I’m a 16 years old guitarist, i mainly play funk, blues and rock, i understand quite well rhythm, subdivision etc, but i’m really bad at timing, staying on time. To the point sometimes i feel embarassed to play with others and record in studio. I know i should start practicing with the metronome, but more specifically how should i practice?
This You have to be able to literally feel it and anticipate what others age going to do based on it especially in a jam.
Yes! And 16 is young. Not many at 16 have enough time hearing the music, and playing along with the greats to get that rhythm in them and feel it. It’s one of those things that takes time.
Honestly practicing with a metronome is the best thing you can do.
And use the Carol Kaye method. The metronome should sound like it's.jamming with you as part of the music.
Practice practice practice.
But not without purpose.
When you practice focus on what your mistakes are, and try to figure out why your making them. Don't just drill mindlessly. Pay attention, and focus on the problem areas.
AND The biggest mistake people make with funk music, is holding notes too long. To be funky, ending the note at precisely the right moment is just as important as starting it at the right moment. When that note is done, it's DONE. You don't want long decaying tails. Or extra noises.
The silence between the notes is essential to creating the feel.
Metronome work is like meditation, and actually works as meditation. It helps you see how you’re getting in your own way.
+1 for metronome. Mine is always at the ready.
Mentally, OP might want to have it click on the '2 and 4' (not the 1 and 3). Reason is this puts the burden on the player to define the down beats, and that is going to solidify the groove more than when it is played 'for you' by the click.
Same can be said of using a drum machine to play full beats. That can help, but having those holes to filled with your own playing is what will make you stronger as a player.
I'd been playing for years before I discovered this exercise and it absolutely works wonders and will fix your timing:
Practice to the metronome like this - with the clicks on the 2 & 4 (as if it's the snare). It's hard at first but once you get it you're golden. Might take a few days/weeks to get it.
This is excellent for anything with a backbeat or with a swing. 1 and 3 are better for latin grooves though.
Good to know - thanks for the tip!
start slow with the metronome stay loose. rhythm is all about timing haha. can count subdivisions til the cows come home, but just start strumming with a metronome, slowly, like 50bpm or something, just quarter notes, then eighth notes, then sixteenth notes, then try triplets.
Play to a metronome and play along to tracks
If, like me, you don't feel natural playing to a metronome, try practicing to simple, straightforward (even 'skeletal') beats. (Consider starting with kick on the 1, 2, 3, and 4, and a simple BackBeat snare on the two and four.)
If you don't have your own drum machine you can probably record a friend's or find online drum machines with simple programming capabilities.
As a death metal rhythm guitarist, I just use a guy called Max Backing Track on YouTube. He's got so many pretty much fully fleshed out drum tracks that you can jam along with. After doing that for like three years it's gotten to the point where I can pretty much improvise a whole death metal song on the spot.
They’re fantastic. I use them all the time
I've been using BandLab for this. The ability to create any beat I want at any tempo and save it to my phone as a sound file is incredibly useful
And it's free and has an upgrade path to their DAW, Cakewalk, which is also currently free.
Wow, cakewalk is still around? I could swear thats what I played with when I got my first computer that could do any recording back in ‘98.
It probably was -- they were out in front there. Cakewalk pro 5 added some recording capabilities to their MIDI sequencer, and Cakewalk Pro Audio 6 was their first fully native DAW, released in late 1996. I'd been waiting for that day and had an 8 channel hardware rig ready to go.
(Their MIDI software went back to the 1980s.)
The original company 12 Tone was pretty cool, but not necessarily deep-pocketed. They sold to Roland who were decent at maintaining the independent software but it didn't ultimately fit into their plans, apparently, and they sold to Gibson, the guitar company who had some high-tech MIDI and other guitars they were working to promote -- but they seemed more than a bit clueless about where they wanted to go with the flagship, Sonar. The changes they made struck a number of users as real head scratchers.
Gibson appeared to lose their passion for the project and fixes for the many bugs were slow to come. Finally they said they were walking away from it and divested the intellectual property behind it to a Singaporean company that makes the online song creation software Bandlab, who renamed their free version of Sonar back to Cakewalk and plunged into the task of cleaning up all the unfinished business Roland had left behind and improving the menus and documentation. They now say they are planning on keeping the current version of Cakewalk free (but frozen, and unsupported) but augmenting their ongoing lineup with a supposedly low priced entry level DAW as well as a full featured professional version.
(I think they're going to have to be very careful about how they price it all if they want to keep up any momentum. Even though the software has progressed and improved, the market has evolved and without an advertising budget to speak of, editorial comments in trade publications were not forthcoming. Hate to sound cynical, but that's just how it is in publishing.)
Thanks for the delightfully detailed info-dump! Impressive.
IMO, if it doesn’t feel natural playing along to a metronome, it’s because you need to practice playing along to a metronome more often. There will be times where you’ll probably need to play along to a metronome (studio etc), so it’s a very useful skill for everyone to develop.
Perhaps so.
But I'm wondering what you see as the advantage of working to a metronome -- as opposed to an appropriately set up drum machine beat?
At any rate, I strongly suspect we would both agree that working with one or the other or both is good discipline and will help the musician internalize such external rhythm sources.
At a certain point, when you strip a drum beat down enough it’s just a metronome. The advantage of working with a metronome/very stripped down drum beat is that it can help practice maintaining subdivisions on your own.
I.E. being able to play and stay in time when the drum is only doing the 1&3, or 2&4, or just the 1, or 1 every two measures.
Certainly true!
Also wanted to add. For me, if I try something musical and I’m bad at it, this means that’s my new focus. That’s made it much easier for me to quickly learn things now. I definitely wouldn’t avoid something because I’m bad at it.
You're lucky! A lot of people struggle to learn music.
I grew up at a time when a lot of music teachers acted as though their job was to be gatekeepers and keep people from learning music. I was told twice I had absolutely no musical talent whatsoever. (Not without reason, and probably with the intent of saving my parents money and me trouble. But I really wanted to play.)
Because of that sort of pedagogical obstructionism, I found it extremely discouraging trying to learn to play music as a child. As a consequence, I didn't really start learning to play until I was 20 when I finally had the confidence and clarity of insight to reject the defeatist garbage that had been loaded up on me.
As a consequence, I have little patience for pedagogical pathways that make things harder for struggling musicians. Not everybody can be a virtuoso, but most people can learn how to make music for themselves and have the pleasure of creating music themselves, however simple. Musical gatekeepers are for the admissions office of conservatories, to my way of thinking.
I don’t believe in natural ability (“you’re so lucky”). I was absolutely disgustingly terrible at the beginning, just like everyone else. I also couldn’t afford lessons until I had been playing for about 17 years. I’m one of those hyper focused people (with something I enjoy), so that helped me to not be lazy. Also, being bad at something, then becoming good at it is exceptionally rewarding to me. If the posters goal was just to have fun, then I’d say do whatever you want, but if he wants to get better, I’d recommend focusing on things you’re bad at, and enjoy the process of getting it up to speed. That on its own is the most valuable lesson, IMO.
I like your attitude! There is much to be said for aggressively attacking the issues that stand in one's way.
Let’s say you’re recording, and there are parts where there’s guitar only (not uncommon), you gonna absolutely need the recording engineer to program a beat in order to record the part, because you can’t play to metronome?
Certainly, there are places where a metronome is appropriate. But we were talking about a young guitar player working to develop a sense of timing and rhythm.
With regard to your example, it seems likely that the most direct solution would be to come up with a rhythmic event, like a metronome (or a side stick, kick drum, you name it) that marks time in a clear-cut way for the soloist.
But I have worked with accompanists who preferred, say, to work with a kick drum for skeletal beats, which they found less distracting because of its lower pitch.
I guess it all depends on the person. I prefer to develop the skills that will make me be better in the future. I personally find it strange that most guitarists I know (except for the extremely high level ones that are essentially virtuosos) absolutely despise practicing to metronome. At least in this case you’re still saying to use a drum machine or something at a fixed tempo, so that’s good. But I still find the, “I’m bad at this, so I will avoid it, even though it’s very useful” approach to be extremely strange for someone who plans on getting better.
Absolutely agreed on the attitude issue! Practicing stuff you're not good at is never a lot of fun, but it typically pays off with you getting better and expanding your horizons.
(And, of course, I was kind of focused on hekp getting the OP over the hump of learning to work with rhythm in the first place.)
I think as a stepping stone, your advice is 10/10
Play along to music. And eventually start playing with people.
I already do, i have a band, and most of the time i don’t have problems, but sometimes it’s like i forget timing, i really don’t know how to explain it better.
Sorry I missed that part.
Just keep at the practice. I'm 55 and my main practice is primarily simple groove stuff, trying to get that timing super precise and clean sounding. It translates when I play faster crazier stuff in bands.
You just need to play more, if you have a band perfect. Take all that embarrassment and pride out of it don’t feel bad for making mistakes that’s what practice is for. If your recording your stuff that’s a plus. Listen to your self and see where you are messing up, take steps to fix that. Slow down, like way down. If you keep making mistakes while playing your going to end up committing those to memory, same if you slow down and do it right. Walk before you run. I have no idea about your skill lvl besides what you have told us but your 16 dude, and in a band you have every advantage so take them. Good luck on your musical journey and don’t get discouraged.
Thank you much for your kind words, really motivated!!
Always, always play to a metronome (or even a click when on stage). At some point in the future you will become one with it.
Lots of good stuff above! Youtube a style and bpm and you'll get drum backing tracks for nearly everything that you can practice with. Isolated tracks from popular songs, etc. Jam with others to build your chops at handling organic changes in live playing.
If you’re bad at timing you’re not good at rhythm.
There is no good at rhythm and bad at timing. The two are inextricably linked.
Like others have said above metronome practice.
I had an instructor tell me to sleep with one on. Which I did for a bit.
Looper pedal.
Play along with the music you like. That way you’re never bored. But seriously do it like, constantly!!!!
You have no idea how much I wish other guitarists would admit to this, and work on it. Never seems to be an issue for bassists or drummers (that get hired), because being sloppy in timing absolutely isn’t an option for rhythm section, if you want people to not walk out the bar while you play. It’s also important for guitarists too, but a lot of guitarists I know speed up like crazy when soloing.
Solution: practice along to a metronome often. There are lots of free apps. Put one on your phone so you never have an excuse to not use it as a practice tool. There are also good metronome apps that omit beats, which help A LOT with training for timing. It will skip several beats, and when the next beat happens, you will blatantly know if you are rushing or dragging. I use the app Time Guru (paid, I think) for this.
Edit: almost every guitarist I’ve worked with that’s had a hard time with timing, and expressed frustration, and asked for advice, absolutely refuses to practice along to a metronome when that’s why I recommend. Some of them say, “metronomes are for drummers.” LOL!!!! Metronomes are for people who want to learn to stay in time.
A thing that helped me a lot with timing was this:
Play funk songs to a metronome set a half-speed. (If the song is 100 bpm, set metronome to 50 bpm.) Now, play along as if the metronome clicks are beats 2 & 4, NOT beats 1 & 3. This forces you to find the 1 every measure without hearing it.
I sucked at it when I was 16. Keep practicing, it will get better!
I wouldn’t call that good at rhythm. Rhythm has to be embodied. You have to feel the groove — that’s what entrainment is.
If I am grooving, my strumming/picking hand doesn’t stop even when I am not actually hitting the strings. I make my strumming hand my metronome and will often move, taking a step on the one of the bar. Move until it feels good and you can stop counting.
play with the metronome clicks only on the 2&4
Play with a metronome to get better at timing.
Metronome.
Play along with recordings but loud enough to hear yourself.
Tap foot in time with Metronome.
Never sit and noodle without something keeping time. Timing is ostensibly the most important thing to have nailed that you can't readily "flex" with. When I was your age, my drummer sucked so I was holding the whole band in time on guitar. I can't reccomend, but it got me good at controlling and staying on tempo.
Play along with recordings you really like & know well, and don't overthink it. Feel the groove inside you.
I can't play to click. But when I recorded to drums, it works.
There's a divide in musicians. Either click is God or drums are.
I'm shit with click, but god with drums.
So I only recorded once the drums are done.
No offense intended, but if you are bad at timing, you're bad at rhythm. I've never practiced with a metronome. I'm not saying that it's a bad idea nor trying to make myself sound like I think I'm all that; simply saying that you can get a good sense of groove, feel and timing simply by playing along with recordings and with other musicians. The more you do it, the more you will get a feeling for it and be able to lock in.
You need old-school instruction, like the kind I had from my piano teacher when I was a kid in the early 1980s.
I used to play repetitive licks over top of rap and hip hop. They use drum machines. Even when the machines are “off kilter” they are still consistently repetitive. I didn’t realize it until later in life/development but this way of practicing basically left concise timing ingrained in my muscle memory. And gave me an almost subconscious ability to find the 1.
Play along with the stuff you like. You gotta get the rhythm in you not just in your brain.