Metronome - Part II - The Tai Chi of Music

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This entire post is pretty much paraphrased from my awesome piano teacher, David Leonhardt.

Most people, when they begin to play with a metronome, start by setting the metronome to slow. They practice until they are proficient at that speed, then they gradually speed up the metronome. Very seldom do people start the metronome at the speed they would like to play the tune, and then step by step, slow the metronome down.

This is kind of like a Tai Chi of music.

When you slow the music down to the point where you have big gaps between the chords or notes you have to play, a lot of really interesting things happen.


  • You can no longer play "automatically." It's just too slow. You actually have to know what you're going to do next
  • It's a great focus practice, because, oddly, you're going so slowly that it's easy to lose track from one chord to the next
  • You are going slowly enough to expose your (beneficial and not-so-beneficial) thought processes - you can see exactly when you fumble before finding a note, and when you know exactly where to go next. 
  • You can get very, very detailed about rhythm. You can set the metronome to beat on eight notes and really listen to how your triplets fall. You can hear that you are rushing the beat, and then just lagging so you will hit the last note when the metronome clicks - instead of slowing everything down to be correct
  • It's a really great practice to try to be musical and evocative with a tune at a very slow speed.
I'm really looking forward to trying this in my martial arts practice! I know, I know, it's the basis of Tai Chi. But how many other martial artists seriously practice that way?


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