Why the Korg MA-2 is My Pick for Best Metronome
Korg MA-2 Pokemon edition
When I imagined my life in the year 2021 as a little boy, I never imagined that it would involve reviewing $20 metronomes. But the Korg MA-2 has been more useful and enjoyable than I had ever pictured when I first bought it.
The long and short of it is that it’s not just a metronome, but also a timer. So it helps keep me on track with things like my freewriting sessions. You could also use it in the kitchen for this purpose.
And on the topic of using a metronome for different purposes, keep in mind that there are more uses for metronomes outside of playing music, such as swing sports. Korg does make a metronome for golf.
However, as a musical metronome, the Korg MA-2 is also very useful. It has tap tempo, and multiple time signatures. If i’m ever working through a tricky piece of music, playing to a metronome at a slow tempo is very useful for getting everything down so that I can start to create some sort of muscle memory around the piece. Then I can speed it up.
One thing that might bother some people is that it only makes one sound: A beep! However, if you keep the volume low enough this isn’t too annoying. It does also have a tone generator which can be used for tuning your instrument, or to give you a reference pitch for singing.
If you compare it to most other metronomes of this style, it’s probably just about the same. However, that timer feature means that it’s become a staple object in my home. If I ever had to get rid of everything so that I could star in a documentary about minimalism, I would keep this item.
Pictured above is the Pokemon version of the metronome which is great for kids or if you want something that pops with bright colours, but I own the blue with black trim model, which I thought looks nicer than the black with red trim.
As for metronomes that you can use on your mobile, I love Pro Metronome (Apple | Android). It can generate all sorts of weird time signatures with accents and polyrhythms. This helps come up with a lot of different ideas. The Android version does not seem to have as high a rating count as the Apple version.
Either route you pick, don’t be afraid of trying out a metronome even though you might be traumatized by them from music lessons as a kid. I’ve found them to be very helpful as long as you don’t over-use them and look for the creative benefits of them in the process.
