Featured Lesson
The Metronome
As much as most rock players dislike
the metronome, it is an extremely vital and useful piece of equipment.
If you do not have one, go out and get one as soon as possible. A simple
digital metronome will do just fine. If the metronome can be set in
increments of single beats per minute that will be a great time saver
too.
I like to be able to enable/disable
the accent on the first beat, but this is more personal taste than
anything else.
As the first part of the lesson, I
want to remind you that the metronome is not just for playing exercises
and scales to. Use it for general riffing and jamming to tighten up your
timing. Use it to play songs to, it makes a nice difference from playing
along to a CD. You will pick up any potential flaws in your playing a
lot easier when there is no other music going, so play rhythm to the
metronome!
Probably one of the most important
gains you will receive is the ability to play comfortably to a click
track when you eventually wind up in a studio.
Using the metronome to gain
speed:
Approach 1:
Using the metronome, find your top
speed playing a speed exercise. Make a note of this.
Drop your speed by 25% and start
practicing that exercise at that speed for a minute or so, use your
discretion. Remember to maintain R.A.C.S.
(see the article) and make sure your technique doesn't corrupt as you
get faster.
Move the metronome up two BPM and
continue for a while. Move the tempo down one BPM and focus on cleaning
the piece up. Move up two BPM again. Drop down one BPM. Continue this
until you reach your top speed. This should ensure that you have played
slowly enough to spot any inaccuracies in your playing, so that by the
time you get to your top speed, you know there are no weaknesses in your
playing.
Now, push two BPM past your top
speed, and practice a while, maintaining RACS. If you make mistakes,
don't worry, just push a little to keep up the tempo. Now, move down one
BPM. Clean the exercise up and eliminate any weak spots and mistakes.
Continue moving two up, one down, two up, one down. Pushing the tempo
and cleaning up the exercise.
After a couple of weeks of this, you
should notice an increase in comfortable top speed, as well as an
increase in general fluidity. If you are that way inclined, keep a
record of how many BPM on average you can gain in a month. This will
assist in goal setting.
If two up, one down is too time
consuming for you, try four up, two down, or eight up, four down.
The benefit of two up, one down is that it gives you the time to
properly analyze and fix any problems.
Approach 2:
Dirty, dirty approach, but relieves
boredom. (added only to counter the long approach above ;-))
Find your top speed. and then set your metronome 2 BPM faster.
Then, try to play faster than the metronome for a while.
Match the metronome and clean it up. Repeat.
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