How to Use a Metronome

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Tom Kenaston, I am a singer, songwriter, pianist, music director and I live in West Palm Beach, Florida and New York City. In this clip we're going to talk about how to use a metronome. A metronome is a little device and there are a number of different kinds that you can use that will provide a steady click, a steady beat, once you determine the speed of the beat and it will stay at the same and will not vary. What that will do for you, here's my own personal metronome, this is the one that I use, it has a dial, follow the red dot. The numbers, which I don't know if you can see them, but there are numbers around the circle and they start low and then they come around to higher numbers. The higher the number the faster the click and the lower the number the slower the click. Let me turn this on, that's a slower click and then I'm going to turn the dial to a higher number and the click gets faster. This is a great and valuable, absolutely necessary tool that musicians use when they're practicing. Once you determine the speed of the beat that you want then you simply play along with it, keeping in time with that click. It's a very simple thing to implement but it's not as simple to keep it clean and make it steady and consistent. Lets say that's the speed that I want, this is a Show-Pan Nocturne, every quarter note that I play, and we haven't talked about quarter notes in this clip but that's a rhythmic value, lets just, for all intensive purposes, I'll just play the song now with the click (playing piano). That keeps my pulse very steady and it makes sure my tempo never varies. In this particular piece, that's not necessarily the way you want to perform it but it gives you a great starting place for keeping the rhythm and the tempo, in the right area for performance. It's especially invaluable for anyone who's playing in a group. If you're playing in a band and you have a drummer and a bass player you want to make sure you have a lot of practice knowing how to keep that beat steady because, otherwise, everybody might start to do their own version of where the tempo is. So, I encourage you, if you're studying music, if you're learning how to play the piano, the second this clip is over run out and buy a metronome. It's a tool that absolutely every musician must have and you can find them at any music store, you can find them on-line, I'm sure, as well. This is Tom Kenaston and this was how to use a metronome."