Five Tips For Acquiring Accurate Tempo
Time Signature
Tempo is the speed at which you play a piece. Keeping up with tempo can actually be one of the most frustrating skills to learn and execute, especially with fast piano pieces. I’ve put together five essential tips for improving your tempo capabilities.
1. Begin all pieces by counting carefully, especially for beginner piano players.
If you’re just a beginner, learning to count out load is the only way to find out your own idea of counting with time. You should also be able to understand the time signature at the beginning of the piece, which looks like a mathematical fraction. The top number indicates the number of beats per measure and the denominator indicates the note per beat.
2. Use a metronome to ensure accurate speed and beat counting.
A metronome is a ticking pendulum (electronic or manual) that indicates the exact tempo of a musical piece. No matter how much of an advanced pianist you are, you never cease to be amazed at how honest the metronome can be. I am always surprised at the errors I find in my own playing when I incorporate the metronome. If you use the metronome in your practicing process, you will undoubtedly improve. All serious piano players own and use a metronome.
3. Do not spend long amounts of time practicing with a metronome.
While metronomes are an essential part of musical practice, they can also be harmful to your technique if you use them for too long. It leads to something called, “mechanical playing.” In fact, if you play with the metronome for more than 10 minutes, your mind will start play mental tricks on you, which causes you to lose your accuracy. Don’t believe me? Try it for yourself… If you have a metronome that makes a clicking sound, your brain will start to create anti-clicks that will indeed cancel out the metronome’s clicking so you will either begin to stop hearing the metronome’s clicks, or you will just lose the timing and accuracy of the clicks.
4. Never use the metronome as a substitute for your own internal timing.
The metronome is used for setting tempo and checking accuracy, and nothing else. When you find yourself exploring new ways of speeding up your playing of a piece, it is a process of discovering new motions that you feel comfortable with. If you actually set your metronome to such an intermediate speed, you will likely struggle and end up building up a speed wall that you can’t find your way around. New motion discoveries always prevail because the human hands are mechanical devices that have resonance at which specific combinations of movements will naturally work effectively.
5. Electronic metronomes are always better than mechanical metronomes.
Electronic metronomes are more accurate than mechanical ones. They can also make different sounds, use flashing lights, incorporate a headphone input, include volume variance, have memory functions, and are generally just less bulky and expensive. Mechanical metronomes look nice, but as they get older, they become less effective and sometimes they even need rewinding right when you’re in the middle of practicing.
Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:
Get a metronome, if you don’t have one. My piano teacher used to have a mechanical one, and I found it annoying that she always had to rewind it. I use the Korg MA-30 Digital Metronome, and I find it very handy, extremely durable, and has a lot of great features. You can find ones on the Internet, such as the Ultimate Metronome. Whichever one you choose, put it straight to good use because it will definitely help you improve your piano playing.
Related posts:
- A Few Tips For Getting Up To Speed With Fast Pieces Yesterday, I touched on the topic of practicing by breaking...
- The Importance of Rhythm in Piano What exactly is rhythm and why is it so important?...
- New Year’s Resolutions The new year (or new decade , rather) is only...
- The Chord Attack Method If you've taken any formal piano lessons, you've probably been...
- Slow Piano Practice One bad habit of many piano players is their excitement...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Tags: Counting, Korg MA-30, Metronome, Speed, Tempo, Time, Time Signature, Timing
