I've been playing for about 6 months now, and just now have I started playing with a Metronome and along with tracks to improve my timing. And I am utter POOP. I can't even explain how awfully I am at timing. I recorded myself once and it sounded terrible, speed jerks everywhere. Am I permanently screwed for having bad timing, or can I improve this?
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Normal to have HORRENDOUS timing when first metronoming?
- Thread starter Tupac
- Start date
I used to have the same problem, and many of the musicians I have worked with still do, some of them are much older than me and still haven't developed a good sense of rhythm. Keep practicing and recording yourself, it will pay off.
Patience my friend. The first step for improvement is identifying what needs to improve. You are well on your way. 6 months is not a long time and improvement comes slowly. Just keep at it. Taking lessons can speed up things but just doing it will get you there eventually.
Nobody has "perfect" time, players just get better at noticing more minute tempo errors and faster at correcting it, with experience. It's completely normal, just keep it up.
You JUST started playing with a metronome and you're already discouraged? Many people find that it takes more than a few weeks of practicing with a metronome to achieve perfect timing. 
Good job recording yourself. Even experienced players can be surprised when they listen back to a recording of themselves. Play with a metronome every day faithfully and your timing will improve significantly. The only way to get better faster is to practice more.
Good job recording yourself. Even experienced players can be surprised when they listen back to a recording of themselves. Play with a metronome every day faithfully and your timing will improve significantly. The only way to get better faster is to practice more.
To the OP...there's different things you can do to help with that stumbling block...
Start the metronome. However, tap your foot on the quarter notes, or with that timing.
Now, try a riff, or song with your foot tapping to the quarter notes. Example in 4:4 song: You're playing eighth notes in a section of the music. That's two notes per tap of the foot, or one quarter note per foot tap. It's much easier to count that for some beginners than to count/play eight notes (or the equivalent 1ee, and uh 2ee, and uh 3ee, and uh 4ee) for one beat of the metronome, or a single foot tap.
You will graduate, or improve on metronome if you commit to spending time with it...
Start the metronome. However, tap your foot on the quarter notes, or with that timing.
Now, try a riff, or song with your foot tapping to the quarter notes. Example in 4:4 song: You're playing eighth notes in a section of the music. That's two notes per tap of the foot, or one quarter note per foot tap. It's much easier to count that for some beginners than to count/play eight notes (or the equivalent 1ee, and uh 2ee, and uh 3ee, and uh 4ee) for one beat of the metronome, or a single foot tap.
You will graduate, or improve on metronome if you commit to spending time with it...
Schpector said:
This isn't true. Anyone can improve.
Observing your playing objectively is a skill in itself and the metronome really helps. Stick with it for a while and you will improve. Every player has to go through it. Look at the mechanics of your playing too. Often people have areas where they stiffen or link movements together and have trouble separating them.
I had to learn to keep time and play grooves without a drummer and with free improv over the top of what I was doing in the last band I was in. That was hard. One thing that REALLY helped was foot tapping. If you can play everything you play with your foot tapping the main beats, then once you can tap your foot metronomically you're all good. Work the foot in - trust me it will help.
An old fashioned technique that works both with and without a metronome is to count out loud.
Count 1+2+3+4+ for starters.
Counting aloud has been a tried and proven method since music began. It is my belief that many players with bad timing haven't been taught to count properly.
Count 1+2+3+4+ for starters.
Counting aloud has been a tried and proven method since music began. It is my belief that many players with bad timing haven't been taught to count properly.
You JUST started playing with a metronome and you're already discouraged? Many people find that it takes more than a few weeks of practicing with a metronome to achieve perfect timing.
Good job recording yourself. Even experienced players can be surprised when they listen back to a recording of themselves. Play with a metronome every day faithfully and your timing will improve significantly. The only way to get better faster is to practice more.
this ^^
I recommend you never get into teaching if your advice to beginners is to quit.
I recommend other hobbies such as tennis, painting or fishing.
I've found that counting out loud (not just in your head) has been one of the most effective ways getting rhythm together. I do it with all my students.
To the OP, you're on the right track, it's great that you recognized the fact that your internal rhythm needs work. That's great! Everybody has this problem when they start out - I know I certainly did. Unfortunately, it takes a long, long time to get it together especially if you haven't worked on it before, whether consciously or unconsciously.
It can be maddeningly frustrating, especially since you can hear what's wrong even with simple rhythms, but have no idea on how to fix it. Don't worry! What your brain is asked to do in keeping a steady pulse is actually incredibly, mind-blowingly hard. Don't believe me?
Let's take an analogy of an artist and a 4-foot wide canvas. The artist is asked to eyeball 48 vertical lines exactly one inch apart, without the aid of any ruler or measuring tape. That sounds really hard to do, doesn't it? Nigh on impossible to do it 100%. And yet if we simply replace the idea of vertical lines with rhythms, all you're doing is playing 12 bars of quarter notes! You're "eyeballing" (earballing?) just the same way the artist does.
Once you wrap your head around this analogy, it becomes more and more obvious what we do as musicians is pretty damn hard - keeping steady time. The only way the artist is going to get better at this exercise is by doing it a LOT, and investing themselves totally in getting better at spacing the lines. The same hold trues for musicians, and the only difference is that the artist's task isn't necessary at all. It's 100% necessary for musicians to achieve that goal.
Schpector said:
Musical abilities such as tone discrimination, tonal memory and rhythm are aptitudes - not everyone has them. Yes, you can improve your rhythm a bit with practice, but if you really don't have it, be assured that you will have some other aptitudes that others may not have - you just have to find them.
It's typical to get a BIG reality check when beginning metronome work. You find out exactly where you like to be behind, and where you rush. You will improve with more time and practice, so don't get discouraged! Remember one thing though: metronome work is there to help you get more consistent with your time, not to make you a robotic
machine. Also, try to work on the "big beat" as well as the eighth and quarter note beats. After smaller note value work, make the clicks only 2 to a bar instead of 4, for instance, and see how you do.
machine. Also, try to work on the "big beat" as well as the eighth and quarter note beats. After smaller note value work, make the clicks only 2 to a bar instead of 4, for instance, and see how you do.
- Jan 4, 2010
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- Disclosures
- Band is sponsored by Trinity Amps and Sennheiser.
You obviously cared enough about music to put 6 months into it. You heard a tune or saw someone playing one day and said "I can do that", and you believed it enough to get your hands on an instrument and start playing. Don't let a little speed bump like "not being as good as you'd like right now" get you down. That's nothing. That's insignificant. It shouldn't slow you down, it should light a fire under your fanny and make you push twice as hard. I say this because you seem a bit dejected by your findings.
If you always keep your initial desire in mind, no amount of adversity will ever stop you. I bet you Django Reinhardt might of felt pretty crappy after his hand was crippled in a fire. But he pushed through it and became a legend. Same with Tony Iommi after his crippling accident.
The more you want something, the more you'll find hurdles such as "sucking with a metronome" will seem trivial. Just keep plugging at it. Failure can not cope with persistence. Focus on how much you love music. Focus on wanting to play music. Become obsessed with it. Keep these early recordings and come back to them after 6 more months of playing and following the good advice given by the other forum members here. I predict you'll be flabbergasted by your progress, as I'm sure you would be if you have a recording from the first day you picked up your instrument and compared it to where you are now.
If you always keep your initial desire in mind, no amount of adversity will ever stop you. I bet you Django Reinhardt might of felt pretty crappy after his hand was crippled in a fire. But he pushed through it and became a legend. Same with Tony Iommi after his crippling accident.
The more you want something, the more you'll find hurdles such as "sucking with a metronome" will seem trivial. Just keep plugging at it. Failure can not cope with persistence. Focus on how much you love music. Focus on wanting to play music. Become obsessed with it. Keep these early recordings and come back to them after 6 more months of playing and following the good advice given by the other forum members here. I predict you'll be flabbergasted by your progress, as I'm sure you would be if you have a recording from the first day you picked up your instrument and compared it to where you are now.
A lot of good comments here (and a couple of not so good ones...)
I think that playing in time is a lot more nuanced than just saying either you have good timing or you don't. Sure, a sense of timing is fundamental, but there is a lot more involved in applying that to a bass line. There's the basic mechanics of plucking the string, alternating fingers/strokes, crossing strings, left/right hand coordination, shifting positions, and muting, just for starters. Then you need skill in subdividing tempos, playing with other instruments, and combining it with all the other non-timing aspects of playing (e.g. dynamics, harmonic properties, etc.) So when you start playing bass lines with a metronome, you're actually doing quite a lot at once.
My suggestion is to build up to it. It may seem slow at first, but I think it's a good way to get through the issue you're experiencing without feeling overwhelmed. You could start by setting down your bass and clapping along to the metronome. Set it to click quarter notes and clap along until you no longer hear two separate sounds (i.e. the clap and the click should sound like one event). Repeat this at different tempos (go both faster and slower). As this becomes more comfortable, practice subdividing, such as having the click on the 1 and 3, and clapping quarter notes, or clapping eighth notes. Add triplet patterns as well.
Once you've gotten the feel down, and can do this with a variety of tempos, then switch from clapping to playing. Start with open strings or single notes at first before trying to tie the fingering and plucking hands together. If you listen carefully, you'll notice that the plucked note has a less distinct beginning than the click, more of a bloom. It's subtle, but it's there. It's also different on low notes/strings vs. higher notes/strings.
Then move to fingering different patterns that are relatively simple. This can include chromatic patterns or scales, assuming you can play these and still focus on the timing. At this point, you're starting to put it together, and it can go on to include more complex bass lines.
This may seem a little bit tedious, but I find that it's a small investment with long term rewards, and actually less frustrating than trying to tackle everything at once. I suggest 5-10 minutes per practice session (nearly every day, rather than marathon sessions), then do other things for the rest of the session.
One final note of encouragement. The fact that you're putting in the effort to learn, and that you hear the timing issues and are seeking to improve on them is a definite sign that this effort will pay off. I assure you, this is something we all have to work on.
Keep up the good work!
I think that playing in time is a lot more nuanced than just saying either you have good timing or you don't. Sure, a sense of timing is fundamental, but there is a lot more involved in applying that to a bass line. There's the basic mechanics of plucking the string, alternating fingers/strokes, crossing strings, left/right hand coordination, shifting positions, and muting, just for starters. Then you need skill in subdividing tempos, playing with other instruments, and combining it with all the other non-timing aspects of playing (e.g. dynamics, harmonic properties, etc.) So when you start playing bass lines with a metronome, you're actually doing quite a lot at once.
My suggestion is to build up to it. It may seem slow at first, but I think it's a good way to get through the issue you're experiencing without feeling overwhelmed. You could start by setting down your bass and clapping along to the metronome. Set it to click quarter notes and clap along until you no longer hear two separate sounds (i.e. the clap and the click should sound like one event). Repeat this at different tempos (go both faster and slower). As this becomes more comfortable, practice subdividing, such as having the click on the 1 and 3, and clapping quarter notes, or clapping eighth notes. Add triplet patterns as well.
Once you've gotten the feel down, and can do this with a variety of tempos, then switch from clapping to playing. Start with open strings or single notes at first before trying to tie the fingering and plucking hands together. If you listen carefully, you'll notice that the plucked note has a less distinct beginning than the click, more of a bloom. It's subtle, but it's there. It's also different on low notes/strings vs. higher notes/strings.
Then move to fingering different patterns that are relatively simple. This can include chromatic patterns or scales, assuming you can play these and still focus on the timing. At this point, you're starting to put it together, and it can go on to include more complex bass lines.
This may seem a little bit tedious, but I find that it's a small investment with long term rewards, and actually less frustrating than trying to tackle everything at once. I suggest 5-10 minutes per practice session (nearly every day, rather than marathon sessions), then do other things for the rest of the session.
One final note of encouragement. The fact that you're putting in the effort to learn, and that you hear the timing issues and are seeking to improve on them is a definite sign that this effort will pay off. I assure you, this is something we all have to work on.
Keep up the good work!
You've gotten great advice here. I'll just add:
--Steve
- Ignore the people who say you can't learn this. You can.
- Read Measure Seven of Victor Wooten's book Invalid Link Removed. Read the whole thing, but pay special attention to Measure Seven (that's Chapter 7) when the 11-year old kid named Sam shows up at Victor's house with a drum machine to help him with his timing on bass.
--Steve
Jazzdogg
Less barking, more wagging!
Try this experiment (it's a method I use when teaching middle school students):
To play 120 quarter notes per minute, set the metronome at 60bpm, ticking on "one" and "three."
Then, try it again with the metronome ticking on "two" and four."
Most students rush with the click on 2 & 4, and have a better sense of time with the click on 1 & 3.
To play 120 quarter notes per minute, set the metronome at 60bpm, ticking on "one" and "three."
Then, try it again with the metronome ticking on "two" and four."
Most students rush with the click on 2 & 4, and have a better sense of time with the click on 1 & 3.
