Is developing an internal 'metronome' essential to play the guitar properly?

[TJE"]

Thank you for all the replies.

The consensus seems to be that have a good sense of timing is a basic common denominator to playing music that anyone would want to hear.

It can difficult to focus on it, though, with all the other things going on in a recorded song or whilst playing in a band. The other thing is most songs appear to slow down at some point say in either the chorus or bridge

When I started playing guitar I had no sense of timing at all , but I did get a sense of it by playing along to a digital metronome(which then became internalised), but noticing the underlying beat whilst listening to a song is good advice.

[Methos1979]

Is it essential? In my opinion, yes. No human will ever have perfect time but you really need to able to keep a beat if only to play around with time. Solo you can get away with a little variance but even with a singer in a duo you need to have a beat. I was a drummer for many years before turning to acoustic guitar so I already had a very good internal metronome and I still need to practice with one regularly.

Especially with new songs. They always tend to start off too fast so I have to play along with metronome to get the pace down along with the notes and words. Otherwise you start too fast and end up going even faster. If you perform you also tend to start fast from nerves and so if not careful that great version of 'Wonderful World' can end finishing up at a death-metal pace! Ask me how I know!!

Even if you practice with a metronome and have a song down at a certain pace, playing a faster, uptempo song before a slow song can be dangerous. Sometimes I'll have my metronome app going on my mobile phone muted and count myself in on a slower song that comes after a faster one.

[stephenT]

The first two rules of a professional musician, be on time and in tune.

If you can't paint within the lines, you don't need to try and be a Picasso.

Originally Posted by TJE"

Obviously nearly everyone can count to 4, but instinctive timing may involve being very much aware of the micro second gaps between 1-2-3-4, and keeping them consistent, before even thinking about anything else to do with guitar playing.

Or is this a dictatorship of overthinking?

[Woolbury]

Originally Posted by Joe Beamish

Good time is huge, and no it isn’t metronomic. It’s about communicating a feeling of time, or groove, or swing, to the listener.

Good time is largely what separates good players from everyone else.

Watch Erics foot on any video. He's always banging out a steady rhythm. If I was teaching a newbie, lesson one would be to learn to tap your foot to the early strumming patterns. To me certain music lends itself to different rhythmic guides. For blues a steady foot tap really helps. To learn a fiddle tune, gotta have a metronome. Music is melody, harmony, rhythm, and of those, rhythm is most important.

[lar]

This guy (I forget his name), doesn't need a metronome, his right arm IS a metronome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An2a1_Do_fc

Playing a complex (to me) guitar piece, singing, and keeping the time to a millionth of a second. Amazing.

[catdaddy]

Originally Posted by Wags

IMHO practicing with a metronome is essential. Not necessarily on songs, but rather on rudiments, scales, licks, etc. Over time your internal sense of time will develop. At that point when you decide to alter time to augment your performance it will be by design, not technical deficit.

This. Learning and incorporating the rules of rhythm into one's playing is an essential part of becoming a good musician. Practicing with a metronome will help to instill that learning and help a person to develop a sense of time. In the short term this discipline may be difficult, but with repetition, much like muscle memory it will become second nature.

Once the above is accomplished then the fun starts. Instead of being a prisoner of rhythm's demanding structure, to the contrary you've become musically proficient enough that you can start the journey into creativity. Pablo Picasso's advice is the artistic axiom: 'Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.'

[lowrider]

About toe tapping. Just because you are tapping your foot while playing doesn't mean that you are playing in time.

If you are tapping to a metronome and playing to that time then you are in time.

If you are tapping to your playing, you can still be all over the place.

When practicing with a metronome; when you can't hear it you are right on time!

[Mr. Paul]

In the ongoing effort to make the transition from "sounding like a guitar being played" to "sounding like music" I have found a metronome to be of great help. Practicing with one even just a bit helps develop my "internal" time.

[DaveKell]

I've always thought my 14 years playing electric bass in an orchestra and being responsible for keeping 20 or more musicians in time was a huge benefit when I came back to guitar after years of not playing one. The leader of a weekly jam I attend took me aside once and asked me to "bulldoze your strumming to get everyone else locked into the right tempo". I tried accommodating him several times but couldn't help noticing the frustrated looks from other players who didn't like my taking charge and playing vigorously over them. I've stopped attending the jam because I so often stop playing mid song rather than endure pickers who can't keep time. The addition of an electric bass player helped but he insisted on playing too loud over the acoustic guitars. I asked the jam leader to let me take over and set a few ground rules but he's afraid of ruffling feathers. Fortunately I have another weekly venue to attend. I never realized how many guitar players struggle with timing.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by lowrider

About toe tapping. Just because you are tapping your foot while playing doesn't mean that you are playing in time.

And just because you're playing in time, it doesn't mean you're grooving. The toes you want tapping are everyone else's.

You've heard this a million times, probably. But have you ever paid attention to the rhythm guitar? Groove-o-rama.

[Photojeep]

I always thought I was good at keeping time but several months ago one of my choir members said, "Oh, that's the song you keep speeding up on!"

Taking that to heart, I've occasionally practiced songs to a metronome and found that at first I found it to be incredibly restricting but after a little while it sort of became internalized.

It didn't last a long time, but it was there for a song or two.

I guess the lesson is to do this more often so I can keep the internal-ism (?) for a longer time...

Best,
PJ

[Chriscom]

Keeping a constant rhythm is something Livingston Taylor is adamant about, in his own performances and he drills it into his students at Berklee. Obviously there are sections of songs that might deliberately be altered but for him that would be quite the exception. Someone above said you can get a lot of other things wrong but if you have a steady tempo you can sound danged good. The way Liv often puts it is, you can mess up a word here and there, flub a chord, oh well, but as long as you have a steady beat the audience will have confidence in you. And yeah he's always using part of his body for that, left foot, right foot, hips, it varies, but something is always moving even if it's subtle.

I try to play along with some Jackson Browne solo stuff. He doesn't have it.

I should probably put a metronome to it but I swear, his studio recording of Doctor My Eyes is all over the place.

There are a few tales of drummers incensed when producers asked them to use click tracks, they were so inconstant. Drummers!

[Joe Beamish]

Again, metronomic time and good time are not necessarily the same thing. You can speed up or slow down to some degree. The real point is to communicate a feeling of time, or groove, to the listener.

A metronome is great practice, though. You have to be able to play to a steady beat convincingly — and play WITH it.

When you’re playing without an external tempo source, you are counting or otherwise keeping time internally, and playing to that, and with that.

[yamahaFg180]

Erics guitar sounds awesome what model is that ?

[Joe Beamish]

Originally Posted by yamahaFg180

Erics guitar sounds awesome what model is that ?

Guessing a 000-28?