon Isbin. At one of his first lessons, she pulled out a metronome. He said, I don’t need that. She said, oh, really?

She then went on to show him that he absolutely did need to use a metronome, lol.

One classical guitarist at an impromptu recital mentioned that her use of the metronome showed her how she was slowing down in long pieces because of fatigue.