How I use the metronome to get into flow

A few years ago I was ramping up for the usual year-end concert crunch, when the next piece on my stand was Viet Cuong’s Trains of Thought for oboe, bassoon and piano. 

It’s the kind of piece I love playing: full of propulsive drive, colorful extended techniques and punchy high register licks.  But by the time I gave it my full attention, the concert was just two weeks away. “I’ve really done it this time,” I thought. “This one is going to get the best of me if I don’t practice in exactly the right way.” 

I had just started my study of flow, and as I started pulling a plan together to save my butt—I mean, learn the piece—I remembered something I had just learned about flow.

flow triggers

Flow (the optimal performance state where we learn, perform, and feel our best) occurs in the presence of certain environmental and psychological factors called triggers. There are over 20 flow triggers currently identified, and they work by doing two things: focusing us deeply in the present, and lowering our cognitive load (the number of things we are trying to keep in our mind at any one time).

the Challenge/Skill Balance

One of the most important triggers is having just the right balance of challenge and skill. For flow to arise—and with it, ultra-productive practicing—the task at hand must be slightly more challenging than what we’re currently capable of.

This isn’t news to musicians.  The question is, how much more challenging?  

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the father of flow, the ideal difference is 4%.

4% grants access to the flow zone.  Too easy and we lapse into boredom. Too challenging and we tip into anxiety.  4% is the sweet spot between the two, where learning, motivation, and performance take off.  

the flow zone metronome curve

When I heard this I thought, “That’s just math!” So I decided to use is as a template for increasing tempo on the metronome.

Here’s what 4% faster looks like in beats per minute:

• Between 60-96: +3 bpm

• Between 100-120: +4 bpm 

• Between 120-150: +5 bpm

• Between 150+: +6 bpm

This is my “close enough” protocol, since getting the true curve would require a metronome with decimal points.  And while I’m all for finding ways to make my metronome more useful, I draw the line at decimal points.  (I still haven’t gotten over when they started showing us how many cents we are off on tuners!)

the results

I’ll be honest, when I first worked out the 4% curve, I thought “There’s no way I can move the metronome up that slowly—it will take forever!” It took patience and trust to ascend through the tempos, but compared to my normal experience learning technique, the process felt surprisingly great:

• Each tempo bump was doable, but revealed a small issue that I quickly fixed.

• After each practice session I felt like a better player overall, even though I was focused on learning one particular piece.

• I could observe multiple sensory streams (another flow trigger), like intonation, tone, reading, legato, posture/relaxation. 

• It was engaging, fun, and satisfying.  I wanted to keep going even after my practice timer told me to stop.

• Upward momentum

And the payoff?  I learned the piece in half the expected time.   Half.

getting started with the flow zone metronome curve

Using the metronome curve is simple, but there are a few best practices to follow:

1. Find your starting tempo. Make a reasonable guess where you think you can currently play the passage you’re working on repeatably and with ease. If you guessed too fast, adjust your tempo down one 4% increment at a time until you feel it lock in. If you guessed too slow, increase your tempo until you start to make one or two errors or feel a bit of tension.

2. Attend to errors and move up the curve. In the 4% zone, errors will be small, fixable, and few (one or two). The task will be challenging but not overwhelming. Correct anything that needs attention, and when everything clicks and you can play with ease, increase the tempo another 4%.

3. Put it away. When progress stalls, stop. Don’t force yourself to go faster, or muscle through it. (Remember, ease is our marker of success.) Celebrate your gains and move on to the next passage!

4. Dial it back the next day. The next time you practice, start one or two tempo increments slower than where you ended. This allows you to ease into practicing and work out any tension before ramping the tempo back up.

why this works

Using the Flow Zone Metronome Curve, we work with problems when they are small. A tiny finger blip or bit of tension that is easily brushed off as “no big deal” at 60 can end up being a very big deal at 120.

Problems that are small are problems that are solvable. And each time we solve a problem, our brain gets a hit of dopamine—our primary reward neurotransmitter. The metronome curve keeps us in the sweet spot where we are constantly finding problems, solving them, and being rewarded for it.

There’s a kind of gamification happening here—each time we solve a problem and get to bump the metronome up, we get a prize (in the form of dopamine). Pretty soon, instead of trying to avoid problems, we actively seek them out because whenever the brain gets a little dopamine, it wants more. We’re essentially hacking into our reward system, and practicing becomes intrinsically rewarding and motivating in the process.

Another motivator is compounding progress. The curve compounds our progress like interest compounds in a savings account. Tempo gains might seem small at first, but as long as we’re solving all the little issues along the way, our progress becomes faster and faster. As we start moving the metronome up 4 clicks at a time, then 5, then 6, a sense of upward momentum takes over. Technique actually feels easier in the fast tempos, because we’ve built such a strong foundation working in the slow tempi.

in conclusion. . .

Discovering the Flow Zone Metronome Curve gave me my first major taste of flow while practicing, and the performance gain is no joke—I learn music faster and better than ever before.

The metronome curve has become a cornerstone of my technical practice, and is one of the techniques my clients tell me again and again has transformed their practice. I hope it does the same for you.