Keeping The Beat While You Play Piano

Keeping a steady beat while you play a rhythmic or fast song on the piano is not always easy. Personally, I find that songs with a three-fourths or four-fourths time-signature, are difficult to play, maintaining a consistent rhythm, without inadvertently speeding-up.

If I’m accompanying a soloist, or if a choir or a group of people are singing along, I do a better job of keeping a steady beat. But if no one is singing along, I find myself playing the song faster and faster.

The best way to keep the beat while playing the piano is to use a metronome. A metronome is a tool used primarily in practice. A metronome is a practice tool that produces a steady pulse (or beat) to help musicians play rhythms accurately. The pulses are measured in beats-per-minute (BPM). Usually, the metronome helps to maintain an established tempo while practicing, and learning difficult passages.

But when performing, the best use of keeping the beat is to simply pat your foot.

Understanding time-signatures is basic to using a metronome. Here’s a simple explanation: Time-signatures are found at the beginning of a musical piece, after the clef and the key signature. 
                          
Time signatures (also called meter signatures) consist of two numbers.

The top number of the time signature tells you how many beats to count. 

The bottom number tells you what kind of note to count.

• 1 = whole note (you’ll never see this)
• 2 = half note
• 4 = quarter note
• 8 = eighth note
• 16 = sixteenth note

So, (explained another way,) if the time signature is three-fourths, (“3/4”), that means that each measure gets 3 beats, (the top number is 3.) and quarter note gets one of those beats, (because the bottom number is 4). If the time signature is four-fourths, (“4/4”), then each measure gets 4 beats and the quarter note gets one of those beats.

But a musician can easily start counting, “1, 2, 3 / 1, 2, 3…” as he or she is playing the song, and before long, start to speed up their counting, so that they are counting rapidly. This is where a metronome becomes really helpful. It keeps you from speeding up, and keeps the pulse steady.

After practicing with a metronome for awhile, it’s always a good idea to start to pat your foot along with it. That way, when you’re performing, (and don’t have a metronome ticking away,) you’ll have the foot-patting thing “down,” and you’ll tend to stay within the right rhythm.

There are many, many websites written about the use of time-signatures and the metronome. “Seventh String” has a website with an Online Metronome. There are even websites that will allow you to download one to your mobile device or cell phone! Of course, if you want to keep the beat while you play piano, you can do the old-fashioned thing, and simply go out to a music store and buy one, and set it on top of your piano. You’ll have instructions inside the package for correctly setting it to the rhythm you want. That way, you select your song, set the metronome, learn the song, pat your foot, and practice, practice, practice, keeping the beat while you play the piano.   

Now you’re all set to go out on stage and perform with all your heart, feeling the song, feeling the beat and the rhythm, and engaging your listeners in the experience of a lifetime!

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