metronome

Mechanical metronome

A metronome is any device that produces a regulated aural, visual or tactile pulse to establish a steady tempo in the performance of music. It is a useful practice tool for musicians that dates back to the early 19th century.

Etymology

The word metronome first appeared in English c.1815 ^[1] and is Greek in origin:

metron = measure, nomos = regulating

History

A mechanical wind-up metronome in motion

According to Lynn Townsend White, Jr., the Andalusian inventor, Abbas Ibn Firnas (810-887), made the earliest attempt at creating some sort of metronome.^[2]

The mechanical metronome was invented by Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel in Amsterdam in 1812. Johann Mälzel copied several of Winkel's construction ideas and received the patent for the portable metronome in 1816. Ludwig van Beethoven was the first notable composer to indicate specific metronome markings in his music, in 1817.^[3]

Usage

Metronomes may be used by musicians when practicing in order to maintain a constant tempo; by adjusting the metronome, facility can be achieved at varying tempi. Even in pieces that do not require a strictly constant tempo (such as in the case of rubato), a metronome "marking" is sometimes given by the composer to give an indication of the general tempo intended, found in the score at the beginning of a piece or movement thereof.

Tempo is always measured in beats per minute (BPM); metronomes can be set to variable tempi, usually ranging from 40 to 208 BPM.

Types of metronomes

Mechanical metronomes

One common type of metronome is the mechanical metronome which uses an adjustable weight on the end of an inverted pendulum rod to control the tempo: The weight is slid up the pendulum rod to decrease tempo, or down to increase tempo. (The mechanism is also known as a double-weighted pendulum. There is a second, fixed weight on the other side of the pendulum pivot, hidden in the metronome case.) The pendulum swings back and forth in tempo, while a mechanism inside the metronome produce a clicking sound with each oscillation.

Electronic metronomes

Electronic metronome, Wittner model

Most modern metronomes are electronic and use a quartz crystal to maintain accuracy, comparable to those used in wristwatches. The simplest electronic metronomes have a dial or buttons to control the tempo; some also produce tuning notes, usually around the range of A440 (440 hertz). Sophisticated metronomes can produce two or more distinct sounds. Tones can differ in pitch, volume, and/or timbre to demarcate downbeats from other beats, as well as compound and complex time signatures.

Many electronic musical keyboards have built-in metronome functions.

Software metronomes

Metronomes now exist in software form, either as stand alone applications or often in music sequencing and audio multitrack software packages. In recording studio applications, such as film scoring, a software metronome is often used to generate a click track to synchronize musicians.

Use of the metronome as an instrument

This section requires expansion.

The clicking sounds of mechanical metronomes have been sometimes used to provide a soft rhythm track without using any percussion. Paul McCartney did this twice: in 1968 on "Blackbird", included on the famous "White Album" The Beatles, and in 1989 on "Distractions" (Flowers in the Dirt) , where McCartney, following the metronome's regular beat, performed the whole rhythm track by hitting various parts of his own body.^[4] Also, in Ennio Morricone's theme "Farewell to Cheyenne" (featured on Once Upon a Time in the West), the steady clip-clop beat is provided by the deliberately distorted and slowed-down sound of a mechanical metronome.^[5]

Criticism of metronome use

While the metronome is a useful tool for musicians, it does have its limitations. In many cases, the notation of music is only one part of the method of communication between musicians, the other being oral tradition.^[6] Thus, the metronome markings in a score may not accurately communicate the pulse, swing, or groove of music, which is not necessarily regular.^[7]

A style of performance that is unfailingly regular rhythmically may be criticized as being "metronomic."

Many notable composers, including Felix Mendelssohn, Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi and Johannes Brahms, have criticised the use of the metronome.^[8]

Quotes

... this series of even, perfectly quantized, 16th notes, is no more evocative of samba, than a metronome would be. In fact, this representation neglects what makes up the samba essence in the first place — the swing!^[9]

—Pedro Batista

Now for the idea that strict metronomic pulsation is the normal basis of music. Nobody could persuade me that this is true. If I believed it I would give up music tomorrow. Also, if it is true, then Time, which is quite half of music, is not artistic material, for why pretend we are shaping something when it is already made (by machinery)?

—The Musical times and singing-class circular (1927)

Actual performance timings involve complex ratios that neither add nor multiply in any simple fashion.

—How to Talk About Musical Metre, Justin London^[10]

The habitual use of the metronome is also to be rejected, since by this kind of use, even the beginnings of any rubato, based on an imaginative impulse, will be smothered, and the playing will wind up having a mechanical cast. There is a good reason to think of the term: "He plays like a metronome", as a condemnation.

—The art of violin playing, by Carl Flesch, Eric Rosenblith, Anne-Sophie Mutter

To be emotional in musical interpretation, yet obedient to the initial tempo and true to the metronome, means about as much as being sentimental in engineering. Mechanical execution and emotion are incompatible. To play Chopin's G major Nocturne with rhythmic rigidity and pious respect for the indicated rate of movement would be as intolerably monotonous, as absurdly pedantic, as to recite Gray's famous Elegy to the beating of a metronome.

—Tempo Rubato by Ignacy Jan Paderewski ^[11] - Chapter contributed to Henry T. Finck's book Success in music and how it is won (1909)

The musician who relies on metronomic markings has divorced himself from the inner life (which is a rhythmic life) of the music. He is no longer living out the drama from within, or singing the melody with his heart; he is immune to the 'sortilège'.
[...] rhythm as something organic and unpredictable [...]. But there is no doubt that it persists. It lies behind the notorious complaint, heard even from very skillful players, that the metronome 'sounds wrong'. A powerful expression of it is preserved in the recordings of Wilhelm Furtwängler, who 'deliberately cultivated an imprecise beat' so as to 'releas[e] from the printed score the essence of the performance of a classical piece'.

—Waking the face that no one is (page 12) by Louis Wirth Marvick

A metronomical performance is certainly tiresome and nonsensical; time and rhythm must be adapted to and identified with the melody, the harmony, the accent and the poetry…^{[12][citation needed]}

—Franz Liszt

100 according to Maelzel, but this must be held applicable to only the first measures, for feeling also has its tempo and this cannot entirely be expressed in this figure.^{[13][verification needed]}

—Ludvig van Beethoven

I do not mean to say that it is necessary to imitate the mathematical regularity of the metronome, which would give the music thus executed an icy frigidity; I even doubt whether it would be possible to maintain this rigid uniformity for more than a few bars.^{[14][page needed]}

—Hector Berlioz

From a performance perspective:

Another thing that becomes clear ..., is how much the listener's perception of rhythm differs from the reality of the metronome. While Feuermann's performances seemed to provide the clearest "feel" of the beat — meaning that to a listener, the rhythm and tempo seemed the most clear and compelling — when trying to set a metronome, one found a slightly changing tempo throughout almost every measure — a constant rhythmic "push and pull" — making metronome indications sometimes recordable only as a range between two or three adjacent markings or as an average. At the same time, other performers ... whose performances did not yield to the ear as strong a sense of tempo or rhythm, fit more easily within a specific metronome marking. From this, it is clear that the feeling and perception of rhythm are conveyed much more by the performers choice of emphasis or "pulse" than by strict adherence to any absolute metronomic rhythm.^[15]

—Brinton Smith, in a thesis of a recording of Emanuel Feuermann

On cultural aspects:

[...] This suggests that listeners who are steeped in a particular musical culture will have a repertoire metrical “templates” which allow them to readily grasp such patterns, both as the music starts and as it changes as it goes on.

—How to Talk About Musical Metre, Justin London^[10]

The uneven beats in African and North Indian Rhythms are no more complex (no less regular) than the patterns of expressive timing that occur in western music.

—How to Talk About Musical Metre, Justin London^[10]

References

Further reading

• Metronome Techniques, by Frederick Franz, New Haven, Connecticut, 1988

See also

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article metronome.

• Rhythm
• Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes
• Beat