How to practise with a metronome

What a metronome is for

It does two jobs. It gives you a steady beat to play against, so you can hear when you rush the easy notes and slow down for the hard ones. And it puts a number on your tempo, so progress becomes something you can measure: 72 this week, 80 next.

It isn’t for playing music mechanically, and it isn’t a race. A metronome can’t tell you if a phrase sounds beautiful, and turning the number up isn’t the goal in itself. The goal is playing well; the metronome helps you get there steadily.

What bpm should you start at?

Start at the speed at which you can play the passage right and stay relaxed. Not the tempo printed on the music, and not the tempo you can just about manage. For a new passage that’s often well under the marked tempo: half of it is quite normal, and for a hard bar it can be less.

To find it, play the passage at a tempo that feels easy. If it’s right and comfortable, try a few bpm higher. The moment you make mistakes or feel your hand tighten, come back down. That’s your starting point for today.

How to step up the tempo

Go up in small steps, and only after clean runs. A clean run means the right notes, in time with the click, without tensing up. Here’s one plan you could use for a passage marked at 100 bpm:

Step	Tempo	Move on when
Start	60 bpm	Two clean runs in a row
Step up	+4 bpm each time	Two clean runs at the new tempo
A slip	Stay, or go back 4	Two clean runs again
Next day	Start a little below yesterday’s best	Two clean runs, then carry on
Goal	100 bpm	Clean several days running

Expect it to take days, not minutes. It’s common to reach a tempo one evening and find it slightly too fast the next morning: starting a little lower each day and climbing back up is part of the process. Pianomi’s scales work in a similar way: a clean run with the metronome (a score of 95 or more) raises the tempo by 4 bpm.

Click on every beat, or on half beats?

At a moderate tempo, a click on every beat is right. But at a slow tempo, say 50 or 60 bpm, the gaps between clicks get long, and the rhythms inside them start to drift. Eighth notes become uneven, and a dotted rhythm turns into something vaguer.

The fix is to subdivide: set the metronome to click on every half beat (double the number, or use its subdivision setting) and count “1 & 2 &”.

As the passage gets faster, switch back to one click per beat. Later still, for music that should swing or feel relaxed, try hearing the clicks as beats 2 and 4 only: halve the setting and count the click as 2 and 4. It makes you hold the beat yourself in between. For counting in general, see how to count rhythm.

Count aloud with it

Counting out loud with the click locks you in. It’s harder than it sounds at first, with the hands and the voice both going, but if you can count steadily while playing, you’re keeping the beat yourself rather than just reacting to the clicks.

Listen for the click disappearing

When you play exactly with the metronome, the click hides under your note and you hardly hear it. When you’re early or late, you hear two sounds: your note, then the click, or the other way round. That’s the clearest guide you have. Aim to make the click vanish.

Common problems

• Rushing. Usually on easy notes, runs and the end of a phrase. Subdivide, and count aloud through the bars where it happens.
• Dragging. Usually before hard chords, shifts and page turns. Practise the hard spot on its own until the move takes no extra time, or lower the tempo until it doesn’t.
• Chasing the click. You hear the click, then play: always a fraction late. Listen ahead for the next click and aim to land on it, or count “and” out loud just before each beat.
• Stopping when lost. The click keeps going, so let it. Drop out, find your place, and come back in at the start of the next bar. This is one of the most useful things a metronome teaches, and it’s exactly what playing with other people asks of you.

Practise keeping the beat without it

Play a few bars with the click, then turn it off (or mute it on some apps for a bar or two) and keep going. Turn it back on and see if you’re still together. If you’ve drifted, the metronome has been keeping the beat for you. Do this often enough and the steady beat becomes yours.

When to leave it off

• When you’re first learning the notes, before you can play a passage at any steady speed.
• When you’re shaping phrases: how a line grows and fades, where it breathes.
• In music with rubato, where the tempo is meant to give and take.

Even then, come back to it now and then to check that the give and take is a choice, not a habit of slowing down for the hard bars.

The metronome is also the main tool for building speed: how to play piano faster covers the rest of it, and how to practise scales shows the step-up plan in daily use. Pianomi’s tempo mode is like a metronome that listens: it counts you in, keeps going, and scores every note for timing, so you can see where you rush or drag.