To Bernard : Counting / Metronome

[Liween]

   Hi, I started learning piano for around 3 months and things seems to be on track with my teacher but ONE MAIN setback I faced is counting/rhythm.   I simply cant get myself to play with a metronome and everytime when it's on my mind start to panic and my fingers either try to play too fast or too slow.  I've tried a few pieces with 4/4 (with no quavers) and it's no problem but when I get a piece with 3/4 (3 beats on treble/6 quavers on bass) I cant follow through with the metronome.   

My teacher insisted that I must start practising every single piece (even very easy) with the metronome so that I will used to the clicking sound and get a right rhythm.  However,  if I dun on the metronome I feel that I can play much better and smoother rather than keeping pace with the metronome.

There are some posts which I read that usually adults faced much more problem in counting / rhythm as compared to youngsters.  If that is the case,  how do adults ingrain this in our minds.   

I noticed that I can count in my mind 1-2-3-4 / 1-and-2-and-3-and with the metronome but when I turn to silent, my timing is slightly off - worst still if I am playing the notes. 

Last night I tried to play with the metronome and I can get the whole piece in par with the metronome but I start to get uneven when I turned off the volume (I know because there is a light on the metronome)

I also read that Bernard rarely uses metronome during teaching and so how do you help your students to ingrain the internal counting without any help of the metronome (which I find is really very irritating and mechanical).

I need help to resolve this as it has been bothering me for quite sometime over the past few weeks and once I even got a stiff neck trying to follow the metronome in an hour practice. 

I will also be thankful to whoever can give me a solution .... Thanks !!!!

[Bacfokievrahms]

Sounds like you're stressing yourself out too much about the metronome, just relax and let it come to you.

[ehpianist]

Have you tried clapping?  It sounds to me like you don't have rhythm pulsing through your body, that it is only an external stimulus.  You could try doing the following with your teacher.

1)Have your teacher (or metronome) clap quarter notes, then you join in clapping eight notes, then do the reverse.
2) Have your teacher clap quarter notes and you clap triplets, then do the reverse.
3)Have your teacher clap (slow) quarter notes and you clap sixteenth notes, then do the reverse.
4) Have your teacher clap (slow) quarter notes and you do the following series on every clap: one quarter, two eights, three triplet eights, 4 sixteenths.  Then start again.  Do the reverse.

One you can do all these, try clapping the rhythm of your piece while your teacher (or metronome) claps quarters. Take it little by little.  With practice you will start internalizing the rhythm, which is the whole point to using a metronome.

Elena
https://www.pianofourhands.com

[quasimodo]

I'm one of these persons who think the metronome will never help you to develop internal rhythm, quite the contrary. Metronome might have some usefulness for other purposes, like checking out that on critical parts of a piece you won't tend to accelerate or slow down. And like Bernhard says there was a time when metronomes were not invented but there were music...

Anyway, I give you a guitarist's tip, for whatever it's worth. I were taught to be my own metronome by softly tapping my foot at each beat while playing. After sometime, I didn't need to do it anymore because my brain was trained to generate the proper rhythm. Now this tip might get you in trouble while playing the piano because it means an additional problem of coordination... But you might also tap your foot without playing and check your evenness with the metronome light every now and then in this very basic exercise.

The panic with the metronome ticking may be due to lack of confidence on how you "master" the piece finger-wise and/or to a "listening" issue: actually when you play, you must listen to yourself playing and just hear the metronome and not the contrary.

[ehpianist]

I were taught to be my own metronome by softly tapping my foot at each beat while playing. After sometime, I didn't need to do it anymore because my brain was trained to generate the proper rhythm.

Exactly.  In order to get good rhythm one has to physicalize it in some way (clapping, tapping, moving, dancing) in order to internalize it.  The metronome  is just an outward check of your internal rhythm.

Elena
https://www.pianofourhands.com

[xvimbi]

Exactly.  In order to get good rhythm one has to physicalize it in some way (clapping, tapping, moving, dancing) in order to internalize it.  The metronome  is just an outward check of your internal rhythm.

Quite so, and one can go a step further. Initially, I was utterly distracted by Glenn Gould tapping with his feet or conducting with a free hand while playing with the other. But I later found myself lifting my legs in rhythm when playing Bach (i.e. I lift the heals, which lifts the knees etc.). I was my own metronome! It helped me a lot in terms of keeping rhythm, but I was also simply carried away by the music. I can now understand people like Gould or Watts a lot better. Needless to say, it drove my teacher nuts! 

[galonia]

Ah, my teacher won't let us do anything obvious which shows the audience that we're keeping time, so she taught us during a performance, pulse your big toe on the left foot (just as though you're tapping the foot, only not obvious to the audience).  This way, we still physicalise our beat, without distracting listeners.

I noticed that I can count in my mind 1-2-3-4 / 1-and-2-and-3-and with the metronome but when I turn to silent, my timing is slightly off - worst still if I am playing the notes.

I agree that metronomes do not give you an innate sense of rhythm, however, I think they are useful for showing you where you're timing is fluctuating.  Try counting aloud with the metronome and clapping the rhythm of a short passage.  Some people find clapping two hands together is not good enough - my first teacher would get them to use both hands on their thighs, because she said that uses more of the body and so you feel it more.

Counting aloud is really weird at first, because you feel like you're talking to yourself, but you get used to it, and you develop your own way of counting eventually (not necessarily with numbers).

I count with numbers, but not the way other people do - I know I tend to rush my notes at the end of each bar, so I count across barlines (i.e. I often say "1" on the 2nd beat of the bar), until I get things right.

[Liween]

Well, do you actually get all your fingerings and able to play the notes before attempting to get the rhythm ? Or you do it both at the same time ?

[dkainoa]

I wanted to bring up this topic again with a more specific question relating to a problem that i'm having with a piece.  The piece is the first movement, Adagio, of the Nr 2 Suite, HWV 427 in F Major. 
My question is related to the counting of the melody in the right hand. The movement is full of ornamentation and i'm just beginning the piece so i'm not playing the trills and mordents, etc, but i'm still having trouble properly dividing the beat to play each note at it's correct time value.  The left hand is all eighth notes and the right hand is primarily a melody comprised of 32nd notes and 64th notes around the ornaments (as a completion of the ornaments i'm assuming).  The melody is quite slow, but if anyone has any tips they would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[etcetra]

I know you are not supposed to depend on the metronome to give you good sense of rhythm, but at the same time I've seen so may music teachers, (even university proffesors) who teaches their students to use your natural sense of rhythm.. the problems is that these teachers think they are playing in rhythm but they are really playing out of time.  I remember seeing the percussion majors being so frustrated taking rhythm dictation exams, because the teachers don't realize how bad their sense of rhythm are. 

I think if you ask percussionist its imperative that they use the metronome, and while pianists might not have to be as strict as percussionist when it comes to rhythm, I do feel like its an area that tends to get over looked. I think its important to build a strong sense of rhythm, and you might have to do it with the metronome at first just to know what your tendencies are.   

Like your ability to recognize relative pitch, rhythm is something that requires some sort of training to master.. some people are more natural at it than others.  With relative pitch you usually have use some kind of reference outside of you to tell you whether you are doing it right or not.. until your ears are good enough that you no longer need them, and I dont see why its different when it comes to rhythm.

I agree that its probably best to work on rhythm by clapping, that way you don't have to worry about the notes.  I don't know for me i think the best way to do it is to learn it using a simple hand percussion instrument.. and realize that you can create music just using rhythm alone...