I know there was a thread on this, but search isn’t working (at all) for me right now.
What would be a typical setting for a typical horse for each working gait? I know it needs tweaking, but I don’t even know where to tweak from 
For my 14.2 Connemara:
Trot 78 BPM, Walk 52 BPM, Canter 98 BPM
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Your 14.2h Connie’s trot is 78? Really?
Not meaning to critique Mallards pony, but those do sound quick to me.
Alas, the # 55 is sticking in my head from the l seminar on freestyles, but I’m not remembering if that was for trot or canter. Sorry! Report back, though - I’ve been meaning to start playing with a metronome again.
When the one I ordered years ago showed up ticking in the package it made an impression on me and the politically progressive non-profit I worked for, but I never played with it enough on the ponies...As a point of reference, the defaults for the Equitempo iPhone app are:
walk 97
trot 152
canter 328
They must be counting every footfall…
I just listened to 152 and that sounds much better for a trot for a horse 
And yes, that would be each of the 2 beats.
I can’t figure out the 328 though - mine only goes to 210, and at the 4/4 it was slow, so maybe 328 would be in the ballpark for each footfall? I think I’d rather go, for the canter, to each leading leg being the 1 beat. If you divide that by 3, that gets you 109 which does sound to be in the ballpark if you’re at 2/4
Great question - I’m a musician and have 88 bpm ingrained in my soul from years of All-State and honor band scales (and all the years and years of lessons practicing at 88 bpm). I’d have to test it on my horse, but 88 bpm actually seems pretty close to my 14.3 hh mustang’s working trot - that’s one side only, though, because I’m “posting” to determine the speed. So 176 bpm for both front feet - which is fast, I know, but even when he’s fully collected I’m teased that he has the fastest dressage test ever. He actually has a trot that moves so fast there is NO bounce - and you have to ride it in gallop position And why not? The stallion I believe he descended from was clocked at 17 miles per hour at the extended trot!
Online googling shows 152 bpm is “Mr. Average Horse” at the trot (both legs), and 96 for canter, and 108 for walk (front two legs only)
Edit - k - I’m really going to have to record him to find out for sure, because he fits Jason Mraz’s “I’m yours” very well - we can do Training Level One in just about the whole song, and that’s 151.1 BPM. Going to look up more songs that I often ride to and see what their BPM are!
KINDA off topic but not really
I like to play “dinner music” up at the arena when I ride and it is amazing how the horse develops the beat of the music. If the song is really quiet and slow, they do the same and when the beat picks up in the song so do they. Anybody else noticed this when they ride with music. I like to do this with babies, it makes it easier to get them to moving at different speeds within the gaits. maybe I’m unconsciously doing it but it seems so much easier 
I’m not sure the horses enjoy my singing along, but hey, it’s only about 45 minutes out of their day, right?
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Yes…‘78’ is his trot.
This is counting the steps taken on only one front foot, not both.
If you want to count both feet, then you would double that, and get 146.
And no, it’s not too fast.
My 16.2 horse trots at 76/153.
Mallard, ok, that makes much more sense! 
I just knew you were talking about the 1-2 beat at 78 and I thought “no horse, no PONY, can trot that slowly” :lol:
But, 78x2=156 That sounds MUCH more reasonable for a large pony
My 14.2 Arab was 78 trot, 54 walk and 102 canter from a ride to music clinic last winter. Canter is still a work in progress tho.
the advertisement has been reported…but still an interesting thread about BPM’s
Late to the party…
Good lord, no. I’m a professional musician & I despise metronomes. Don’t even own one. Refuse to own one. IMO they’re good for guitarists practicing shredded passages & for lining up tracks when you’re recording. They don’t teach you to feel the beat. With little piano students I find strumming the beat on the guitar as they play is infinately more helpful.
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How does that translate to using one while riding?
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Those of us who despise metronomes feel their only worthy use is for taking out frustrations … with a large hammer.
This may come back to bite us in the arse end come freestyle time … or not since we (royal we since I can only speak for myself) know many songs, tunes, marches, and orchestral pieces that fit our horses gaits. Hell, I could rhyme off enough country Christmas songs to fill a nice freestyle for my horse.
*country station comes in clearest in the arena so it’s the choice when not listening on personal devices
just play the radio while you ride! I don’t know where i’'ve been but I didn’t know metronomes while riding were a “thing”.
I could be waaaaay off base with this, but I see trying to time the footfalls of the canter to a metronom as problematic. The canter consists of 3 foot falls. But, I’m not convinced that they’re 3 even foot falls. And there’s that suspension phase. I’ve never for the life of me been able to feel the canter in 3/4. I feel it in 1. If you listen to horses running up from the field on hard ground you hear bascally one foot fall. Or sort of a synchopated rhythm that i equate to rolling a chord on the piano. This makes more sense if you considered the natural weight distribution at the canter is 60/40.
I guess you could argue that the 3rd beat of the canter is subdivided & consists of the front foot pushing off on the 1st half and the suspension is on the “&” of the beat. Except, music that uses an even 3 beats to suggest a horse’s motion doesn’t work very well. In Franz Schubert’s “Der Erlkonig” he uses an unrelenting triplet pattern (dividing the quarter note into equal thirds) in the bass of the piano to represent the father’s horse. It’s a thrilling song to sing and to listen to. But it doesn’t really sound like a horse. By contrast , Rossini’s William Tell Overature does really sound like a horse because the gallop is a 4-foot fall gait AND the melody is synchopated.
Watch Totilas and Edward Gal’s record test at Olympia. When they make the upward transition to the extended canter down the diagonal - the music increases in volume (crescendos) but doesn’t speed up or change time signatures. It stays in a strong 4/4 feel. The music during the pirouette and transition back to the trot doesn’t have a strong sense of tempo or beat (on purpose, I imagine). The music during the trot and last piaffe I feel in a strong 2/4 - again I imagine a deliberate choice to help the horse & rider place the 2 foot falls of the trot/piaffe evenly.
Most horses I’ve met have a stronger sense of rhythm than humans. My 11yo told me that a study showed that horses prefer jazz as their favorite genre. Go figure. Lol.
http://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/201…horses-part-3/
Instead of a metronome I would just google search what songs fit the BPM I need and make a playlist for each. Playing the radio won’t enable you to choose what gait to work on at any given time, as you’re subject to whatever they choose play.
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I am very illiterate when it comes to figuring out bpm. A metronome I was thinking might help me! I do ride with music but I am paying more attention to what I’m doing rather than footfalls matching the beat. And a metronome might not distract me so much as an actual song to figure it all out:lol:
I got confused by your post. As I read it as you were talking about teaching music and rather use a guitar then a metronome.
