The IWB As A Metronome

http://techinmusiced.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/app-information-truemetronome/

I was over at the Tech In Music Ed blog and his review of a metronome app reminded me of a success I had in rehearsal this spring.

I was having trouble with some students rushing in a 5/4 time piece.  For some reason, beats four and five would get rushed.  I am pretty sure the problem was lazy counting...you know some student musicians can't count past four.

I know.  Lame joke.

Anyway, I put the Steinway iOS metronome app up on the IWB and had them count (out loud) and clap on the beat to five a few times.  All the beats.   Just to prove it could be done.  Then to be sure they were counting carefully, I had them count and add rests on random beats.  As in clap on 1,3 and 4.  Now just 4 and 5. Now just 2 and 3....

I'm sure the possibilities are endless.  I think the element of randomly placed rests forced kids to keep their head in the game and the clapping made it obvious if a student wasn't.

The App was running through my music room sound system so kids could hear it well.  Why the Steinway app?  I does a good job of accenting the down beat AND it can do that for 5/4 time. A pretty good combination for this situation.  I love the fact that you can find an app for just about any problem you can think of these days.