How to practice with a metronome

Ideally, working with a metronome helps you to internalize your own sense of steady rhythm.  It is helpful to practice with a metronome, gradually building the speed of a piece step by step.  But, we also need to be using the metronome to help us internalize our own sense of rhythm.   To do this, we want to be clapping along with the metronome before practicing with it.  Clapping with the metronome helps us to feel the rhythm within our bodies, since rhythm needs to be felt physically.  After a while, we are able to clap a steady beat without the metronome.  Then, when we practice our piece without the metronome, we are able to feel if we are playing along with our own steady beat or not.  Since most music is performed without a metronome, it is helpful to establish a very steady sense of rhythm.  A potential danger of  practicing with the metronome is that we rely on the metronome to keep us steady, instead of feeling the steady beat ourselves.  If used this way, the metronome becomes more of a crutch than a tool.  The metronome can be a wonderful tool if we clap along with it to begin to internalize rhythm.

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