Metronomes: Why Everyone Needs Them.
Underneath every discipline is a value system. And the reason why you’d want to tap into such a system is because it allows you to better communicate and work with the other disciples of said discipline. So as a musician, one of the core competencies is being able to stay rhythmically aligned with whatever tempo a song is counted off at. Therefore, when your personal tempo isn’t steady, it’s because your internal alarm system isn’t alerting you fast enough to when that tempo is falling off the rails. So how do you improve the sensitivity of your alarm system? The answer is to over inundate your memory of what a steady pulse sounds like at a multitude of tempos.
Unless you’re playing to a click-track, the only belief you really have about the steadiness of your rhythm is your most recent memory of how it felt to play along with a metronome. And like any relationship, the longer you stay detached, the harder it becomes to recognize what your level of alignment really is to that of a metronome. And for me, the importance of integrating a metronome into every aspect of my practicing didn’t come until I started associating myself with the types of musicians who seemed to obsess over the value of protecting the integrity of the beat like their life depended upon it! And as such, it helped me to realize that if I was going to be accepted on the same bandstand as these people that I admired, then I was going to need to adopt their philosophy on the importance of “perfect” time. So the strategy that I came up with for increasing the sensitivity of my rhythmic alarm system was to practice all new ideas (i.e. habits) in 2 bpm increments. So by doing this, it ensures that I’m allowing my brain/body connection an adequate amount of time to solidify, or marinate in knowing the difference between the micro levels of time. And by allowing myself time to oversaturate this habit of being able to recognize what “perfect” time sounds like, it radically transformed the entire performance experience for me. That said, however, a memory is still a muscle that can atrophy if not exercised enough (preferably daily). So like any skill set, the way you maintain it is to create fail-safe systems that can be regarded as idiot-proof (as we used to call it in the Marine Corps), which is precisely what a metronome provides you with, in that it takes all the guess work out of wondering if your rhythms are in fact aligned with a perfect measuring stick.
Suggested Takeaways…
a) The function of a metronome, both literally and figuratively, is to strengthen your sense of self-awareness for when your tempo, or good habits, are starting to fall off the rails so that you can police yourself without the aid of someone else needing to point your discrepancies out for you.
b) When applying the concept of a metronome to all the other areas of life that you want to express good habits in, consider making a fail-safe system that you believe would be idiot-proof to help keep you on the straight and narrow. After all, no one in their right mind would ever willing choose to self-identify as an idiot.
c) All disciplines are predicated upon a collectively agreed upon value system (i.e. culture). So when you align yourself with a value system, which comes from personal exposure to other members of said culture, it allows for a greater flow of communication and efficiency within the subsequent support and expansion of said culture.