One of the things we all must work on is management of time. For many in the world, this means dealing with schedules--how to get everything done in what seems like never-enough time.
Indeed, balancing all that we are expected to do (and more likely, expect ourselves to do) causes much consternation about time.
Time for the musician is a different matter altogether, and one that really, most just don't spend enough -time- worrying about. We work on many more, well, banal aspects of our art/craft--fingerings, smoothness, good articulation, is our instrument shiny enough, etc. While these things are important, even vital to what we do, time is paramount. As one of my teachers told me years ago, " being in time is like being pregnant--you are, or you ain't". He was right--there is no middle ground. Dealing with time correctly is the one thing that can make us sound bad or perfect. The great performer/conductor "gets" this.
So, how do we go about becoming perfect with time? Certainly, at early stages, metronomes can be a help. However, it can become a crutch--and one must make sure that it's a tool, and not more than that. Time deals with more than amazing precision of subdivision, although that's an important part of it. Time is about knowing how/when/where to "put" the music. Sometimes it's in tandem with others. Sometimes it's understanding the relationships of everything we're playing in a true solo line.
Regardless, it's an internal knowledge--it can't be faked or "hoped" through. Time must be understood in an incessant manner, and delivered with perfection, if we hope to be able to produce art.
