A metronome is an instrument giving an audible or visual signal making it possible to indicate a Tempo, speed to which must be played a music. It is especially used in the study of a partition, the installation of a interpretation or schedule (timing) seeks it of a musical work.
History
On the basis of the principle that one meter of ballasted wire is balanced at the one second the speed, by isochronous movements (they do not have the same amplitude, but they have the same duration) , then noticing that the oscillations are proportional to the length of the wire (half shorter = faster half, doubles longer = double slower…) , in 1696, Etienne Loulié (v.1637-1702) the first graduated metronome develops, a two meters height and with the dumb beats (see opposite) . During a few seconds, the swinging of a weight fixed at a wire a definite length is always done at the same speed. To note that to take the pulsation with precision on these visual apparatuses, the moment should be perceived when the wire is exactly with the vertical and not on the right maximum elongations and lefts which, by definition, are variable, in unceasingly reduction.
Invented with Amsterdam in 1812 by the Dutch clock and watch maker Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel (about 1780-1826), the traditional metronome with audible pulsation was patented in 1816 by the Austrian Johann Nepomuk Maelzel. It consists of a movement of Horlogerie to exhaust provided with a graduated beam whose beats (i.e. the pulsations) determine equal durations (i.e. the time) , a sliding mobile counterweight on the beam making it possible to modify speed (i.e. the Tempo) . Each graduation indicates a subdivision of the minute. For example, 60 means sixty pulsations per minute, that is to say oscillation a second; 120 = a hundred and twenty pulsations per minute, is two oscillations a second…). The instrumentalists and leaders prefer to him today the metronomes electronic S appeared during second half of the 20th century and of which there exists a great number of more or less sophisticated models, less cumbersome, more precise and especially more reliable.
Uses
In the training of a piece of music, a metronomic progression makes it possible to reach a required tempo little by little and to perfect its instrumental or vocal technique. It consists over several days (even weeks or month… years?) to play with the metronome technical difficulty while starting in a slow tempo which one goes up gradually to bring it to his limits of perfection. It is one of the basic activities of any instrumentalist. On a partition, the metronomic indication generally follows the indication of movement (Adagio, Andante, Allegro, Presto…) and is made up of a often miniature figure of note and of a number, separated by the equal sign (=): the figure indicates the unit of time (black, white, eighth note…) and the number generally corresponds to the graduation between 40 and 208 pulsations per minute.
To calculate the schedule of a partition, it is enough to hope the number of measurements, to multiply it by the number of times per measurement, then by sixty for the minute and to divide by the tempo metronomic indicated, one obtains the duration in second of the piece. For example, the Boléro of Maurice Ravel contains 340 measurements at 3 times, that is to say 1020 times:
(a time = one second) , he will last 1020 seconds, that is to say exactly seventeen minutes (1020: 60 = 17) ,
Italian terms and tempos
entre principal the Italian terms relating to the Tempo and metronomic graduations:
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