The Hampshire Guitar Orchestra

Metronomes

What is a metronome?

At its simplest, a metronome is a source of a regular pulse at any user-chosen rate.

More expensive metronomes are able to accent the first beat of the bar in a range of common time signatures.

The speed of a piece is often indicated with a tempo mark denoting the number of beats per minute.

Disadvantages

Some novices can actually slip a whole beat on a difficult passage and not even realise
It can sometimes de-educate one's own body clock pulse
It can encourage a musically sterile performance

Advantages

It can prevent "technical tenuto" - the slowing down on tough bits, often without even knowing
It can prevent "quaver quickening" - the speeding up of the fast passages caused by tension
It can provide constistency to a practice session

The hago MIDI Metronome

Want to try a metronome without the expense of buying one?

Here are a collection of MIDI files that you can save to your disc by right-clicking on the links below. Each plays for three minutes at the tempo indicated.

60 63 66 69 72 76 80 84 88 92 96 100 104 108 112 116 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155 160 165 170 175 180
All in one tiny Zip file (13K)

I wanted a different speed....

If you want a MIDI file slower than those here, use one that's double the speed you want and play against alternate clicks
If you want a MIDI file faster than those here, use one that's half the speed and play two notes per click

Other practice ideas

Pick a slow MIDI and play an open string against it
Double in speed and be sure to keep in step
Revert to slow playing
Treble in speed and be sure to keep in step
Revert to slow playing
Quadruple in speed... and so on
Try at a different metronome speed

hints & tips - MIDI Metronome