Occasionally, as now for instance, I practice slowly with a metronome. When I’m playing it seems deathly slow. And then I finish, but the metronome of course carries on until I hook it back up to its little slot in the top. When the metronome plays on its own, it loses all sense of time and speeds up disgracefully. 
Why is this?
I think my problem is worse. The metronome likes to run rings around me. First it’s in front, then it’s behind, then it laps me.
Oh dear. You’re feeding it the wrong stuff, Kevin. 
It’s exactly like this, Ben.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4DTqmln40c
What you have there is obviously The Red Metronome, cursed by the tears of Kaspar Weiss. Find some Romany to sell it to, then run away, run away! Before it has you playing at breakneck speeds like Stephane Grappelli and craving jazz chords. Or dropping dead at your next audition for William and Kate. I suggest that a remote island in the Atlantic off the west coast of Ireland may be your only safe refuge. Go!
Metronome? What’s a metronome?
A bodhran player’s best friend !
Metrognome:
Since my last metronome disintegrated years ago (probably due to its experiencing a high impulse followed by abrupt deceleration) I’m only using applets on the internet nowadays. I’m always using these over a proxy and wearing a tin foil hat though, just in case. You should always try to minimise the risk of third party inference!
Actually – Ben’s question is interesting. Obviously the speed doesn’t change, but the perception of it does. So why is that.. there could be a number of resons. Without testing one would maybe assume that it would feel like it’s speeding up when playing (due to performance stress), but instead Ben notices the opposite. Clearly there’s room for research here. I don’t own a metronome, or at least not a physical one.. I’m sure there’s something built into some software tool somewhere.. actually there’s a ‘visible’ metronome on the Snark tuner, but I don’t use that.
Maybe a poll? I can’t attend due to not having a metronome.. maybe I should get one. Those in wood at least look nice, even if it stays unused on the shelf.
o Speeds up when not playing
o Can’t say
o Slows down when not playing
-Tor
Thanks Tor. You’ve got exactly what I was getting at. I think you may also have hit the nail on the head with your "performance stress theory. I think the way that might work is like this:
While playing, performance stress means that you want to play faster, but the metronome is holding you back. Therefore it seems slow. When not playing, you relax and your perception of speed goes back to ‘normal’, so now the metronome isn’t holding you back, and it seems as if it has speeded up as a result.
What do you think?
Yes.. sounds like a possible explanation. And also the tendency to speed up while playing.. I do that if I’m not careful, and now that I’ve started to play with other amateurs (well that took a long long time..) it seems to be a common issue.
I should definitely get a proper metronome.. I don’t like click tracks, but a physical metronome would be something.
I think I’ve read something about this (not specifically mteronomes though), but neither racking my brain nor Googling can find it. However, in amongst this info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_perception is this “Time intervals associated with more changes may be perceived as longer than intervals with fewer changes”
Maybe stress can make “time slow down”.
I was in an auto accident once. I remember the last few moments very clearly, as if they were in slow motion. Every hit. Every sound. Every image. For me, time did slow down.
Perhaps stress triggers a rise in the perceptual “sampling rate”.
When I play with a metronome, I’m always a little stressed from the effort of focus.
Maybe, after you stop playing, your sampling rate goes down, leading to a “relative increase” in the perceived metronome tick speed.
trill