A metronome is an extremely important piece of equipment for your practice sessions! You set a metronome to the tempo you want when you work on a piece of music. The goal is to get the piece to the desired tempo at the top of the page, but it's important to practice at a reasonably slow tempo to begin! If you can play an entire piece at tempo, minus one little section, remember to start that difficult section slow and increase your tempo by 4 bpm as you get better and better at the challenging excerpt.