
I have a funny story about metronomes that I often tell my students. I had a metronome when I was a kid. It was one of those black plastic boxes that you put a 9-volt inside and it thumbs with a blinking red light. I hated the thing. When I was in fourth grade, I was told to practice with a metronome and I got so frustrated, I threw it at a wall. It still works! One day, about ten years ago, it was in a junk box under my bed and mysteriously turned on and scared the heck out of me. All those years later, karmic justice.
My students laugh at that story, but I’ve always remembered the deeper meaning underneath it. Out of the three basic mechanical studies of playing music, notes, rhythms and steady beat, steady beat was my weakness. I was stubborn and while practicing, I tended to make my own bad decisions on how fast or slow parts went, I didn’t try to smooth out my rhythms for a steady pulse, and I refused to count. No wonder playing with a metronome was frustrating- I couldn’t keep a steady beat.
Of course as I advanced, I recognized the need, had those skills better instilled in me through involvement in ensembles, and I buckled down on myself somewhat. But even in high school, if a solo festival audition wasn’t as well prepared, I could predict that I lost a point somewhere for steady beat or pulse!
Something clicked in college and I began to use the metronome as a better practice aid. I enjoyed the satisfaction of “not falling off” the beat, and it all became a numbers game for me. My practiced sessions thrived off of changing bpms. Now, whenever I learn a new piece, I won’t leave 45 bpm until I can play the correct notes, the correct rhythms, and no more than 2 hesitations with the correct fingerings. It’s the most efficient way I have found to learn new music. But it takes incredible focus and it’s easy to become mentally exhausted.
Metronomes In Teaching
Every advanced and professional musician knows that a metronome, whether an old-fashioned wind-up pendulum or a phone app, or anything in-between, is a valuable tool of the trade. Yet, when we go to use them with students, it’s usually a failed attempt. The students won’t or can’t follow it for any more than a few beats, or when assigned to practice with a metronome, they won’t or report back that it was too hard.
Basically what is needed are remediation efforts by the teacher to help them across the stones of the pond to where playing with a metronome is more useful than not. It takes effort and time, and likely many teachers out there don’t see the value of spending as much time as they think it will take.
The advantage to taking the time is that if you do it right, you only have to do it once, and it practically hard-wires a student’s brain to be open and adaptable, or shall we say, moldable, to the effects of a metronome.
Metronomes as a Music Teaching Tool and NOT Torture

So what does it take to get students to be accepting of metronome tasks? It’s the same answer that I say for many tedious music tasks… gamification. Merely mentioning the word “game” to a student or thirty and suddenly they will equate the next experience with something fun and certainly more motivating that something that is not like a game. You’re essentially framing students to associate the metronome with something fun. This will work better with younger students, as older ones may have heard that metronomes are awful already.
And you’re probably thinking, but metronomes are NOT fun, NOT a game, and are totally frustrating. So is Candy Crush and Minecraft if you think about it! It’s up to you to create the association bridge.
The “game” of metronome use should start as easy tasks that are not connected to the repertoire or exercises that students are already practicing. Tasks like “Pick a favorite note and play it to this beat” is a concentration task and should be easy for most students. For those that it’s not, there’s a practice task for them that shouldn’t be too hard.
“But I don’t have a metronome!” Yes they do. It’s right here:
And there’s a bunch of free smartphone apps too. I personally use “Toc Toc” for Android.
So as part of group lesson instruction, and rehearsal warm-ups, pick a metronome task to complete as a group, or individually with about 15 seconds of metronome work per student. It’s really quick, and you can use it as a quick objective assessment in the gradebook (since music teachers should be migrating away from subjective assessments where possible).
The last step to this is to create a sequence that uses repeating notes on the beat that progress to different speeds (slower is more difficult), switching notes, scales, and different note values to feel the division of each beat by eighth notes, triplets and sixteenths. Pick patterns that are relevant to the ensemble repertoire.
Once students are getting consistent success, pick an eight-bar phrase from the ensemble music to prepare with a metronome at the correct bpm. This is gold. This is the last section of the bridge. Once students are experiencing success with this task, they can use a metronome much more consistently.

Other Tips For Success for Music Students Using a Metronome
There’s some factors that can really sabotage metronome work. Here’s how to prevent that and have it be helpful much more of the time:
Help students learn how to pick reasonable starting tempos with which to begin metronome work.
Have them practice with ear buds. Wind and percussion instruments especially drown out the metronome sound.
When helping students speed up what they are practicing, have them go in increments of 5, or alternating 2 and 3 bpm.
Review your students’ IEPs. Do any have ADHD or something similar? Are certain students experiencing anxiety? Be extra patient with them. Their perception and focus approach is going to be a little different than your neurotypical students and it may take longer for their pulse to fall into place.
Don’t expect too much too quickly. If you start with non-repertoire tasks, especially at the elementary/middle level, moving into sheet music will be much more seamless.
Don’t let students get too dependent on the metronome. This can happen with overachieving or anxious high school students preparing solos.
Being successful with a metronome means that there are almost no hesitations and playing it should feel easy.
Try out some of these strategies with your students. I’d be curious to hear your feedback, good and bad at Karen@musicroombuffalo.com. At Uplevel U: Music, your course platform for music educator professional development, we plan to release a resource to help with the strategies above, so stay tuned! Sign up for updates to your inbox to hear about it first.

This article was written by Music Room/Uplevel U: Music's owner and creator, Karen (Kay) Janiszewski.
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