Rob Schumann: The subject of this tutorial is working with a metronome and this is one of the best things that you can do for your playing besides just learning your chord fingerings and getting your picking and strumming down. Working with metronome really gives you a good sense of rhythm and a lot of times you can tell people that haven't worked with one, the one that are groove, will be a little bit off, and it really haven't essentially detail in a lot of cases. But also, somebody will be used to playing something at one certain speed, and if you have something to slow down or speed it up just a little bit, a lot of times they are incapable of doing that because they just aren't used to locking things in with a beat, and so metronome can really help you do that. It can also be a shortcut to really getting something on your fingers quickly and so we'll look at some tips for doing that.
I have got several kinds of metronomes sitting here. This first one is an analog metronome and you actually have to wind this up to get it to work and these have been around for centuries and so people have been using those to keep time for quite a while and those works just fine. You can see there's a lot of times sitting on top of pianos, it's kind of a traditional metronome.
This next one uses a battery, but it's really nice and it's simplicity, you just turn the dial to the speed you want. So there is not a whole lot you have to mess with on it, and sort of one handed interface and it also has a nice kind of wood block sound. So it doesn't really interfere with what you're trying to play and the pitches that you are playing.
This last one is a digital one that hence like an LCD display and it's got some other options on it, you can dial in some subdivisions if you are having a hard time with that. It's also got a built-in tuner, so it's kind of nice to have two things in one. So really any of those are fine. The best kind of metronome is the one you are actually using. So it's just a good idea to have one around when you are practicing.
When you are first getting to using a metronome, the pulling isn't really getting things fast, it's really feeling a beat. So I am going to set this one at 80 B per BPMs and that means Beats Per Minute. So at 80, I am really playing a little faster than one beat a second, and so when I hear this beat, what I am really trying to lock into is not hearing the beat and then playing, I am really trying to like feel when the beat is going to come, not necessarily anticipating it, but just feeling the groove of where that beat falls. So really if I am trying to execute a strum at the same time as that metronome, I am trying to strum simultaneously with that beat sounding on the metronome.
So in this case let's say I was going to hit a chord, I am just trying to sort of feel where those beats are going to fall. It's really important also to start off by practicing things slowly that gives your hands and real chance to learn it and to develop muscle memory. And that's where your hands kind of get to where they are playing on their own and if you have a combination of muscle memory and head memory, it really helps you play.
So in our next segment, we are going to get into our subdivisions and actually look at some tips for practicing with the metronome.
Alex Lifeson: Hi, this is Alex Lifeson of Rush and today, we are going to work on the Spirit of Radio. It starts at the F sharp which is the second fret on the high E string and it's --
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