Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum metronome hatred

You give very good, thought-provoking advice, Rocket88. In fact, you sound very much like another piano instructor that I know. You don't by chance teach in California, do you?

Apparently the "speakbeat" app. is not available for the Mac. ...and I just gave my husband an iPad for his birthday so he'd quit stealing my labtop from its home next to my piano, so, I don't think I'd get away with borrowing his iPad anytime soon. Oh well, guess I'm stuck with Tic/Tock or Tock/Tock, as the case is with my metronome.

I appreciate the info., though. Maybe someday I'll upgrade my cell.

Good points, and now that I think about it, my original post was kind of unclear.

My teacher will have me practice a few lines or a page in a given week. He tells me to go very slow and try to be able to play through the whole section at one tempo, which I set by counting out loud. If I hit a rough patch, I'm supposed to play that over and over until it comes up to the 'very slow tempo' that I'm using for the rest of the piece. In reality, I'm not as disciplined about following this approach as I should be. After I've played a difficult section about 20 times, I move on because I get frustrated and start making 'new mistakes'...lol.

So once we have crawled through the whole piece at that very slow tempo which I count out loud, we'll then go back and add metronome, also at a slow tempo (though a bit faster than we have been). We slowly increase the metronome tempo each week and focus on getting the connections, dynamics, etc. It seems to be working for me, though I need to get far more disciplined about keeping my tempo slow & even as I learn, and also about repeating the difficult phrases and not just playing the 'fun & easy' intro and giving up halfway through...

Sounds good!

Good idea! There is a free Steinway metronome app that flashes a light and shows a scrolling rhythm bar with peaks at the beats. It is very good at helping you anticipate when then next beat is coming. I also like the scrolling aspect, rather than the normal back and forth motion, because I feel it more closely mimics what the music is actually doing -- always moving forward, not oscillating!

I like the scrolling rhythm bar idea. I shall do a google search for this one.
Thanks

My metronome is today an integrated part of my music playing experience. It wasn't always that way. Read How I Gave Up and Learned to Love My Metronome . . . http://www.jdickinson.com/

How can you concentrate on the music, reading the notes, paying attention to the dynamics, etc., with the sound of the metronome in the background? I know I need to use the metronome, but the sound interferes with my concentration on the music. I would love to know how to overcome this problem.

The same way you do when you clap to music.

Take a song you can play. Set the metronome to a tempo you can easily keep to and clap your hands and count to it. Then sing the melody along with it.

Then play just the notes on the first beat of each bar.

When you're comfortable with that (and not before) play the the first and third beats.

Etc.

Well, my music/lessons don't have any metronome indications on the music/Fletcher books 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, but they have Mederato, Allegretto, etc. so I could look it up. As a beginner in book 2, everything is played as slowly as the second of a watch. At that
speed, with no mistakes, I progress playing it musically and after 6 months of playing it daily or several times a week, I have confidence to read the notes and play the piece.
When I get to play the blues, swing, synopation, I will likely lose my hair and fall in love with the metronome...

I must tell you that I have an old digital palm sized battery operated metronome but trying to play the piano and pick up the metronome, adjust not too slow or too fast, or to play too loud or too soft - is not a nice experience.

I got a cheap weighted keys electronic/digital piano so I could play after 2:00 a.m in the shack and not disturb people. Ti has lots of buttons for recording and organ sound - not the least bit interest in those buttons - but the weight in gold, a pun intended, is the one button for the built-in metronome. It is so awesome operate with one finger - I have no spare fingers left when playing but somehow I manage to turn on and adust
the speed and the time signature.


As I develop playing skills - the scales and complicated
rhythms - I will be using a metronome.