Metronome Lesson (OnLine)
We the people of the St. Peter's Catholic Community music ministry have a Metronome (strange ticking mechanism) in the music office to use whenever there is a question of tempo. Usually a metronome is used to help beginning, intermediate and advanced musicians play at at a steady tempo. With the advent of the digital age, these devices have become smaller, more portable and extremely accurate.
The Metronome in the music office can be used to determine whether what the tempo (timing) of a song is, or whether you have been playing the song too fast or too slow. This can be a surprise, especially if you have been used to playing a song at a certain tempo (for years!).
In the upper right hand corner of most music (not all) are tempo markings. Of course 3/4 or 4/4 tell us that there are 3 or 4 beats in a measure. The bottom four tells us that the quarter note gets one beat. So a tempo marking of 6/8 tells us that there are 6 beats in a measure and the eighth note gets the beat. And so on....
You will also find (in parenthesis) a musical note an equals sign, and a number. This is the metronome setting for the song. For example: a song may have a quarter note and equals sign then the number 88. Set the metronome to 88, each time the metronome "ticks" is equal to one quarter note beat. If the note is a half note, then each time the metronome "ticks" is equal to one half note etc.
Try this on a few of the songs that you have been singing and playing for a while. You will be amazed that some you have been playing too slowly and some you have been playing much too fast (according to the publisher and composer's wishes).
Check out this website, it is an OnLine metronome. God Bless and have fun!
Phil & Valerie