The truth about metronomes

Metronomes aren't lying, but you might be.
Lying to YOURSELF, that is.

As I journey back into woodwind land, relearning scales and techniques I forgot 10 years ago, I'm amazed at the amount of muscle memory I have retained. I find myself magically knowing things that I couldn't have explained if you asked me: but put my fingers on keys, and most of it makes sense.

Yes, I'm hella rusty. I'm struggling to play 16th note scales that I would have sailed through 10 years ago. It's like they say, "Use it or lose it!" Yesterday I stared at the page for a full five minutes before I remembered (from the deep dark recesses of my mind) how to play a specific pitch.

I've been working on the Vivace from Telemann's Sonata in F. It's a very pretty piece, and a good reentry point. There are several areas in the piece with scale runs, a couple of simple embellishments, and a steady tempo. It's formulaic, but it works. After working on the piece for about 20 minutes a day for a week, I decided to bust out the metronome and start getting tough on the rhythms.

What is it about practicing with a metronome that makes me want to hide under the bed forever?

— Angelina Panozzo (@AngelinaPanozzo) February 16, 2017

Yeahhhh. I won't lie: I've always hated metronomes. They stress me out, make me feel like I'm falline behind, and if I make a mistake it completely throws me off as I try to recover. I think I practiced flute with a metronome less than a handful of times throughout middle and high school (I didn't play in college). While I used a metronome more often with my vocal studies, I still hated it and avoided it as often as possible.

And you know what? It showed. I relied on recordings to learn pieces, and it probably drove my accompanists into an early grave. Sorry, accompanists.

Here's the thing: metronomes point out where you're sucking in a piece. 

They do. Seriously. And that's why I've never liked them. I'm a perfectionist at heart, no matter what I'm doing, and having my own glaring mistakes thrust into my face like a pot of cold noodles is my idea of Dante's Inferno: 7th circle of hell. 

So while I was able to play through the Telemann piece proficiently (I thought), the metronome made it obvious that those scale runs weren't up to snuff yet. When playing without a metronome, I was slowing down through the runs to make them clean. At tempo, I was flubbing the notes and getting flustered: no wonder I hate these things. 

"Tick, tick, TICK, TICK, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG WRONG"

Don't even get me started on metronomes with the optional differentiated downbeat. No way, Jose, I am not about that life. Ain't nobody got time to wait through the rest of a measure to start in the right place again, am I right? (I'm right.)

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