July 23, 2015:practice Thursday

A few weeks ago I got a new metronome. This metronome is the third one I have owned. The second one was an electronic battery-operated gizmo that finally konked out. My first metronome was purchased around 1970 at Marshall Fields in Chicago, back when it was still Marshall Fields and you could buy anything there. It was exactly like this new one, a red German-made Wittner Super Mini-Taktell, the kind you wind up, set on top of the piano, and follow its ruthless authoritarian tick-tock until every note is perfect and every passage up to tempo. This little hunk of plastic and metal keeps me honest.