Forum: music.stackexchange.com
Tags: <technique><practice><metronomes>
Title: How does a metronome help me play music better?
Question: I heard that anyone who received theoretical education in music should use a metronome to practice their timing. But I don't know how does a metronome help me? Or even how would better timing help me?  Also is it related with beats,and time signatures?

Answers:
sents: text: As humans, we're not naturally inclined to play music in time .
text: Our speech while rhythmic at times is vastly more complicated rhythmically than the majority of music out there.
text: Just check out this article by Steve Vai in which he talks about polyrhythms.
text: He talks about how one of the toughest challenges he has ever faced in music is transcribing speech.
text: But what does this have to do with metronomes?
text: I'm glad you asked, other Alex.
text: Well, our minds and ears are flexable to the complicated sounds of the world.
text: We're not naturally used to the constant pulse of set tempos.
text: Our heartbeats are variable, and slow and speed in phases, and there's not really that much in the natural world which exerts a constant audible tempo.
text: So, when we try to play a steady tempo without a metronome, what we will actually do is slightly speed up, slow down, and compensate when we fall behind the beat.
text: As soon as a group of musicians trained in such a way gets together, everyone will be in time with themselves, and out of time with others(I've been there, it's not pretty).
text: Enter the metronome.
text: The metronome is constant, unyeilding.
text: It does not forgive, it does not forget.
text: When you play 50 ms out of time and there's a metronome there, you can hear the difference, and it's not the metronome's fault that you were out.
text: Playing to a metronome makes you consistent.
text: It makes every one of the people playing along consistent, and it enables players to develop a sense of timing to use while they play with themselves and each other.
text: It can also help you with playing faster, and more accurately quicker, see these questions: Technique or exercise to play this part from a song which i'm stuck with
text: I find myself making the same mistake when practising - despite focussing on that part- how to remedy?
text: As a parting note I'd say I never used to practice with a metronome, and my skill went up rapidly as soon as I started doing it.
text: Getting into the habit of practicing with a metronome is a huuuuuuuuge benefit in both the short and the long run.
text: Hope that helps :)
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/6629/Alexander Troup
score: 8
sents: text: A metronome can do several things.
text: If a piece has a metronome marking, it can give you some idea of a composer's (or often an editor's) idea of how fast it should go.
text: Also, it can give you an idea of whether your tempos through a piece are consistent.
text: Especially when you are beginning to work on a piece, you can find that you are playing easier sections faster than harder ones without realizing it, and your tempo can get inconsistent.
text: A metronome will point this out to you in a hurry.
text: It can give you a sort of benchmark on how well you are coming along with a difficult piece as you are working it up.
text: It's especially useful in this last regard.
text: Try putting the metronome on at a speed where you can practice the entire piece without making (many) mistakes.
text: You'll be surprised to see how slow some easier parts sound when you're trying to play them at the same speed
text: as more difficult parts elsewhere, at a tempo slow enough to accommodate the tougher sections.
text: Now, all that said, be very careful NOT to overdo it.
text: You have to always keep the music in mind before the notes.
text: If you just try to get the notes without playing the music, you'll find that you have trained your hands to play the piece unmusically.
text: ("Metronomic" is a criticism of a performance that sounds too slavish in its adherence to a tempo, to the point that all the music is squeezed out of it.)
text: The further along you are with the piece, the less useful the metronome is.
text: You can always use it to "spot check" your tempos;
text: see if you're playing the whole piece faster than you think you are, see how consistent your tempos are from section to section, and so on.
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/9399/BobRodes
score: 4
sents: text: Two additional points beyond BobRodes's answer For using the metronome as a gauge for progress with specific agility/speed exercises: e.g. taking a given exercise and increasing the metronome rate each day for a period of time.
text: Focusing on listening to the click is a basic step towards being able to listen to other performers when in an ensemble situation.
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/2639/Dave
score: 3
sents: text: In relation to the last part of your question, yes, it's directly related to time sigs.
text: There are metronomes which can be set to 'ping' on beat one, whether the time sig.
text: is 2, 3 4 5 or 6 on the top.
text: So you can hear when each new bar starts.
text: The tempo can also be used as a good guide, in that, say it's 80 b.p.m.
text: - if you wanted, you could set 160 to give a tick twice as quick, which sometimes helps to keep you in time better.
text: When you got pretty good, you could go down to half speed, 40 b.p.m. and work harder to keep in time.
text: B.p.m.
text: incidentally, is beats per minute, in other words, how many ticks the metronome will sound in one minute.
text: 60 b.p.m. =
text: one tick per second.
text: Having said all that, I still prefer to have a drum track playing to keep time to.
text: Probably used to playing with real drummers for many, many years...
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/2808/Tim
score: 2
sents: text: When I practice with the metronome I often imagine the ticks are on the off-beats, so if I were counting out loud "one and two and three and four and" then a tick would fall on each "and", rather than on a number.
text: If you don't already do this, you have to try it.
text: The skill in this is that you must mentally construct the unheard on-the-beat tick.
text: With practice you can mentally flip between hearing the tick on the beat and off the beat.
text: It's like the rhythmic equivalent of one of those optical illusions where you can interpret what you're seeing in more than one way.
text: Further practice with this is to play tuplets against the off-beat tick.
text: This is hard(!)
text: but worth while.
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/9426/Brian THOMAS
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
Playing to a metronome makes you consistent.  It makes every one of the people playing along consistent, and it enables players to develop a sense of timing to use while they play with themselves and each other. If a piece has a metronome marking, it can give you some idea of a composer's (or often an editor's) idea of how fast it should go. Also, it can give you an idea of whether your tempos through a piece are consistent.  It's directly related to time sigs.
Firstly, yes, use of a metronome is related to time signatures. Playing with a metronome can provide numerous benefits, but mainly it will help you play at a consistent tempo in line with the intentions of the composer. It can also be a great way of keeping track of your progress.