Do you have a complicated relationship with your metronome? The metronome can be a frenemy of musicians—begrudgingly tolerated in lessons, but given the cold shoulder at home. It can be frustrating to work with, and it loves to point out our flaws. The metronome’s unrelenting honesty magnifies and shines a harsh light on what we know and don’t know in the music.

Yet, the metronome doesn’t have to be a torture device. Much like good friends help us grow to become better people, the metronome can be a true friend that helps us improve our inner pulse and play with rhythmic accuracy to become better musicians. We asked three expert harpists—Jennifer Ellis, June Han, and Delaine Fedson Leonard—for their advice on how to improve our skills as well as our relationship with the metronome.

Understanding the terminology

The terms “pulse” and “beat” are commonly used interchangeably (see “In Terms of Keeping Time” below for definitions of terms used in this article). The pulse is the heartbeat of music, and it occurs steadily through time. Rhythm is a term people often misuse as a catch-all, confusing it with pulse and beat. Rhythm is the placement of sounds and silences in time, often in patterns. The rhythm can and does change. The pulse, or beat, is constant and unchanging. When listeners feel compelled to tap their toes along to music, they are tapping along with the pulse. The way my conductor-husband Stefan Sanders explains it, “Playing with a steady and shared pulse is how musicians establish trust with each other.”

It may help to think of pulse and rhythmic accuracy as two separate, yet related skills.  Delaine Fedson Leonard, who teaches and performs in Austin, Texas, explains the difference. “Playing with a steady pulse relates to one’s internal sense of time. Rhythmic accuracy is the subdivision of the beat.” If we are feeling a quarter note pulse, the subdivision of the beat could be two eighth notes, three triplet eighth notes, four sixteenth notes, a quintuplet, etc.  June Han emphasizes, “Whether a septuplet, sextuplet, quintuplet, or any other notation, the subdivision of the full value of the quarter note (or half note, etc.) should be homogeneously and evenly distributed, like slicing a cake.”

Unfortunately, mastery of one skill does not mean you automatically master the other.  “You can have a steady sense of time, yet be inaccurate in subdividing the beat, thus creating stilted or inorganic movement within a phrase, or ritardandos and accelerandos that lack context because of inaccurate subdivision,” Leonard points out. “Alternatively, you can have very accurate subdivision and lack a consistent sense of inner pulse.” Han agrees subdividing is how musicians, “execute a progressive accelerando and ritardando rather than an abrupt one.”

Improving inner pulse

“It is perfectly reasonable to start with a metronome at a far slower tempo than you can actually play the piece, just to get used to it.” —Jennifer Ellis

How can we cultivate our sense of inner pulse? Step away from the harp and get moving. Leonard recommends movement to music as early as possible. “You know how some parents dance with their babies and move their arms and legs to music? That’s a great start,” she says. It is never too early or too late to enroll in a movement class. Leonard encourages her students to take ballroom or other dance classes, swimming, or rowing.  Northern California-based harpist Jennifer Ellis trained in eurhythmics, a method that uses movement to teach the concepts of rhythm and musical expression. “[Eurhythmics] has wonderful strategies for developing inner pulse,” Ellis says.

Pay attention to the steady pulses found around you in daily life. “Listen to the dishwasher, windshield wipers, analog clocks ticking, and count out loud [with them], proposes Leonard. She jokes that you might want to do this, “privately, of course, so you don’t draw a crowd.”

French harpist, Marie-Claire Jamet once told June Han that she needed to “swallow the metronome.” Han remembers, “It was an expression that captured the idea perfectly, and made me improve my pulse immediately.” You can use the metronome away from the harp to work on your sense of pulse, Leonard suggests. “Tap along to a metronome beat, then turn down the volume with one hand while continuing to tap (and count aloud) with the other. Continue tapping for a time with the volume down and then turn the volume up again to see if the tapping matches the metronome beat.” You can start by tapping two 4/4 bars, turning down the volume for one bar, then turn it back up again. Leonard adds, “Challenge yourself by increasing the length of tapping with no volume to see how long you can keep a consistent pulse. Can you keep it up for one bar, a phrase, a section, 30 seconds, or a minute?”

Boosting subdivision skills

Building a strong sense of pulse is only half the battle. Successfully subdividing the beat is an essential part of mastering music, and the old adage, “If you can say it, you can play it!” applies. Leonard recommends, “If you don’t have a system for counting rhythmic syllables, get one! It can be as simple as ‘bee, spi-der, ca-ter-pil-lar’ for young students.” Other counting systems include the traditional American system, which uses the syllables “1-e-and-a” to count sixteenth notes. Or the Eastman system which uses “1-ti-te-ta” to count sixteenth notes. Leonard favors the latter, because the syllables stay on the tip of the tongue. “They are easy to speed up, and there is a built-in system for odd divisions of the beat like quintuplets and septuplets,” Leonard adds.

Again, getting up and moving can help improve both inner pulse and even subdivision of the beat. Try walking or marching in place with the metronome, but make it a game. Set the metronome on 60 and take one step with every click. Then try two steps per click. Try clapping and marching at the same time (once and twice per click). Try clapping with every left foot step, then only with every right foot step. Try clapping two claps per step, three claps per step, and so forth. See how many variations you can create, or how long you can keep a pattern going until your coordination gets muddled. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

If you want a next level challenge to improve your subdivision skills, Ellis suggests an exercise from eurhythmics called “Cosmic Whole Note.” “You put the metronome on something incredibly slow (like quarter note = 6). The goal is straightforward enough, just clap with the click. But that is so hard to do when the click is that slow! You need unshakable subdivisions,” explains Ellis. To make this task easier Ellis suggests, “Try walking 20 steps to each click and using that to help you figure out when to clap. As you start to improve, try switching between 20 steps, 10 steps, even five steps.” Switching the number of steps between clicks is like converting between eighth notes (20 steps), quarter notes (10 steps), and half notes (5 steps) in music. “[The Cosmic Whole Note] is a perfect microcosm of our tendencies in performance,” says Ellis. “It teaches us not to over-correct when we realize we’re rushing or dragging, and instead adjust just enough to get back on track for the next click. It trains our subdivisions to be equal, steady, and trustworthy in performance.”

Getting to know your metronome

“Every tricky rhythm is mathematically understandable.”
—June Han

Han describes practicing with the metronome as an “acquired taste” and points out that using it correctly is the key to improvement. If you are new to playing with the metronome or rarely use it, Ellis empathizes. “That click can feel distracting and disorienting.”

Metronome novices may be tempted to set the metronome to the performance tempo of the piece, only to be painfully disappointed when they cannot play along with it. “It is perfectly reasonable to start with the metronome at a far slower tempo than you can actually play the piece,” Ellis advises,  “just to get used to working with it.”

Han also warns against playing faster than you are capable and recommends practicing at a slow to moderate tempo with the metronome. She advises setting the metronome to click one subdivision smaller than the majority of note values you are playing in the piece. So if you are playing mostly quarter notes the metronome clicks eighth notes; if you are playing eighth notes the metronome clicks sixteenth notes. Han explains that hearing the metronome clicking between the notes you play will help you become more alert and aware of the pulse.

To effectively use the metronome Han cautions, “You must listen to the metronome and play with it. Not before or after it.” Leonard concurs, “It’s surprising how many people don’t really listen to their metronome or understand that when they hear the tick, it means they’re ahead or behind.”

When we actually play with the click of the metronome, the instrument and the metronome create sound at exactly the same time. As a result we don’t hear the click as loudly when we truly internalize the pulse and play exactly with the metronome. This phenomena is one of the reasons why so many musicians struggle with the metronome at first.

Fortunately some modern metronomes allow us to use not only our auditory senses but also our visual and kinesthetic senses to internalize the pulse. Many metronomes offer visual beat options with flashing lights or pendulum animations on a screen. Some metronome apps utilize haptic features, with settings to make the phone or a watch vibrate to the beat. Peterson sells a stand-alone haptic device called the Bodybeat Pulse that plugs into the metronome’s headphone jack. It can be clipped onto clothing or placed in a pocket where it will vibrate along with the beat. Many musicians have more success using the metronome when they can literally feel the beat.

Ellis encourages musicians to use the metronome’s options like programming time signatures and playing a different sound on the first beat of each measure. “I so often hear students play rhythms that are with the click, but have dropped or added beats to the bar. They might have caught their mistake if they were using a different sound on the downbeat.”

When working on larger sections or longer pieces Ellis suggests practicing the piece with the metronome on every other beat. “Then, try practicing the piece with the metronome just on the downbeat,” she suggests. “Then, if your metronome allows this flexibility, every other down beat. That way, you practice not just playing with the click, but also staying at a consistent pulse between each click for incrementally larger and larger spans of time.”

Tempting tempo tool

“This physical relaxation allows us to dive deeper into technical details and musical concepts without a physical sensation of urgency.”
—Delaine Fedson Leonard

Yes, the metronome can help us play pieces at the tempo the composer intended. However, thinking the metronome only functions as a tool we use to gain speed in our playing is a common misconception. “It is a natural human tendency to pick up speed when we repeat passages and develop muscle memory,” Leonard explains. As our muscles repeat a motion, the synapses in our brain get stronger, so the muscles respond more efficiently with every repetition. We learn to play faster through the process of repetitive practice, not just because we used the metronome.

Leonard encourages us to instead think of the metronome as a tool to regulate speed so that we can learn to physically relax into a tempo in the learning stages of a piece. “This physical relaxation allows us to dive deeper into technical details and musical concepts without a physical sensation of urgency.” In other words, choose your metronome tempo wisely. It doesn’t always need to feel hard to play with the metronome. Choose a tempo where it feels easy to play, so you can train your muscles correctly. Then pay attention to what is happening at the easier, slower tempo that is not happening and causing problems at a faster tempo. Leonard believes this process is integral to incorporating relaxation into a performance. “It’s that physical ease that allows us the freedom to be creative.”

Han uses the metronome to check that she can sustain the intended tempo without rushing or dragging. “I personally practice with the metronome till I get a couple of notches faster than the marked tempo. When I am confident I can hold the faster tempo, then I bring the tempo back to the one marked. Now the original tempo feels effortless and more comfortable.”

Eurhythmics offers another idea to get comfortable with a tempo using an exercise called “Tempo Walks.” Ellis explains, “Whatever your tempo is for a piece, walk it. Walk it all the time. Plug your metronome into a set of headphones and walk it around the neighborhood. Find other songs at that tempo and listen to them on a playlist, and walk it throughout your day.” Once you think you have internalized the tempo, Ellis offers this next step, “Try walking it and then checking your walking speed with the metronome to see how close you are. Adjust accordingly. Repeat.” If you pay attention and observe, you will start to learn your own tendencies. Do you tend to play slower in the morning or slower at night? Do you play faster when you are stressed? Ellis finds this knowledge to be valuable. “The more we understand our own tendencies, the more we can adjust for them so they don’t throw us for a loop in performance.”

Avoiding metronome mistakes

One of the most common mistakes harpists make is to leave the metronome running all the time. When the constant clicking becomes background noise, we tune it out and stop listening. “I turn the metronome off and on a lot in lessons and my own practice sessions to be sure that I’m focused and really listening when it’s on,” says Leonard. “I’ve learned that turning it off and on again in between repetitions of a passage also cues me to set a musical or technical intent for each repetition so that they’re not just mindlessly rote.” You might think turning the metronome off and on this much would be time consuming, but Leonard finds the opposite to be true, “Because I’m focused, I’m able to accomplish more in less time. So what seems like a time waster on the surface is actually more efficient.”

Playing through the entire piece with the metronome may not be the most efficient use of your time. Instead Han recommends polishing one section at a time and addressing the trouble passages. “Repeatedly drill sections more times than you think necessary. After such detailed work, it will become more fluent and effortless to sustain a steady tempo throughout the work.”

Ellis cautions us to avoid relying on extremes such as only practicing with a metronome or never practicing with a metronome. “You need a happy medium,” she says. If you practice a piece only with the metronome, you may be surprised to discover one day you cannot play the piece without the metronome. The tendency to rush, pause, or drag surfaces because you’ve become reliant on the metronome rather than your own inner pulse. Instead, try alternating practicing repetitions of smaller sections with and without the metronome. Listen and compare. Does it feel and sound the same with and without the metronome?

Achieving rhythmic accuracy at the harp

“Rhythm and pulse apply to all musicians, absolutely equally,” notes Han. “Accurate and reliable rhythm and pulse will make a more sophisticated, eloquent, and learned musician, no matter which instrument.” So, do harpists face unique challenges when it comes to playing with rhythmic accuracy? Other instrumentalists must blow air, hold down fingers, or move their bow for different durations of time depending on the note value. More time for a whole note, less time for a quarter note. Harpists can play a whole note or a quarter note the same way without physically doing anything differently. Though if you watch closely, many harpists actually do play longer note values differently from shorter note values to show the duration. Because of this, Ellis finds that beginning harpists often focus so much on the attack of the rhythm, instead of internalizing the duration of the rhythm. Does the harp’s innate qualities  hinder harpists’ rhythmic abilities? “I used to lament this as a disadvantage for harpists,” says Ellis, “but I soon realized my error. Percussionists likewise have an attack-focused instrument, and their rhythm is fantastic! Harpists have the same capacity as percussionists to be rhythmically dexterous and unshakable.”

What can harpists learn from percussionists? While some percussion instruments are melodic, others are purely rhythm instruments. As a result, percussionists spend a large amount of their practice time focusing solely on improving their rhythm, especially in music where no melody is present. “At the harp, it’s easy to focus on rhythm only within the context of repertoire, instead of isolating rhythm and practicing it as a skill in its own right,” Ellis observes. Rhythm can exist without melody, but melody cannot exist without rhythm. “The same way we do with technique in the form of exercises, it is worth it to add rhythm exercises to your daily practice routine,” Ellis suggests.

Adding pedals into the equation adds another degree of difficulty and layer of coordination. Leonard explains, “Playing the pedal harp requires four-way independent coordination. Rhythmic accuracy isn’t just about our hands and fingers, it’s also about our feet.” If we’ve worked diligently to achieve rhythmic accuracy in our fingers, but don’t approach pedaling with that same intent, we have figuratively shot ourselves in the foot. “To execute unobtrusive pedal changes,” Leonard says, “sometimes our feet move in unison and sometimes independently, but always in rhythm.”

For this reason, many harp teachers will instruct their students to “pedal on the beat.” But what does that mean, exactly? “Pedaling ‘on the beat’ can mean one foot pedaling slightly ahead of the beat to cleanly execute a quick harmony change, or slightly behind the beat to accommodate a ringing string that isn’t easily muffled,” Leonard explains. Even though the pedal may not move exactly on the beat, the pedal is still moving rhythmically. Leonard clarifies that the pedaling rhythm might be a sixteenth or thirty-second note ahead or behind our fingers playing on the musical beat, thus the four way independent coordination.

This phenomenon often stymies other musicians new to playing chamber music with a harpist. “They are used to looking at each other’s foot movement to find the beat,” Leonard says. “Yet a harpist’s feet often move in an entirely separate rhythm from our hands and fingers.”

Taming tricky rhythms

People often say music and math are closely related. This is certainly true when it comes to rhythms. “Every tricky rhythm is mathematically understandable,” Han explains, going on to point out that it is the musician’s responsibility “to dissect it and execute the rhythm the way the composer intended it.” The first step is to decipher the math behind the rhythm. Once you’ve done that, Ellis encourages you to engage muscle, visual, and aural memory to fully understand the rhythm.

Ellis’ eurhythmics training taught her to use the largest muscle groups available to create muscle memory of rhythms. She offers the following suggestions: “Try walking the pulse and clapping the rhythm. Try clapping the pulse and walking the rhythm. Try alternating between both methods each bar. Walk it at the start and end of each practice session and before you go to bed each night.”

Leonard also encourages her students to execute rhythms with their bodies before playing them on the harp. This can be especially helpful when learning cross rhythms like two against three (or duple versus triple). Leonard, along with her students, will tap two in the right hand, three in the left hand, then switch. Next they repeat this process with their feet. “Then we move to two in one hand and three in one foot, both in cross body and parallel motion.” Or for another challenge, they walk in a triple meter and tap their legs in a duple meter and vice versa. “By the time they get to moving just their fingers at the harp, it’s easy,” she says.

Visually, you can diagram a tricky rhythm to understand the math. Ellis suggests making a color-coded graph or chart to help you visualize how the beat translates in space. You may find it helpful to draw a chart with the tricky rhythm on the top and then line up the smaller equal subdivisions underneath.

Rewriting rhythms can be helpful, especially when notes are spaced on the page or rhythms are notated in such a way that they are visually confusing. For example, the dotted quarter note is three times as long as the eighth note, so it should take up three times more space in the measure. However, sometimes music is spaced in such a way that measures are squished, resulting in different note values taking up a similar amount of space visually. Ties, dotted notes, and beams, when used correctly, help us see beats, but rhythms are not always notated that way. Rewriting a tricky passage so you can properly visualize the beats makes a big difference for many musicians when it comes to processing and executing rhythms accurately.

To engage your aural memory, try speaking (counting) the rhythm with the metronome. Listening to the rhythm is crucial, so find an accurate recording of the piece and listen repeatedly. If you want to focus on just one tricky rhythm, Ellis offers this idea: “Create a MIDI file using that rhythm in a music notation program, and listen to it on a loop.” Ellis also suggests using the rhythm as a warmup, playing your scales in that rhythm, or improvising melodies within that rhythm.”

Achieving your metronome goals

We were curious what our experts’ goals are when they practice with the metronome. To fix tricky rhythms? Establish the tempo you play the piece? Develop inner pulse? Ellis exclaims, “All of the above! The metronome is a versatile tool and can help you with everything: pulse, speed, phrasing, and even cleanliness!“

So how do the experts use their metronomes? Han says, “My metronome is within reach whenever I sit at the harp.” Both Han and Leonard use the metronome when they study a new solo, chamber, or orchestral score. Leonard says she uses the tempo to immediately decide on fingerings. Han agrees, “Knowing the final tempo influences my fingering choices.”

Leonard uses the metronome all the time. “I use it for sight-reading new material, working out technical passages, and increasing tempo. Later, I play metronome games with myself to check in and be sure that I’m staying honest—playing with the tick on two and four only, playing with the tick on the pulse only, starting and stopping, recording myself and tapping the metronome on playback. There are so many metronome games, honestly there’s no reason to be bored.”

“There are few musical problems that aren’t aided by using a metronome in one capacity or another,” Ellis asserts. While some might suggest the metronome stifles creativity, Ellis finds the opposite to be true. “The metronome can help us stop using the rhythm as a prop for our musicality, and allows us to communicate our ideas through other means such as articulation, phrasing, and dynamics.  I am musically freer and my performance is more exciting when I keep the integrity of my rhythm. Then, when there is a ritardando or accelerando called for in the score, it actually has sparkle. It stays special and worthy of the listener’s attention because the strategy of phrasing with my time hasn’t been overused in the rest of the piece.”

As Ellis says, “The metronome shouldn’t be a cruel instrument that sucks joy out of your playing.” By using the clever strategies our experts suggest, the metronome can become a friend that helps you achieve more effective progress at your instrument. “Effective progress makes learning a piece more enjoyable, not less,” says Ellis. So repair your relationship with the metronome. Spend time learning how to work with the metronome. As Leonard says, “In the long game, it is time well spent.”

In Terms of Keeping Time

Beat: The basic unit of time in music, often used interchangeably with the term “pulse.” In informal usage the term “beat” can refer to a variety of related concepts including: pulse, tempo, meter, rhythms, and groove.

BPM: The acronym for beats per minute. If the BPM is 120, the musical pulse progresses at 120 beats per minute or two beats per second.

Dalcroze eurhythmics: (also known as the Dalcroze method or simply eurhythmics) Developed in the early 20th century by Émile Jaques-Dalcroze as a method to teach the concepts of rhythm and musical expression using movement.

Downbeat: The first beat of the measure or bar. So named because it is the only beat the conductor signals by gesturing with a downward motion.

Meter: The measurement of the number of pulses between regularly recurring accents (such as the downbeat). Groups of two, three, or four pulses between accents are most common. Meter is a ratio expressed in music as a time signature. A durational value (for example, a quarter note) is assigned to represent the pulse or beat, and then it is organized in repeated segments in a piece of music (for example three beats per measure).

Pulse: A series of regularly recurring and precisely equivalent stimuli or pulsations. Like the ticking of a watch or the beating of your heart, the pulse marks off equal units and compels music to progress through time. Commonly used interchangeably with the term “beat.”

Rhythm: A general term used to refer to the time aspect of music as opposed to the pitch aspect. 1. The placement of sounds and silences in time. For example, a pattern in time of a single, small group of notes (e.g. “play this rhythm for me.”) 2. Informally used to refer to a repetitive pulse of the music, or a rhythmic pattern, that is repeated throughout the music (e.g. “feel the rhythm”).

Subdivision: Dividing the beat, often silently, into smaller equal units. Informally musicians use the term subdivision to describe counting note values smaller than the beat. For example, a single quarter-note beat can be subdivided into two eighth notes, three triplet eighth notes, four sixteenth notes, a quintuplet, sextuplet, etc.

Tempo: The rate (relatively fast or slow speed) at which we perceive the musical pulse moving through time. The tempo of a piece is the speed of the pulse. From the Latin “tempus” meaning “time.”