Time-keeping is arguably a central issue in music performance. Despite its seminal importance, surprisingly little research has been conducted on performers’ mental strategies underlying the performance of the metrical/rhythmical process of a composition or during improvisation. Similarly, the efficacy of routine pedagogical methods that aim at enhancing performers’ metrical/rhythmical skills is mostly unproven. However, the widespread concept of metrical/rhythmical skill as built on an internal metronome, which is the foundation of the majority of relevant pedagogical methods, has recently been challenged from both neuropsychology and pedagogy (for an important review, see Block & Grondin 2014).Building on studies of the cognitive representation of meter and musical form (cf. the above review), I propose to define metrical/rhythmical skill as a primarily attentional skill which is based on a cognitive ‘navigating’ ability of the musical process. This specific ‘navigating’ ability builds on ‘Moments of Focused Immersion’ (MFIs, defined by Stachó 2018) and involves a specific attentional processing which includes forward-focused (‘anticipation’), backward-focused (‘retrospection’), and present-moment-focused (‘mindfulness’) MFIs at well-definable moments in the musical process.I argue - and in my workshop intend to illustrate through an analysis of selected audio and video recordings and short live demonstrations - that stable long-term timekeeping in music originates from the above defined ‘navigation’ of the metrical structure (of a composition or a projection of a metrical process in an improvisation) in a cognitively ‘deductive’ way rather than from a metronomically ‘inductive’ internal process. Building on this model, I have developed a musical attention-training method (see Stachó 2025), the essential part of which is a training of rhythmical/metrical skill. Over the past decade, I have implemented and tested this approach in music education contexts across 20 countries, with exceptional results. In the workshop, alongside the demonstrations mentioned above, I will illustrate how the individual components of the training contribute to its effectiveness.