Your best friend as a musician

I tell my students as soon as they're comfortable with a guitar in their hands that they need to start practicing with a metronome. A metronome is the most valuable tool any musician can have other then their instrument itself, but so few guitar players think to use one.

What it does

In the simplest terms a metronome clicks in perfect time at a given speed (usually between 40 and 208 times per minute).

Having trouble playing something in time? Stick a metronome to it.

Having trouble playing something faster? A metronome will help you get your speed up.

How to use it

To start find some repetitive exercises and work on building your speed up (I usually start students alternating between frets 1 and 3 four times per sting, starting on the first, going up to the sixth and back with a goal of 100bpm.)

How to build speed – Metronome Bouncing

Say you can play something at 120 and you want it at 200 and can't seem to bridge that gap, try playing it at 112, then bump it up to 132 – you're not going to play it perfect, the idea is to get through it. Then back down to 120, 120 should seem easy at this point, “metronome bouncing” will build your speed up.

How to build speed – Burst Speed

Want to play the C major scale in straight 16ths at 100bpm and have no idea how to approach this? Rather then attacking the whole thing at once, start small: 1 and ¼ beats (always end right on the click). When you can get that work on beat 2, then put them together.

Cut time

Metronomes only go up to 208 for good reason, even at that speed they sound hectic and hard to follow. However, there are a lot of songs faster then 208, what you need to learn to do is have the metronome click only on beats 2 and 4 when in 4/4 time (be careful the tendency is to play beats 1 and 3 on the click). This click will emulate the snare drum of a drummer and smooth out your overall time.

Where to get one

Any music store should have one for about $40, http://www.metronomeonline.com/ will also provide you one for free at your computer, be careful though – make sure Ims and Email don't distract you.