Metronome
A metronome is provided below to help aid you in your everyday practice, there are many types of metronomes and this is a free one that you can use anytime to play along to. Ask your guitar teacher about how to use one correctly. If you don’t have a guitar teacher consider asking about my guitar lessons in Auckland.
What is a Metronome?
A metronome is basically a counter that ticks along at various speeds, it provides a pulse or a beat that allows you to play in time to the tempo of a song. You can set metronomes to tick faster or slower depending on your needs, and use it to practice songs or pieces of music at various tempos. Metronomes work based on beats per minute, so if it is set to 60bpm (beats per minute) it will do 60 ticks every minute just like a clock. If it is set at 120bpm, you will hear twice as many beats as the number has doubled.
There are many advantages of using a metronome. As well as using one to practice staying in time, you can also use them to help build up speed by setting the metronome at a slow tempo, and practicing a part slow until you are comfortable enough to speed up. It is important to practice difficult pieces of music at slower tempos because it allows you to learn and concentrate on learning the song correctly. It allows you to build up the technical skills to be able to play at a faster speed and playing to a metronome helps keep the rhythm and timing of what you are learning.
Using a metronome greatly enhances your skills as a musician allowing you to comfortably play by yourself, whilst keeping a steady rhythm. If you are practicing guitar and like to learn by playing along to songs on the radio, or on your phone or computer, you will find that when you are not playing along with them that it is much harder to keep the beat. This is because you can get in the habit of simply following what is happening in the song and what the guitarist is doing on the record without paying attention to any of your own timing or rhythm issues. There is nothing wrong with playing along to your favorite songs, it is just important that you are able keep time when you are playing alone.
Below you will see a basic metronome. If you are wanting one to use offline there are many free or paid ones that you can find online to download on your computer or phone. You can also buy physical metronomes from your local music store and it will allow you to have access to one anytime.
Here is a simple metronome to help to learn to play in time
Metronome by BestMetronome.com