Miss D. had found that regular blinking, or a loud-ticking watch, or horizontal lines or marks on the ground, etc., similarly served to pace her, and to prevent the incontinent hastenings and retardations which otherwise marred her ambulation.
1991, Christopher Pollard, The Good CD guide, 1992
The secret seems to be a very precise control of the subtle slackenings and hastenings of tempo that are essential to Scriabin's idiom(..)