THIS Will Improve Your Rhythm... And Drive You INSANE!
Do you value your sanity? If you do, you probably should not read any more.
I am going to talk about an eldritch but uncannily effective technique to improve your rhythm...with the potential downside of the decline (and eventual demise) your mental well-being.
So... you've been warned.
You see, rhythm is a very important thing, so musicians have come up with ways to improve their sense of rhythm, and related skills, possibly without practicing.
Well, yeah, you should practice more - that goes without saying - but the lure of "getting better passively" is great.
And sometimes, attracted by this lure - like it happens in most human endeavours - we went too far and summoned Cthulhu
What follows is the eldritch technique straight from the Necronomicon
There does seem to be this idea going around - and some people swear by it - that you should be going around listening to a metronome all day.
And I mean all day, while doing your chores, while working, while eating, etc. etc.
tick-tock-tick-tock all day long until you internalize that rhythm...
This would indeed make for noticeable improvements to your sense of rhythm... but is it actually a good idea?
(I mean, if you wanted to passively improve your sense of rhythm by listening to something with a steady pulse, might I suggest music?)
So again, do you value your sanity?
If you do, I suggest not subjecting yourself to what would probably be a relatively effective form of torture.
If you don’t, knock yourself out. Or... tick-tock yourself out. Metronome yourself out. Rhythmically descend the spiral of insanity with the infernal clicking of that wretched instrument.
If you're not sure, or you think this email has been nuts from the beginning, then watch the video below where I show you when this technique works, and when it does not:
Want to know the best way to improve your rhythm? Check out this ultimate rhythm mastery guitar course to start perfecting your timing right now!
Video Transcription
Hello internet, so nice to see you! I got a great comment on how to practice for perfect rhythm, and I want to answer that. Play with a drum machine, always. Even when senselessly noodling, always.
I tell you from my own experience, let the drum machine run for hours and hours whenever you do anything else at home. Do it a lot. Get up in the morning, start the drum machine with another rhythm and tempo each day.
Do that as much as possible. Let it run as much as possible. You do not believe what this does for your rhythm. Okay, there are two pieces of advice there, and I want to comment on both of them. First one, whenever you practice, use a drum machine.
That is not optimal. Let me explain you why. While I am a great proponent of using a metronome or a drum machine when you practice, it doesn't mean you have to use it literally all the time. Indeed, you should actually make it a point to practice with the metronome and or a drum machine, they are equivalent, and I admit the drum machine is better sounding than the metronome, so you're probably going to use it more if it's a drum machine.
But you should make it a point to practice with the drum machine, and you should make it a point to practice without the drum machine or the metronome. Why? Because if you use it too much, the metronome or the drum machine becomes a crutch.
Then you become unable to just keep the timing by yourself. So you want to use the metronome and the drum machine to make sure you're playing in time, and then occasionally, every day actually, but occasionally in your practice, you want to practice without that support, to make sure that you can keep the timing going, to make sure that you are the metronome, make sure that you can take a specific rhythm, and then you can keep going with the rhythm without speeding up or slowing down.
Okay, and now of course I'm talking while I'm doing it, so probably I am speeding up or slowing down, but you want to make sure that you get a good sense of internal rhythm, and it's not just following the rhythm.
So it's a two -step strategy if you want. If you never practice with the metronome, of course the advice is practice with the metronome or the drum machine, so you learn how it feels to follow a set time.
But if you already practice with the metronome and drum machine, then make sure you practice without the metronome and drum machine occasionally, so you know how it feels to keep the rhythm without the metronome, because every musician needs to have this internal clock, and that's the first piece of advice.
The second piece of advice that the comment is giving, and by the way I'm not disagreeing with that notice, I'm just adding more information because it depends who you are, but the second piece of advice is to keep a drum machine or a metronome going on while you're doing other things in your life.
I know when you're washing the dishes, cleaning the house, dusting, or when you're studying, or when you are doing anything else that is not music related. On one side, that's great. It's something you could do and it will sharpen your sense of rhythm.
So today you put on a drum machine at, I don't know, 93 beats per minute and tomorrow you do it at 107 beats per minute and after 82 beats per minute and you pick a different tempo every day or maybe a different time signature every day so that you just internalize the sound of it.
Absolutely true. On the other hand, you want to pay attention on what this does to your mental health, okay? Because I'd known a good, great, actually bass player who was doing this with a metronome and maximum respect for the guy by the way, but he had some mental health problem which he got addressed in time, okay?
It was not neurotypical. Let me put it this way. And doing this metronome thing was actually making his mental health worse. So I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm a humble music teacher and so I'm telling you if you do that and you like doing it and you feel in good spirit after doing it, you can listen to a metronome all day long and it will do good to you or a drum machine.
But if after doing that, you start feeling like a bit obsessive, stop doing it. Okay, there are other ways to get that kind of solid sense of rhythm. You could listen to music, for instance. It doesn't have to be a drum machine.
It could be music and it could be very rhythmic music and even if a tempo is changing every song, music will still do that kind of effect on you, okay? So yes, listen to a drum machine or yes, listen to music you like or yes, don't listen to anything if you feel like, okay?
It's all good. The point is the comment was giving very good advice for specific kind of people. but for other kind of people that advice could have been not exactly optimal. Okay, so I'm not disagreeing with the comment, I'm just saying make sure you know who you are and check if those things will work for you. Some stuff work for everybody. Everybody has to work with the math room for later. Some other stuff will work for specific kind of people because who you are and what you want to play and what are you in need of practicing in that moment.
Okay, so that's it. Now if you want to get great rhythm feeling and you want to get great rhythm versatility and learn how to play all this stuff, we have a course on my website. I didn't write it, my friend Brian Fish brought the whole course.
It's called Ultimate Rhythm Mastery. You can find it at the link on the top right, whatever it's the right on your screen. Okay, check it out, check it out. It's amazing, okay, and it will help you absolutely.
Get your timing right. This is Tommaso Zillio of musictheoryforguitar.com, and until next time, enjoy!