by Julie Lovison

Little kids love them, older students want to throw them against the wall and are sure they are conspiring against them.   Just what is a metronome? 

Metronomes are devices that keep a steady beat.  The first metronome was invented, according to the Harvard Dictionary of Music,  in 1812 by  Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel but named after Johannes Maelzel, who took the idea and popularized it.  Beethoven was the first to publish suggested metronome numbers as a guide to correct  tempi for his pieces.   A metronome marking of 60 to the quarter note would mean each quarter note would equal a second.  Most Sousa marches are played at 120, (imagine Stars and Stripes Forever at two beats per second.)

  The original mechanism was a pendulum whose speed could be altered by moving a weight up or down.  The familiar triangular shape was popular for many years.  In addition to the original pendulum type, electronic, quartz and digital metronomes are also popular today, and many keyboards and software programs have built in metronomes.  Many play along jazz educational CDs have built in combos as a very cool way to feel the beat.  In our Moppets programs, we build  “human metronomes” into our playing in the form of a partner playing a steady beat duet to our songs.

Young students are captivated by the original metronome mechanism, and enjoy keeping the beat with rhythm instruments or with body movement as they enjoy their songs.   A typical use for a metronome for an intermediate level student would be to practice a piece like a sonatina a bit under tempo, with very deliberate attention to staying with the beat of the metronome.  The metronome identifies which passages a student might be rushing or hesitating on, and helps pull these passages into steadiness.   It very often FEELS like it surely must be the metronome that is off, thus causing frustration for students who are not used to working with the metronome.  A good way to become friends with the metronome is to begin practicing 5 finger patterns or scales.  These are easier to keep a steady beat with initially than a piece which has many types of musical and technical complexities involved.  A general feeling among music teachers is that metronomes help students in many ways, but that students also need to establish a good natural sense of  internal beat that can be relied on without a metronome’s help.

For more about metronomes see www.en.wikipedia.org/metronomes