Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum self study testing - metronome, cheating?

I've been trying to put my finger on / get to the gut feeling that came the minute I read this. It had to do with this idea of aiming for a score, and getting these end results - the unease may be encapsulated in what I wrote before. I also had an image, which might describe approaches I had in the past, of a puppy scooting its little legs trying to keep up with the strides of a long legged big dog, and doing so ungainfully - rather than moving at the cadence of its own abilities. It's something like "perpetually catching up to the metronome / counts" as opposed to moving along your own inner pulse (and developing that inner pulse). The eMedia idea with its feedback is not a bad thing, as long as you have in between stuff that you do on your own. Be experimental outside that system, listening to yourself and your own instincts, as well. It's a feeling, which may be totally off base.

My teacher started talking about musicality at my second or third lesson. I didn't quite get many of the things he told me then but later on I remembered all those little remarks and they made much more sense. I think it's good to start thinking musically from the very beginning so that you always have in mind that it's not just about pressing the right keys but about making music. But that is not something anyone can easily achieve alone without help from a real musician.

The precautionary thing about any advice is that it depends on where a student is at. I should heed my own advice on this.

The first time I ever had lessons, I was almost 50, so a lot of my raw musical senses were developed. That was violin, a new instrument. I played piano self-taught as a child, and took it up again at almost 60.

Being expressive, and the urge to do so, is in my nature. This bit me in the rear, because I didn't have the technique and I would contort myself to do what I heard inside me (or felt). It also kept me from being aware of things that could refine it, a lot of it sort of technical, like physical motions, or timing. The contortions I developed eventually became things that stopped me from being able to play faster, or subtly, as physical obstacles. So I began to pursue the physical control - the technique side of it - becoming temporarily mechanical and deliberate just so those abilities would be there to support my playing.

I've learned different things. Some of them I was doing subconsciously but crudely. For example, I had a "cliche" where I always slowed down dramatically at a phrase, or I delayed a particular note, but was not aware I was doing either. So the cliche became "too much" (There she goes again.) and I couldn't deliberately nuance it. The deliberate thing might sound mechanical in the short run, but in the long run you can do so much more.

Thanks for the feedback; I'm going back to take a more critical look at my learning.

As I mentioned, I relied on eMedia's scoring to pass, and I can tell that it will pass me (with 100% score) even when I make mistakes. For example, in my uploaded metronome song, eMedia found 1 significant mistake and gave me 99% (the mistake is playing the second-to-last note too late as shown in the pictures).

Another thing that troubles me is I'm not able to consistently pass old songs when I replay them.

I sometime wonder if eMedia's loose scoring is done on purpose in the beginning then gradually tightening up (as the computer is capable of tight-enough timing measurements between midi inputs that are hundreds of milliseconds apart).

Whatever eMedia is thinking, I'm glad to have your comments and suggestions because I agree that a solid foundation is important. Since I have a lot of time, I don't mind at all retrying from the start. It is good practice in any case.

I had considered taking live lessons, and I will give that another thought.

Again, thanks for your advice and support.

Honestly lessons make a HUGE difference. At the beginning, you don't even know what you are looking for. You don't know what you need to improve on, so it is hard to improve. I find that when I first learn a piece, it improves very quickly, to the point that I learn all the notes, play them in the right order at the right time, but the piece still sounds like I'm hammering away at the keyboard. The progress comes to a dead stop, no matter how many times I play the piece. I play it for my teacher and she gives me feedback and all of a sudden the progress begins again. It's amazing how much she knows.

There are other times when I am playing a piece and I think it sounds quite lovely, and she will tell me to change something and it goes from lovely to really lovely. Music is so much more than just the right notes at the right time. Although obviously that's where you need to start!

A good teacher would never let pass the kinds of errors that eMedia is letting pass. So even if it's doing this "on purpose", it has no pedagogical value, but rather lip service to make you feel good about something that needs more work.

This is not to devalue the work you've done, but rather to point out that there are things one can self-teach, and then there are things that are very hard to self-teach effectively. Piano is one of the latter, especially when starting from ground zero.

I highly recommend you get a good teacher to help you through the first few years of piano. Then perhaps you'd know enough to self-teach.

After 10 days there isn't much of a "start" to go back too

Throughout my piano journey, and for many others here from my reading, having to take a few steps back to what often feels like the start becomes quite normal and something we have to get used too.

I think you're probably right. The program is probably just looking to teach you the keys at the moment, and is fairly happy if you actually hit the right ones in the right order more or less. It might never teach you timing actually, because timing is a fairly human thing. The end goal is not to sound like a midi player, it's to be able to phrase a line a particular way. Which is why we have terms like legato and staccato instead of just having a timing system accurate to milliseconds.

A 5 year old child (with a bit of practise) can clap in time and recognise a stompy, smooth or joyful melody line. Those are all the skills you need to be able to assess your timing abilities to get a good start in your piano playing.

People learn different ways, and people teach different ways. Some teachers/learners are pedantic and will work very hard on very simple pieces or concepts to get them just right. Others will get the gist and cover a lot of material. You can be successful or unsuccessful either way.

As you're just starting out, I wouldn't take too much notice of all this. Personally I come down on the less pedantic side of things. Yes your timing of 3/4 sucks now, guess what? So did 99% of other people's at 2 weeks in. Do your 40 minutes a day, enjoy the practise and progress you're seeing. There's going to be a million other things that trick you up and frustrate you over the next 12 months. That's ok, that's piano playing. It doesn't mean you're incapable or doing it the wrong way or need to move to a Russian conservatory.

Keep listening to your playing. Keep checking with a metronome. The sound coming out of the speakers should be how you assess your progress, not what percent some software gives you. Check out the thread in this forum with hundreds of other people's experiences working their way through the Alfred's book. If time and finances allow consider looking for a local teacher. An internet search normally will turn up a few in your area, and asking at a local shop or performance venue can give you good suggestions.

Hello Halford,

It strikes me that you voiced concern with cheating. I have seen other posters/threads voice similar concern, not necessarily due only to metronome use but various reasons/tips related to learning and practicing how to play piano; and am puzzled by this.

Timing/tempo is on the short list of the most critical fundamentals to be learned. Metronome, as a practice tool/utility/tip, in one form or another, has been in use for hundreds of years. If you are anywhere between beginner and low end of intermediate, you are not cheating yourself by making regular use of the practice tool ..... but may well be cheating yourself if you shun or sparsely avail yourself. Timing/tempo is a different, more glaring requirement for a soloist. For an ensemble, it is fascinating to me how each performer is to some extent a human metronome for one or more of their accompanying performers....but I digress 😄
A good example of a beginner or intermediate possibly cheating themself is regularly setting their DP to a heavy touch response when playing pieces with passages that require p piano and pp pianissimo dynamics.... they may be cheating themself to rely on computer features to do this for them rather than doing the work to learn how to play softly .... practicing slower and more softly are building blocks.

If it is any consolation, when I first began learning 3/4 tempo and playing basic Waltz pieces, for a while it amounted to disjointed flinching .... not the kind of movement that brings to mind a graceful dance .... being right handed , the left hand naturally wanted to follow right hand notes/beats and when I really focused on the left hand notation, the right hand began following the left. Use of metronome set slow coupled with practicing hands seperately really helped my brain with, eventually, learning how to conduct each hand in doing their own thing together and in time/sync.

Your journey has barely just begun and this is one in which retracing previous steps may be called for, often, just to be sure your path is headed in the right direction and sufficiently polished. Good luck.

Hi halford,

No way are you "cheating", as I'm sure the vast number of seasoned professional musicians who routinely use it would agree! Firstly, using a metronome - if you understand how to time yourself to it, as you seem to - is highly ability-promoting, since all actions have of necessity to be time-triggered by the brain. Being able to precisely anticipate, with the metronome's aid, when their onsets occur, removes the "cognitive load" of having to estimate that oneself, allowing your learning to be recalled more fluently and automatically.
Secondly, the metronome is indispensable for pointing out subtle inaccuracies of timing that are often due to insufficient knowledge of the notes you're playing. Furthermore, Western music is founded upon equally-paced pulse units, so using a metronome is thoroughly in accord with that requirement.

My recommendation to pupils is to use it intermittently over the overall timeline of practising a piece, for periods sufficient to allow yourself to absorb the benefits from each session with it, and then transfer whatever abilities or tactics been learned over the course of a session to deliberately self-paced practising - which should not be exclusively "metronome-like", but also allow for developing flexible self-pacing, which is the ultimate objective, IMO.

Kind regards,

Richard.