CMS Student Uses Music Practice Technique to Improve Swimming Skills

Frequently students at the Community Music School excel in more than just their music studies.  Below is a story from one of our students who applied a music practice tool, a metronome, to his swimming practice resulting in great success!

By Aiden Kim

My name is Aiden Kim, and I study Piano, Cello and participate in the YPSO at the CMS. I am also an avid swimmer. Recently, I competed at the Central Zone 14&U Championships, a national level swim competition, in Fargo, North Dakota. I represented Ozark (eastern Missouri and southern Illinois) and competed against nine other states. Three of those states, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio, are very strong swimming states that rank highly in the nation. Even though Ozark is not a very big swimming community, I am very proud that we managed to place a very respectable fourth place.

Individually, I entered six events out of a maximum of six you’re allowed. I also participated in three different relays. At the competition I won a total of nine medals, medaling in every individual event and relay I entered. I won three gold medals, the 200 Meter Freestyle, 4x100 Meter Medley Relay and the 4x50 Meter Medley Relay (a new Central Zone Record time); one silver medal in the 400 Meter Freestyle; and three bronze medals, in the 200 Meter Breaststroke, 50 Meter Breaststroke, and 4x100 Meter Freestyle Relay. Finally, I also had two fourth place finishes in the 100 Meter Freestyle and 200 Meter Individual Medley.

Especially in my 400 Freestyle, I am proud of how steady and metronomical I was. Previously, I was not very good at keeping a steady pace going and I would struggle in distances 400 meters and longer. However, I practiced swimming the 400 Freestyle with a metronome this season leading up to this competition. This metronome training really helped me improve on keeping a steady pace and it gave me confidence to enter the 400 Freestyle at a big competition for the first time. I placed second and received a silver medal for my efforts.

The training that led up to this race helped me realize that there is a lot more in common between swimming and music. Especially in how we practice. Doing endless rounds of drilling with a metronome. In music, that may come as a difficult passage in a piece. In swimming, like endless laps up and down a pool.

This competition was the last big swim competition of the 2023-2024 season. I look forward to starting the next year of swimming in September, and music next week.