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I'd definitely recommend a metronome, especially when the rythms are trickier. I basically use it for these types of exercises: the ones with difficult rythms, and the ones where the point is to build up velocity. The latter ones, I use a metronome to keep in check, because the main mistake in virtuosity exercises is to want to go too fast too soon and then ...

Agitato is generally understood to be allegro agitato — allegro plus agitation — unless there is something to indicate otherwise. Allegro is generally around 3 times as fast as lento (~144 versus ~50 bpm), so you can get an idea of the tempo change from that. It's quite significant. (So in one sense, I disagree with Mark; the house on fire ...

For the most part, the time signature indicates what kind of feel the beat of the piece has. Consider waltzes, usually written in 3/4 – the beat goes ONE two three, ONE two three, ONE two three. Although you could write it as ONE two three, FOUR five six, ONE two three, FOUR five six with a time signature of 6/4, there's no point because the beat still ...

Two things can help with this that I can think of: Setting a metronome to a large beat, like one beat a measure to see where you rush and and speed up. Subdivide, subdivide, and subdivide. :-) If you have a strong inner pulse that is beating a smaller beat like 8th notes this can really help. Slow tempos are hard to keep study, so keeping the subdivided ...

A sense of time varies from person to person. Some people have an acute sense of time and have less need for a metronome, while others may struggle with time. So the use of a metronome is relative to your personal sense of time. But even good time keepers will sometimes devote themselves to a steady regimen of metronome exercises in the spirit of improving ...

If a computer plays them, they are the same. However, it may influence how a human player interprets it, even if they don't know anything about what it meant historically, because all those extra beams will make the score look thicker, less spacious, and the notes seem to be more connected. A good player should be able to find a working interpretation ...

You can use a metronome in different ways to study complex rhythmic figures. You can set the beat to correspond to a quarter note and work on subdividing the beats evenly. Or you can double the tempo so it corresponds to eighth notes and subdivide the sixteenths. Or you can double that so it corresponds to sixteenth notes, and work on counting beats for the ...

Swing is generally somewhere between e. s and e e depending on the tempo, style, and drummer. You could suggest instead of playing [q e]3 triplets that he move to a 16th note upbeat, or move ahead to somewhere between the triplet and the straight 8th. Really, though, he should just listen to some recordings of drummers that do this sort of swing style. You ...

Simple rule: Changing the bottom number of a time signature, and the tempo correspondingly, has no effect. As you say, 4/8 at 60 bpm is the same as 4/4 at 120 bpm. It's also the same as 4/2 at 240 bpm. Likewise 3/8 at 80 bpm is the same as 3/4 at 160 bpm, and so on. Changing to top number is a different story, as the other answers allude to. That ...

The musical terms for what happens at 1:45 is half time followed by an accelerando back up to the original tempo. If, prior to 1:45, you start feeling every other beat, you will notice that the new tempo at 1:45 matches exactly. In other words, there is an instantaneous tempo change to half speed. What occurs next is a gradual change in tempo that occurs ...

A metronome is the best tool for learning a new rhythm (besides a good piano teacher). I would highly recommend you use a metronome when learning complex rhythms. You should not, however, soley depend upon the metronome to do the work for you. I am not a piano teacher or expert, but these are my suggestions: First, try playing the piece slowly without the ...

Everything by Messiaen is extremely difficult, so that doesn't count... but congratulations for being brave enough to try it. It's important to count those weird multiply-dotted notes and non-integral measures correctly. But Messiaen aside, slow is almost always more difficult than it looks. In addition to tempo problems, slow pieces are all about tonal ...

@Matthew Read gave some good suggestions, to which I'll add: Try rehearsing the problem sections at a wide variety of tempos, particularly ridiculously fast (once the choir knows the section reasonably well). Unwanted tempo changes become habitual. One way to break that habit is to go much faster (or slower, if the problem is acceleration) than desired, ...

You might as well ask "How fast does a person walk?" You will get as many different answers as there are people. In the case above, unless there is an actual MM value set, these can be equal or one can be faster or slower than the other. Allegro simply means a "lively" tempo. Andante means a "walking" tempo. Moderato means a "moderate" tempo, or when ...

Metronomes, and measuring a tempo exactly in beats per minute, were not invented and put into practice until the mid-1800s. Handel lived before that time, and in his era there was no accepted way of precisely notating a tempo. Moreover, tempos in these pieces are really only guidelines. The composer himself would vary the tempo in different performances, ...

Interesting question. Literally "Agitato" means "Agitated". If that doesn't seem like a tempo, consider that "Allegro" means "Happy", "Andante" means "Walking", "Largo" means "Wide" and "Presto" means "Soon" or "Hurry up!". Play it like you're nervous and agitated. Play it like there's an earthquake and the baby's in the bedroom upstairs and you're ...

I can't speak to the psychological reasons or addressing them, but there are a couple things you can try that basically apply to all types of music. 1) Have the weaker members listen to and follow the stronger ones. Ensure they can hear them, of course; don't put them on opposite sides of the stage. The mediocre members will probably do well enough if the ...

About Chopin's fourth Ballade: Most of the piece is on a quaver unit and fast (con moto) but ritenuto are frequent. Listening to several great pianists (such as Christian Zimmerman, Piotr Anderszewski, Luganski ...) they play the piece at approximately 130 semiquavers by minute. This series of chords at bar 203 is preceded by a vigorous series of chords ...

Try and fully understand what rhythm you are working towards - and if necessary tap it out on a drum or something else so you can feel the beat. If you can describe it as 4/4 6/8 or standard structure then it should be straightforward. If you can't time it physically, you will have problems getting it into a DAW. Assuming you can do it audibly and make the ...

It sounds as if you need to learn a little more theory -- a musical phrase can have a mixture of note lengths, and an unchanging tempo. A metronome provides you with a regular pulse. You are not necessarily expected to play a note on each tick, and often you'll also want to play notes in-between ticks. As a simple example, if you set the metronome to tick ...

It's logical that it's possible to quantify the timing. If you record the pattern as you want to hear it, and compare it to a metronome, you can make confident statements such as "the third and fourth beats are played 150 milliseconds late". You can also do some sums, and express that "150 milliseconds" in fractions of a beat, if you prefer. You could ...

You may have heard of Shepard Tones, which sound as if they increase (or decrease) in pitch forever. What actually happens is that the tone is made up of a number of frequencies, reducing in loudness the further they are from the 'main' pitch range. You could do it at a piano with five people (each using just one finger!). All stand at the piano, and each ...

I can't recall a time I've seen the opposite in print (not to say I haven't forgotten), but what I prefer to read (and what I would write myself) would be old on the left, new on the right for the following reason: The equals sign should be placed above the double barline between the two measures in question. As a result, the value to the left of the equals ...

The first step is obviously to memorize the piece. Play it absurdly slow (semiquaver = 20; no, I'm not joking). Practice by writing down the piece, check where your memory is weak and train more those parts. When you are able to write it down completely, without looking at the score, you've done half the job. Second step is being able to master all the ...

Frances Clark (a famous piano teacher) was asked a question about easy Chopin etudes. She replied (as documented in Questions and Answers) that his etudes only come in "hard, harder, and hardest". A graduate student in my piano program played a Chopin etude. He reported practicing 100 hours for a one minute performance. The Chopin etudes are highly ...

To play a fast piece (or section): Get a metronome. Set it to the slowest speed that you can play perfectly. Play the piece (or section) perfectly three times. Speed the metronome up by 2 clicks (4 BPM). Go to step 3. If you can't play it perfectly at that speed: one click down. Playing fast music is highly muscle-memory dependent. If you want general ...

So, I still don't have a good idea of what exactly is giving you trouble (mostly because I didn't ask the right questions), but I think that we've narrowed it down to the point where I can post an answer of reasonable length. When it comes to playing fast, there are a handful of types of figures that will give you some trouble. I'm going to cover repeated ...

Time signatures are primarily for notational purposes. Beat, tempo, and meter all describe a certain thing about the music, but the time signature is just how that's codified when it's written down. As you know, Tempo is the frequency of the beat, and Beats are a kind of rhythmic emphasis that happens at regular intervals in most music. Meter is an ...

I managed to figure it out while asking the question. The reason is that 8 beats happens more and more quickly. At 100 bpm, 8 beats takes 4800 milliseconds, yet at 150bpm, it only takes 3200ms. I came up with a schedule of how to program a beat-only metronome so the increases are as close to 1 bpm every 4800ms as possible: At 100bpm, increase 1 bpm every 8 ...

About using a metronome when studying a piece with tempo variations Using the metronome is especially useful when studying Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt or Scriabine. You should be able to play them in straight tempo, and the metronome can help you do that. When this is achieved, you can use it to train for a given acceleration or deceleration. It is often ...