Holy moly. Great exercises! If anyone else is here 7 years later, I made some notes and a overview for myself. Exercise 1: Swing 2 & 4 -- [Previous video] -- Set metronome to half speed, and use clicks as 2nd & 4th beat. -- Also use on pracicing new tunes. Exercise 2: Slow Jam (Torture) -- [Previous video] -- Set metronome to 20 bpm. One note in a scale per click. Exercise 3: 4 On 4 Off -- [Previous video] -- Set Time Guru to play 4 beats, then pause for 4 beats. Exercise 4: One, One and Done -- 0:11 -- Set up to hear first beat of the first bar, the first beat of the second, and silence for 2 bars. Exercise 5: Syncopation Nation -- Set Time Guru to play the (2e&)a and the (4e)&. (see the video) Exercise 6: The disorienter -- 4:47 -- Variation of exercise 1. Set Time Guru to click beat 2, and try to keep time with this. Exercise 7: Song form exercise -- 7:06 -- Just the downbeats in a 12 bar blues. Set to click first beat in bar 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 9. First 3 blog post: somuchsound.blogspot.com/2012/10/improve-your-groove-7-metronome-tricks.html Last 4 blog post: somuchsound.blogspot.com/2013/02/improve-your-groove-part-2-7-metronome.html
The great, or probably the greatest lesson for all of those who want to feel and keep rythm. And this is crucial for each musician, so this lessons are crucial for each musician, or the one, who wants to became so. Sean, thanks a LOT. P.S. BTW I can't imagine, what are those two jerks, who set dislike fort this lesson? Or, maybe they have tried to repeat after Sean and failed. :)
Thanks so much for providing these hard yet enjoyable exercises! I wish at least one of my three drum teachers so far had recommended this kind of advanced metronome use. It seems just a couple of weeks of practicing like this improves your time much more than years of traditional metronome practice, and most importantly, it's SO MUCH FUN! :) Great job, Sean, keep up the awesome work! Matt form Montenegro
super stuff, thanks.. I'll be spending some "time" to nail down the 1st vid properly before graduating to this one - you've got all the hallmarks of a real studio pro! thanks again for sharing.
Thanks, brother. Thats a smooth lesson. Really appreciate your taking the time to share it. I’m headed straight to yer blog and then dusting off the metronome.
Great! I'm applying for Oberlin and the clarinet teacher said he can't accept me if I don't improve my rhythm (don't worry I'm a junior I have time), so this is a BIG help!
+Mauriziobarenboim You'll be fine. But there really is no replacement for working with a metronome. The problem is making it fun and not a chore. As long as you're creative with the use of it, you'll enjoy the process and do it more. Good luck at Oberlin!
Fantastic stuff. I really liked all of these. Another one my friend showed me was: setting up a 5/4 rhythm, with the beat on the one. Then play over that as repeating 4/4 rhythms. So the beat ends up on 1 of bar 1, 2 of bar 2, 3 of bar 3, 4 of bar 4, silent through bar 5, then on the 1 again for bar 6.
I'm not even involved in this exchange and I must say that's pretty awesome of you. Great exercises man, you're like that really great VHS tape I never returned to the library in 1997- without the guilt or late fee.
Sean, I am using this as part of my drum practice and I am finding it quite helpful. Thanks for taking "time" putting these 2 Metronome videos together.. All The Best and Thanks Again.. Eric
Absolutely awesome videos! It's easy to find lesson videos on just playing or soloing but not a lot of videos on unique ways to use the metronome and to work on timing technique. I can't waitron try these! New subscriber!
Thanks Sean for sharing your skill-building ideas. After seeing these, I had the idea that a (scarily) useful learning tool would count you in, and then randomly hit some small subset of beats. The user would be able to set things like num of measures, num taps, and such. I headed to Avi Bortnick's site, and indeed Time Guru has a random mode (video shows how it works). (And for anyone who likes melodic blues-rock-funk, Avi's video "Rolling Pin" is quite fun to jam to.)
+Fernando Lavado I use one on my Mac called Metronome that is free but you'd have a harder time doing some of the more advanced exercises with it. I imagine a Google search will turn up something. You might try to get a software sequencing program or drum machine as that will be easier to the later exercises with.
Great lesson! There's not enough emphasis placed on the study of rhythm (imho). Any suggestions on where to find more of this kind of stuff to work on? If not I guess I can always work out some ideas on my own. Thanks for sharing this kind of approach at using a metronome to instill better time and feel! Brilliant.
Sean Driscoll Absolutely! We (guitarists) spend at least 80 to 90+ percent of our time backing singers or single note instruments (horns. sax etc.) ....but too many lessons on how to play lead guitar!!! I'm glad I noticed this fairly early on and had a good teacher whip me into rhythmic shape! lol Which I still need more work on after about 35yrs. ! (I added you to my google+ circle; hope that's okay by you?)
Jazzer caster Thanks -- I had to think about your question for second and do the math... That's right! I was using an app that I had chosen a 4/4 bar for but muted beats 1, 3 and 4 but you could absolutely just set a metronome to 55bpm and hear it as beat 2 in a 4/4 bar and it would be the exact same concept.
Great lesson!! Thank you. Do you have any thoughts on alternatives to sub-dividing beats with numbers? For instance subdividing beats with a drum groove, melody, words/poems, dance or using Indian rhythm language. I'm a primary school teacher and am interested in how some of the ideas/exercise top notch musicians like yourself could be made more accessible to them. Thanks again for the lesson!
+Ben Brooklyn In Western music we do have word and syllable schemes for subdividing ("1-e-and-a, 2-e-and-a" etc. for 16th notes "tri-pl-et" for triplets) but they're nowhere near as developed as the Indian classical tradition.
It's so useful and saves me having to write out stuff like this in Guitar Pro. If you are interested, I have a guitar app out too called Guitarmageddon. Thanks again!
Because you asked nicely, I transcribed what I played on the video and made a chart with TAB. It's now available at the end of the article on my blog. You can find the address to the blog listed in the About section just below the video. The url is also in the video itself. Enjoy.
Thanks for the compliment! I'm still playing and teaching! Just no extra time to run a blog unfortunately. I'm a professional musician and that takes up most of my time, though now I have a lot more time on my hands like most people. You can keep up with me here if you're interested: instagram.com/somuchsound/
Hi promiscuite -- I'm sorry I don't. I did a little googling but most of what I came up with was simple metronome programs. A free drum machine might be a better option. Try Hammerhead Rhythm Station or orDrumbox (google them). Hopefully they'll help you out.
When you first start out, absolutely. But you’ll be surprised how quickly you begin to feel the time if you are conscious of it. You start to feel longer groupings of bars - 4, 8, 12 and 16 bars or even more.
@@SeanDriscollSoMuchSound Im practicing counting it out loud, but its not consistent and i can only play scales and syncopated chord rhythms when practicing with the click at 20 BPM, or the click only playing on the syncopations. Been practicing for 2 weeks now but no improvement at all though, hope i can get better and not need have to count out loud anymore, its getting really tiring!
troy low it takes very much patience and you have to count ... i am already more than 3 years playing,i don't count as it comes naturally but i face some problem during some songs...and i need to count it... so practice first with metronomes and then it's automatic
For a long time You do not record new videos,what is the reason? What do You think about recording exercise from William Leavitt books? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leavitt (in my country, these books are not available besides, I can not read notes fluently)
Thanks for writing. I haven't done a video for awhile because I'm a freelance musician and the bulk of my time is spent either practicing, getting new gigs, playing gigs or preparing music for gigs. It's really time consuming. With that said, I do have some posts on my blog coming shortly and a few new videos regarding BeBop language using Charlie Parker solos as guitar material. Thanks for your interest, I really do appreciate it.
Thanks for asking -- I do have a couple videos planned but being a full-time musician means crazy hours and I'm not great at managing them. I'll definitely make a few more though.
Al Di Meola has a good short video on here about keeping time where he talks about playing against the time at the 2:33 mark : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2HIY_IPIvCI.html
