Dear Herbert, Metronomes are extremely useful, and can be used in various ways to improve one's playing in time. If you always practise a piece at the same speed, the chances are it will fall apart when you are away from home, when you might be slightly nervous playing to others. I think it is to do with learning speeds in relation to one's heartbeat. One's heart tends to beat slightly quicker when performing than it does when practising (unstressed) at home. That's why it is tempting to play too fast or to speed up when performing.
I think it is extremely useful to practise with a metronome at different speeds. Start as slow as possible, then build up speed a couple of notches at a time until the piece (or part of a piece) is ridiculously too fast, and then slow down, again a couple of notches at a time back to where you started. (It's easy to play faster and faster as the metronome is gradually notched up, but funny thing start to happen as you slow down. It's when youi try to play at a slower speed than usual that things start to fall apart.) In this way you get to play whatever music it is many times over without getting bored, and you gain complete mastery over it. You learn to play the piece at any speed. The metronome helps you gain control. Once you have done lots of work on a piece (or part of a piece) with the metronome, you can ditch it, and play "with expression", i.e. allowing the music to breath, particulartly at the end of phrases or sections. The trouble with so many lutenists (and guitarists, and others whose instrument is self-sufficent) is that their rhythm is sloppy. Playing in time is ditched for the erroneous desire to "play expressively". Forget expression. Get the piece safe and solid with the metronome first, and then go for the expressive thing without the metronome later, when you know you can play it in time. I think your teacher is probably wrong. Metronomes (and tuning boxes) may appear to do the work for you and create dependence, but I think the opposite is the case. Used wisely such devices are useful tools. They provide a check on what we do, and so can help us learn. Best wishes, Stewart McCoy. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Herbert Ward" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 10:47 PM Subject: Passive metronome. > > Many musicians, using a metronome for the first time, find, to their > surprise, that their beat is not steady, even during "simple" music. > > Despite this, a music teacher, whom I respected, recommended that students > not use metronomes, in order to avoid "metronome dependence". > > The best of both worlds might lie in a "passive metronome". Instead of > beeping/clicking/blinking, it would listen to you, and generate a display > of your MM rate on a scrolling strip chart, which you could glance at > from time to time (say, after a troublesome time division). > > Has anyone ever seen a device like this? Other comments?
