Why is it Important to Practice With a Metronome?
The benefits of practising with a metronome are well-known in the industry. It helps you speed up or slow down as required, stops you racing ahead, or dragging and improves your sense of timing – something that’s essential as an instrumentalist.
Practicing with metronome also forces you to listen carefully and to listen to more than just yourself. This is an often forgotten, but very important benefit of using a metronome. Practicing with a metronome increases your musical awareness, which will help you become a better performer.
It is also very helpful for learning new music and working on difficult sections. Starting at a slow tempo and gradually speeding up one notch at a time is much more efficient than randomly speeding up without a metronome. Subdividing metronomes can help you to fine-tune more complicated rhythms.
The benefits of practising with a metronome:
Rhythm: Metronomes keep your rhythm in check. I find it extremely useful when working on a new piece of music where the overall rhythmic unity and framework might not be very clear or understood yet.
Tempo: I often run my prepared pieces at multiple tempos depending on what I’m trying to improve. Slow tempos offer a chance to clean up technique and make sure every movement is secure. Faster tempos help check the pulse and drive of the music under multiple rhythmic divisions of the beat.
Rhythmic Teacher: When practicing with a metronome you are training your muscle memory to play “in-time” and your mind to connect the music to a steady pulse. The metronome provides a basic standard of rhythm, and more importantly, a one that never lets you get away with anything! You can’t fool the metronome, you are either with it or you drag or rush. The metronome demands that you play in-time and for that reason it is one of the best practicing tools you can add to you practice.
Tips for practicing with a metronome:
Slow practice: This is the number one time that I turn the metronome on. When I practice a fast piece I try to take sections and play them slowly and out of context to secure my technique and closely look at the notes and physical requirements. Also, if you fall asleep from this kind of meticulously slow work ;) then the metronome can help keep you engaged.
Day by day: One of the things I like to do when starting a new piece is to work out all the musical ideas and technical concerns right away. Then I get the piece in my hands and pretty much up the metronome everyday. Be careful though, you want to run small sections at full speed and without the metronome to put the work in context and understand what the real requirements will be.
Multiple rhythmic divisions: Especially with difficult rhythms the metronome can be extremely useful for putting a piece in context of small and large divisions. A 4/4 time work might benefit from practice on the eighth-note for rhythmic tightness or on half-notes for a simple and larger feeling of pulse. Each division of the beat can expose weaknesses to work out.
Technique practice: Technique is the best place to put the metronome on. Technique doesn’t necessarily require the same musical requirements of composed music and is a training ground to work out technical problems. Put it on and you’ll practice longer and really get down to making that connection between the body and rhythm.
Tempo Journal - using a metronome to judge your progress: Another hidden benefit to metronomes is the rewarding feeling of seeing the little number go up. Music students often feel as if they ‘are going nowhere’ on their instrument. I get them to write down ‘80’ bpm above a scale early in the year and cross it out when they can play it well at that speed. Then they write ‘82’ and do the same. Seeing that number get crossed off is proof that they are progressing (at speed at least) and that is a very positive contribution to their confidence and motivation.
Music is a never-ending endeavour, we keep practicing because we love the art and love the feeling of bettering ourselves and our music. Therefore, goal oriented practice with a record of success is very important.