Finding the Rhythm in Conversational Scenes

On a recent short film, I experimented with a 'musical' approach to blocking and directing the pacing of a lengthy two-person dialogue scene. I had the actors read their lines with a metronome at a deliberate, slow pace first, then slightly faster, focusing not on emotion but on the inherent rhythm of the words themselves. What worked surprisingly well was discovering a natural ebb and flow that emerged from this purely technical exercise; it highlighted where beats needed to be held or rushed, independent of character intention. What didn't work as expected was trying to sustain this metronomic timing during the actual takes with full emotion, it felt artificial. Instead, the prep work became a valuable blueprint, and on set, I’d refer back to the 'feel' of those rhythmic readings rather than explicit counts. It taught me that while structure can be built mechanically, performance needs to be lived. For those integrating music into scene work, how do you balance technical rhythm with emotional authenticity during performance?