I would like some tips, suggestions, know-hows whatever you guys have on how to LEARN to use the metronome. I tried searching for something similar and came up with zip.

As some of you know I think the thing is evil. I can't help feeling like it might be because of the way I'm going about it. I turn it on and try to play whatever song I'm working on in time with it. Which of couse only lasts seconds and then drives me crazy. It's making practice more nightmarish than anything.

There has got to be a better, less frustrating way to learn how to use it. Thanks for your help.

Ms. I'm Rhythmically Challenged.

When I initially started learning piano, one of the things I would do with the metronome was take the scale my instructor had assigned me for that week, pick a really slow tempo, and then, once I had played it perfectly, increase the metronome one notch, and I would do this until I basically hit a wall. I would also decrease the metronome one notch when I made a mistake. I would also occasionally apply this to pieces. I don't really do this anymore, but when I do I now use larger intervals. e.g. I will increase it 5 or ten notches up or down instead of just one. A good tip when using this method is, when you sit down to practice the same thing the next day, don't start at the fastest tempo you achieved on the previous day. Decrease it by about 10 notches.

Another thing I do is I will take a piece (or passage) and play it at a ridiculously slow tempo, lets say 40bpm, and play this tempo until I don't have any mistakes or hesitations. Then I will try the piece at my goal tempo, lets say my goal is 130bpm. Attempting the goal tempo early on usually ends in complete failure. So I will go back to the slow tempo, but 5 or 10 notches faster, and play it until it is perfect. Then I will try the goal tempo once more. I will repeat this process gradually getting closer and closer to the goal tempo. This is a great way to really speed up a piece or passage.

Also, sometimes I actually need to practice a piece or passage slower than the metronome will actually go. For instance the piece is marked quarter notes at 120bpm and I can't even play it with quarter notes at 40 bpm (which is the slowest my metronome goes). So what I do in these cases is I actually subdivide by imagining that the "clicks" are, for example, eighth notes. Then I will, using the methods I previously described, work my way up to faster tempos.

I am trying to think of other things I do with the metronome, but I can't. I will add more as I remember them. Hope this helps.

If you have a DP becca, they often have drum sounds. Say you are in 4/4 time you can set the bass drum to beat one, a tom to beat two, a snare to beat three and a cymbal to beat four.

This way you can hear a difference beween the beats one two three four. Instead of one,click click click.
Or click click click ding.

because the clicks sound the same its often difficult to remember which one is which... and you get lost.

with the drum beats approach you can hear the diference.

Hope this helps.

With respect, I'd suggest the nightmare aspect may just be the pure difficulty of playing with a steady beat if you've never done it before.

Think of all the hours you've spent playing without a steady beat. If you're like most of us when you start out you hesitate constantly, waiting until your hand gets to the note it needs to play. So the notes where your hand doesn't move come quickly together and the ones that are trickier are farther apart. That habit is thoroughly imbedded in what you mind and hands think "playing the piano" is.

The only alternative when you're ready to start playing steadily is to slow down to the speed you've been playing the trickiest note-to-note changes. And the "nightmare" comes in because that is sooooooooo slooooooooow, more slow than you'd ever believe.

There are a lot of notes you can play one after another 10x faster than those slowest so notes so you naturally try to split the difference. You set the metronome to 1/2 or 1/3 the speed you normally "play". Except now on the notes you're used to hesitating the metronome goes ahead and click miles before your hands can get to those notes. So the parts you used to play fast feel awful because now they're only half as fast and the notes you used to hesitate and play slow get interrupted midstream by that darned click coming before you're ready.

And the final insult is, for a lot of tunes you thought you could sorta play at a reasonable tempo the "as slow as the slowest notes" speed for the metronome is actually fewer beats per minute than the darned thing will count. How embarrassing.

We've all dealt with that nightmare at some point or another. Better to do it early than late. So you've got to start by playing real easy stuff and doing it real slow with the metronome. No way to get used to it but to do it.

It's frustrating because it's demonstrating your poor timing!

Set it to a very moderate speed. 80 perhaps. Play a scale, one note to each click. Then two notes to each click. Slould be trivially easy - yes? But somehow, it isn't! You keep running away!

Practice until you CAN control your playing. When it's OK with a simple scale, take a piece. Set a VERY easy speed - this is about control, not about learning to play fast (although that will follow!). If you stumble, work out why.

It's GOOD that you find it frustrating. This is because it shows up problems with your playing. It will help you correct them.

This is awesome advice. OP, thanks for asking the question! I hope it helps you as much as I think it will help me.

Becca,

Check out the video of bassist Victor Wooten that was posted by our good friend Jazzwee in THIS THREAD.

It's probably a little more advanced than what you're looking for right now, but it's awesome and gives you a very good idea of the sorts of useful things you can do with a metronome.

All of the above Excellent advice here, from my experience.

Cathy

Thank you everyone. I realize I have no timing. I wouldn't have bought the metronome if it was excellent! LOL

I will try all the suggestions and see how it goes. I think I'll give the scale work a shot first, as learning songs with it right now seems to be a bit above me.

Legal Beagle, definately above my head but good for later on.

Thank you thank you!

Becca,

Good idea to start with the scales. That will help get you used to the distraction, as well as help you internalize the beat.

For your songs/pieces, you might want to start with just a small segment, maybe only one measure, and probably not more than two or three measures. Find a phase of suitable length if you can and just work on that with the metronome..... very slow speed until you can really feel those clicks. If necessary use the metronome for some hands separate work first. Don't forget to add one extra note or beat at the end of your phrase so that when you later go to stitch these things together there will be no pauses.

The important message in that video is that you're trying to lock into a groove, to FEEL the tempo. Yes, keep it simple. You can also try setting the metronome and walking to that tempo, or tap your fingers to the time. Change it often, even if it's just a small change. You should be able to feel the difference in tempo with just a 5 or 10 difference (80 vs. 90).

Once you get more comfortable with tempo overall, the goal of a metronome is to show you the parts of a song you can't keep up with. It's like it's telling you "here, practice this part".

Thanks all. It's good to know what the point of it is. I didn't actually know that!

I tried PPP's suggestion and used it at 40 with the C Scale. It actually took a bit of work to manage it! I used right hand first then left hand, then I managed to pass if from one hand to the other! Which made me very happy. Tomorrow I will try to add in HT. I'm sore now so time for a break.

What a tricky skill to learn! LOL

I can not thank you all enough for the helpful advice. I have a game plan and know what to do to build up this skill. That dropped my frustration down to zero.

Don't forget, the (vital) skill you are learning is not "playing with the metronome" but "playing in time" :-)

I know. I'm flabbergasted how horrid my playing in time really is. LOL

I'm glad I've only been playing for 2 months at this point. I can't imgaine the amount of frustration I would feel at a year or two and just learning this!

Only two months! Don't obsess, then. Maybe your teacher's still concentrating more on basic hand positioning and note-recognition. You can over-analyse :-)

My teacher jumped me to level 1 material first lesson. This weeks homework is 4 pieces with the metronome. So I'm pushing for a good reason. My timing is basically the big focus along with making sure I don't miss the dynamics on each score.

In time you'll get used to it.

Good luck with your lessons!

BeccaBb,
I am also a rhythmically challenged person and the key for me was FINGERING. I didn't realize that my fingering changed a lot over the same passage -- so what I could play slowly with the metronome, I couldn't when I tried to speed it up. I was trying to do too many things at once and my fingers were fumbling everywhere when it got faster. So when you're doing the C scale HT, make sure that you've got the thumbs under and fingers over really, really down. Since they don't happen at the same time, I'd mess up when I tried for speed.

Rhythm to me is internal. Until you have a sense of the rhythm in you, it is difficult to follow the metronome, which is external, especially when you are busy with fingers and notes.

Try this. Set a suitable tempo at the metronome for your piece and feel the beat. Clap it, hum it, swing your head or body, whatever until you feel it. Then without the metronome, hum or sing the piece you play with that rhythm inside you. once you get it, play the piece with that rhythm. Once that is ok, then play with the metronome.

Let me know how you go if you decide to do this silly thing :-)

Yup. The metronome shows you very clearly where you're fumbling for the next note instead og having your hand in the right position and just playing it naturally!

Remember the Irishman who, asked for directions, replied "Well, I wouldn't really be starting from here, sorr!" If you consistently fumble for a note it's likely because your hand wasn't set up on the previous notes in a way that made the next one possible!

"can you tell me how to get to llanfihangel ar arth please?"

"yes, you go down that road, for about a mile, and take the second left. After about thee hundred yards, you see another left, its on a hairpin, be carefull. after about three miles you take a left"

"will that get me to llanfihangel ar arth?"

"NO, it will bring you right back here, but you might meet someone on the way who knows"

I'm also trying to learn how to use the metronome and this thread has a lot of great advice - thank you!

I do have a related question, if that's ok. For example, I thought I'd try to work through Hanon's Virtuoso Pianist. It says to start at quarter note = 60 and the first exercise is all 16th notes. Does that mean I'm supposed to play 4 notes per beat at 60 bpm?

I can barely manage to play 2 notes per beat, does anyone have any tips on how to work up to 4 notes per beat?

Thanks!!

Do you play any other instruments besides piano?
Yes...
I play the metronome real good.

See also this
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1660514/

I've been using the metronome that's built into my keyboard. I don't have any problems when it's set to beats per minute but the ding - bop-bop when it's set to the beats per measure is just too distracting. My left hand seems to be able to keep the beats per measure and the right hand follows the metronome. Is this the way it's supposed to be? I'm self teaching and don't have anyone to ask - I'm towards the end of Alfred's Level One.
I'm right handed but do some things with my left. Does that have anything to do with it?

Is that a weird question?

Lyn

Since I've started this thread I've spoken to my teacher. He likes the scale usuage to learn with it and introduced scale G this week!

Becrux: I don't really know but from what I've read and am trying myself you would start out at a very slow beat (40) and introduce 16th notes at that speed. Then once you can follow that go to the next setting etc...

Lynn I hope someone can answer you. I can't use the one in my digital at all. It's just too distracting. I like the manual one (the wind-up pendulum.)

Yes, you have got it correct, you are, according to what's on the page, supposed to start with quarter notes at 60bpm. But I think you should perhaps take this with a grain of salt, as it were, because in the Intro to the exercises Hanon suggests that the exercises could be begun after only a year's study at the piano. Thus there is an obvious discrepancy between the starting tempo marking and what is realistic for a beginner. I think Hanon wrote what he wrote because the book is meant to be for people of "all levels" and thus he was obliged to pick a starting tempo that doesn't seem too slow or too fast.

In any case, you don't need to start it that fast. The simple solution is to just imagine that all those 16th notes written on the page are 8th notes.

Then once you get the exercise up to 120bpm, you can knock your metronome back down to 60 and start seeing the 16th notes as 16th notes

BeccaBb,

I suggest you start at whatever tempo allows you to play it without any tension at all. The first few exercises are all about strengthening the weak 4 and 5 fingers, and you can get that benefit at any chosen tempo. Don't work faster than the level you can do it with complete ease. Speed will come in time, there's no rush. All IMO.

It should be mentioned that unless you use a super slow metronome setting, learning the notes and using the metronome are kind of mutually exclusive. If you are unsure of your note accuracy, you will end up with lots of hesitations and lose the beat. One piano master whose name escapes me once said when learning the notes "hesitate rather than err".

Of course this is in the early learning phase. When the time comes to perform or accompany, the opposite is true. Don't worry about mistakes, just keep the rhythm going!

I like that. I say "It's more important to be right than to be fast. Speed is an afterthought"


Yes, that's the idea, get up to playing 4 notes with every click. If the issue is playing 4 even notes, you can double the metronome's time (from say 60 to 120) and play 2 notes per click. Some digital metronomes have this function by choosing eighth notes as the rhythm. You can also play one note per click, slower if you need to. For a month or so, I did Hanon exercises like this, very slow (at the request of a coach), and it greatly increased my technique. So don't feel like if you have to go slow, you're not getting any benefit out of it. Like I said earlier, speed will come the more familiar you get with the exercises. You can't force it.