Something extremely important for honing your musical talents is to master timings. Staying on beat with the song and the rhythm is necessary and to help you out, we would like to introduce you to the Metronome. This is a tool that helps you stay on beat and improve your timing. At Artium Academy, we’ll help you understand what a metronome is and share a few tips and tricks along the way.
What is a Metronome?
A metronome is a tool that helps musicians stay on beat and keep a consistent rhythm while playing an instrument. Take a small clock that makes a ticking sound with each interval. In the case of metronomes, each tick represents a beat. Adjusting the speed of the ticks to your need, whether it’s faster or slower, provides you with a great range of tempos.
Metronomes are used for a variety of instruments, such as guitars, pianos and more. Vocalists use them as well. As you can see, a metronome is extremely helpful. This helps in maintaining your timings, beats and rhythm, and assists in getting better at producing music.
You may have seen a metronome in your local music store or your music classes. The traditional version consists of a pendulum swinging back and forth, with clicks coming in at regular intervals. It looks like a small pyramid or a small box with a metal arm that swings back and forth, producing clicks as it moves. However, with modern technology, digital versions of metronomes exist. High-quality apps that accurately display the necessary data are now on the tip of your fingers.
What Does BPM (Beats Per Minute) Mean?
BPM or Beats Per Minute highlights how fast or slow a song plays. If a song has a higher BPM like 120 BPM, it shows that it has a high tempo and has lots of beats close together. However, in the case of one that is 60 BPM, it is slower and the beats are further apart. Take the example of ‘Kala Chashma’, a Bollywood song that has become extremely famous for its party aesthetic and speed. It is a song that has a high BPM. What if we take the song ‘Kabira’? It has a much slower tempo and that highlights a lower BPM.
To help you master the timing of the beats, metronomes can be set to click, based on a specific BPM. Using this, you can follow along and take steps to improve your rhythm. This can be done on both traditional and digital metronomes.
How to Use a Metronome?
Learning how to use a metronome is essential to your practice. It may seem slow and boring to use one but it will help enhance your skills with the instrument you love. So, how do you use a metronome? Let’s find out, shall we?
- Power It On: With a traditional metronome, you wind the device up or simply flick the pendulum to start. If you have a metronome app on your phone, simply open that.
- Deciding the BPM: Next comes setting the BPM. To start, it’s better to begin with a slower BPM, ease into it and improve your rhythms and timings, then you can move on to faster BPMs. To set your desired BPM, move the weight on the pendulum up or down for the traditional metronome. In the case of a digital version, press the “+” or “-” or change the slide controls to adjust the BPM to your needs.
- Choose the Time Signature (If Applicable): Some metronomes allow you to choose the time signature; for example, it would be 4/4 or 3/4. Normally, this is available on digital or app versions of a metronome.
- Start the Metronome: Finally, to start it, just flick the pendulum and for digital/apps, press the “Start” or “Play” button.
Since you may be a beginner, it’s best to start with simpler exercises like playing single chords or notes and try to stay in time with the beats from the metronome. This is going to help immensely to hone your skills to stay on time with the beat. Each chord or note should be played along the steady beats produced by the metronome, this will slowly improve your abilities. Once you feel comfortable with your original tempo, you can start to speed it up in small increments, and slowly but surely, your timings will improve incredibly.
Build Your Talent with the Help of a Metronome
To fully embrace your skills with your desired instrument, a very important aspect is practising regularly with a metronome. Keeping this up will allow you to truly understand the importance of timing and consistency. Exercises like playing scales, practising simple rhythms and tunes or even your favourite song in increments will all help you to hone your skills. Something that can happen is your urge to either speed up or slow down. This will only hamper your progress, it is best to stay on the beat.
While you are practising, it is very much possible that you end up being faster or slower than the beat being produced. Trying to cover the distance won’t help, the best course of action is to stop the metronome and recompose yourself for the timing. It’s alright if you make mistakes, that is how you’ll learn and improve yourself.
Once you feel a lot more confident with your timings, you can then try practising with the subdivisions. These consist of eighth notes, sixteenth notes and triplets. Subdivisions have the beats cut down to smaller units to allow musicians to play complex rhythms more accurately and have a steady tempo. Although they may be slightly advanced, having these mastered will improve your abilities immensely.
Conclusion
Wanting to play your favourite instrument is a great endeavour and a metronome is a tool that can help you greatly along the way. The consistent beats from a metronome can help you hone in your timing with rhythm and improve your ability to play your instrument. To do so, regular practice is needed. Keeping up with the needed practice is a sure way to solidify your skills and confidence. It may seem daunting and hard at first but consistent practice with a metronome will build musical precision and confidence.
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