The Musician and the Metronome

The Musician and the Metronome
This little book aims to supply such knowledge. The techniques are really very simple. If one approaches the subject with an open mind, improvements that are positive, pleasurable, and often astonishing, are sure to follow.

Another very effective way to achieve results is to begin at a tempo of 60, with 3 or 4 notes to the beat, and work gradually slower to a tempo of 40. Then move the metronome to a tempo of 80 and work back to 60. Then jump to 92 and work back to 80. Continue this procedure until the desired tempo can be played with a feeling of relaxation The feeling of reducing one's tempo is conducive to relaxation whereas the feeling of increasing one's tempo is sometimes conducive to "tightening up."
(Unpublished paper of Floyd E. Low, Hibbing, Minn.)

In my entire career of 33 years with the Etude I have enthusiastically endorsed the use of the metronome. You see, in addition to being a musician I had training as a psychologist and I know the value of creating what might be called brain tracts or nerve tracts through kinesthetic action by means of accurate multiple repetitions. I know that Czerny, Liszt and almost every really great teacher of the past, has endorsed this process. With my own pupils in performances and in memorizing I used a plan that Czerny used, Liszt used and Leschetizky used. They required 8 or 16 correct repetitions of an exercise before proceeding to the next metronomic speed and were expected to go on until a speed in advance of the performance speed was achieved. Then and only then, after they had learned to draw a perfect circle, they were permitted to make certain changes which brought about expression. At this point I had them get Christiani's Principles of Expression and work out their own conception of expression according to their original ideas, always giving them counsel.
James Francis Cooke, Private Correspondence, 1940