Week 4 - The Metronome Is Your Training Partner

Solid rhythm and time feel is arguably the single most important quality of musicianship. No matter how many cool scales and ripping licks we have, all the most hip content in the world means nothing if we can’t execute it with a time feel that feels good in the body. 

The first step to developing a solid time feel is to become hyper aware of the variations in time. 

The metronome is such a useful tool because it plays “perfect time”. It gives us the absolute most even expression of a beat at any tempo. 

This is confronting because most humans (being human) naturally play with wavering time. When we begin our journey playing with metronomes, it’s easy to think “Hey, the metronome is dragging!” or “The click is broken, this isn’t helping!”

That’s normal because we’re used to our our natural sense of time, which is organically inconsistent and influenced by emotions, feelings, and other sensations that cause irregularities. That makes trying to sync up with a metronome who really doesn’t care about your feelings quite frustrating. But the more you calibrate to this apathetic friend, the more you are able to notice and refine your own inconsistencies. 

By no means is the goal to omit emotions

We definitely want to express feeling and emotion though our music and expression of time. We definitely want to sound like humans and not robotic metronomes. However in order to do this with deliberate intention where we can choose what feelings we create (which will sound the best) we have to first become hyper aware of all the varieties of time. 

There are many ways to hone your sense of time while practicing scales and technical stuff. Two great places to start would be working with subdivisions, and playing with beat placement. 

Subdivisions 

To practice subdivisions, it’s best to keep the metronome at a slowish tempo. Somewhere between 40-50bpm would be good. 

The goal is to be able to hear and play the various feelings created when we divide the beat into 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 notes, and beyond. Each subdivision has its own feeling to it, and it can be fun and challenging to switch between them on the spot. 

Being able to play a given exercise with a more unusual subdivision helps you better internalize the exercise as well as develops your ability to play with time. This is also a great way to enrich your soloing vocabulary, as great soloists will often create unique rhythms with subdivisions. 

Watch this video for a comprehensive place to start practicing subdivisions.

Beat Placement

Another super effective way to practice with a metronome is by placing the click on different parts of the measure.

If we’re playing in 4/4, we can think of 1 measure as having 8 eight notes:

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 

Take any exercise and play it multiple times as you place the click on different parts of the measure. Use this visual reference to see how the click can line up with any beat.*** { } = click

{1} + 2 + 3 + 4 + 

1 + {2} + 3 + 4 + 

1 + 2 + {3} + 4 + 

1 + 2 + 3 + {4} + 

You can start by having the metronome click on only Beat 1. This would be the easiest. If that’s easy, then count at the same tempo while the click lines up with only Beat 2, then only Beat 3, then only Beat 4.

These 4 variations alone will clean up your time really well.

To take this study further, you can then explore the upbeats. Try having the metronome click on only the “and (+)” of 1, then the “and (+)” of 2, “and (+)” of 3, lastly the “and (+)” of 4.

1 {+} 2 + 3 + 4 + 

1 + 2 {+} 3 + 4 + 

1 + 2 + 3 {+} 4 + 

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 {+} 

You can explore different settings with your metronome every day to keep your practice fresh and challenging. 

It’s great to practice any one of these variations for a few days in a row, or if you’re feeling comfortable, you can switch them up every day. Eventually, you will develop the control to really “manipulate time”, like a magician. You can reach a point where you’ll be playing a song or a solo and you can intentionally “mess with” the time for a certain emotional effect. 

Of course this only works when you can come right back into the original groove at will, and if you do, your drummer will fall in love with you!

So in conclusion, don’t underestimate the training capacity of the metronome!

If it’s intimidating at first, just work on matching the clicks with 1 note. And from there you will already be on your way to having a super solid time feel, which is what makes every listener “feel good” when they hear you.