Burying the Click on Guitar?

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by paulp1960

You could try playing major scales up and down at one note per click, or two notes per click (playing eighths, ie notes on the "and" as well as the main beat). If you can read music at all you could practice playing simple melodies against the clock, that kind of thing. If you can't read music then you could play simple melodies from songs like twinkle, twinkle little star. Start off simple.

Yes, good suggestions. I have been doing things like that. I assume more practice will bring the coordination for single notes up to the same level as the strumming or drumming.

[s0cks]

All I can say is that I think of my right hand as a beat machine. Imagine tapping your fingers to a beat. Not much to think about right? Same applies here, assuming you've got the pattern your playing in muscle memory then you're really just picking out a beat/rhythm. So try not to think about it too much. That's easier said than done, but it's hard to put it into any other words.

Some things that helped me were to count the beat as well. And also to tie a sock, or tie, or whatever, around the neck at the 12th fret or so, to mute the strings. When the strings are muted you can easily hear if you're ahead or behind the click.

Not easy though. It took me the better part of 6 months to really nail it, and that's pretty much all I practiced for 6 months. But it's easy to lose as well. I haven't done much metronome work in a while, and when I do it takes me a good 10min to warm up to the click again. I should, like everything, practice with a metronome more often.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by s0cks

All I can say is that I think of my right hand as a beat machine. Imagine tapping your fingers to a beat. Not much to think about right? Same applies here, assuming you've got the pattern your playing in muscle memory then you're really just picking out a beat/rhythm. So try not to think about it too much. That's easier said than done, but it's hard to put it into any other words.

Some things that helped me were to count the beat as well. And also to tie a sock, or tie, or whatever, around the neck at the 12th fret or so, to mute the strings. When the strings are muted you can easily hear if you're ahead or behind the click.

Not easy though. It took me the better part of 6 months to really nail it, and that's pretty much all I practiced for 6 months. But it's easy to lose as well. I haven't done much metronome work in a while, and when I do it takes me a good 10min to warm up to the click again. I should, like everything, practice with a metronome more often.

Good suggestions. I'm doing it everyday. It's definitely better than it was.

[Mbroady]

Originally Posted by SunnyDee

I can do that, but in this case, it's not a volume issue. I'm just using the click to practice "burying the click" to show that I'm right on the beat. I can stay right on the beat with a drum pretty well, or strumming well enough, but not very well at all with single string notes and I'm trying to figure out why it's so much harder.

Ah. I misunderstood what you ment by "burying the click"

Seems your on the right track......practice, practice, practice.
If you are having trouble with single note runs perhaps stay focused on how far you move the pick away from the strings, or, perhaps don't focus at all and just feel the beet. Different strokes for different folks.

I agree with the principle and importance of precession and "burying the click" is a great exercise, however, most music has a "pocket" one that pushes or pulls the beat. That is a tough nut to crack but Also comes with time (no pun intended)