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Hi, can someone help me please. I am thinking of getting either a Wittner Taktell Piccolino Metronome with 390BK, swinging pendulum, 40 - 208BPM, winding mechanism. The other one is Wittner Taktell Piccolo with 837BL , swinging pendulum, 40-208BPM, also winding mechanism. It is small - around 6inches in height (i think), so you can take it anywhere. It is good for my child. All those BPM or BL or BK make no sense whatsoever to me!!! and do you need loud ticking and one with a bell?

Thanks for any advise.

This is not a piano history enquiry. The bell is to accent the first beat of the bar, they drive me crazy, and intrude terribly on the music, but some teachers insist on them. I would rather use a drum beat from a keyboard.

BPM is beats per minute. The metronome mark at the top of the music shows a note, then =, then a number.So a crotchet=60 means sixty crotchets to the minute, ie, one per second. A small metronome is useful for carrying about, but I have a credit card sized electronic jobby by Seiko, I think. That really IS useful - you can have the beep on the first beat of the bar (As drives Bill mad - I'm not keen either) or not, as you prefer, and it also gives you concert pitch A (not a lot of use to pianists, it has to be said, apart from driving them mad to find out the piano is three tones flat!). It's very easy to carry in a pocket or music case too. I used to have a Wittner piccolo at home, but it got broken - a lot more difficult to break the electronic one.