Music Video Lesson: Can You Play at 208 on the Metronome?

Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com asking the question, can you play at 208 on the metronome? If you look at your metronome, they have all kinds of speeds, typically starting at 40 and going to 208. Now, of course, there are metronome applications that you can put on your phone or your device and any number can be selected, but there's a reason why these numbers exist in the first place. I'm going to show you that to begin with, then I'm going to explain a whole bunch about the metronome that you probably don't know.

The slowest speed is 40, and let's do what 40 sounds like.

If it was much slower than that, it would be very difficult to follow it because it wouldn't feel like a pulse anymore. It was like, where's that next beat going to be? And 208, likewise, when you get this fast, it's very hard to be able to have the metronome ticking much faster than that and to have any kind of continuity at all.

Now, how to set a metronome is a whole other issue. They have these guides on here for Allegro, Adagio, and I'm going to show you how farcical that whole idea is by demonstrating for you. I'm going to play the famous Mozart C Major Sonata in K545, and I'm going to put the metronome on 208. Can I play this at 208? Oh my gosh.

So, what I've just revealed to you is the most important aspect of a metronome, which is it depends upon what note value you assign those ticks. There, I was letting the metronome tick 6 eighth notes.

It's not fast at all. Now, on the flip side, I'm going to put it on 40 now and let this be whole notes.

Now, you see that it was hard for me at first to adjust with a beat that slow. Trying to feel the pulse is difficult and the beat's so fast.

So really, you must choose the note value that makes the most sense.

And you know what you don't need on your metronome and all the metronome's apps have it, and it's really unnecessary for most purposes, which is the subdivision of the beat with accent of B.

The reason why I don't like that, aside from it being completely unnecessary, is that when you're practicing with the metronome, you have to wait for that first beat. You can't just go in the next beat. You have to imagine a piece in 6.

And you want to start. If it's a slow piece, imagine.

And you're trying to play with the metronome and you have to wait for the beat. A simple metronome like this is your best bet. Or find an app that has the real speeds of a metronome. The other problem with so many digital metronomes, they just have every numeric value and you don't need every single number. If you're going from 116 to 117, it's ridiculously infinitesimally small. 116 to 120, which is what a metronome has, and then to 120 to 126, gives you gradations that make sense. So yes, you can buy a 208 on the metronome. It depends what note value you select. And you must select a note value that makes sense. In that Mozart, for example, 208 was ridiculously, having the 16th note tick, it didn't make sense, or 40. So what would make sense? I think either 4 -4, having chord notes tick, would be fine. And that would be something like this.

That is more reasonable. Let's see what number that ended up being on. That's 132. And you could perhaps have it at half that speed and have the half note ticking.

So those are a couple of reasonable subdivisions of the beat that make sense. But sometimes putting the metronome on that faster speed to make sure everything is quantized correctly, or on that very slow speed, so you get the feel of the pulse in, let's say, a Chopin Nocturne, where you want to have a little bit more freedom within the beat for a rubato, having that very slow beat ticking.

So that's the key. And I recommend ignoring the tempo indications, what is a legro, what's a dogio, because it really depends upon the note value you have ticking.

I hope this is helpful for you again. Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, your online piano resource. Thanks so much for joining me.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/can-you-play-at-208-on-the-metronome/

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