Creative exercises for using a metronome. So let's get going. Welcome to Jazz Guitar Lessons, where we help guitarists learn jazz faster, express themselves more fluently, and have fun along the way. My name is Marc, and if you're looking to learn jazz, form better practice habits, and especially if you enjoy a French accent, make sure to subscribe. All right.
Glad to have you here at the Metronome. Amongst other tools for practicing is one of my favorites. You might have heard about this in several YouTube videos I shot over the years. It's a great practice tool to improve your sense of time and for, of course, nailing down the jazz rhythms that you're working on.
So what I want to do today is give you a few of the best pointers I can in terms of starting to use the metronome for for jazz improvization and comping mostly for playing standards, but also to see how you can take what you have and take it a bit further if you've been using the metronome. Also, we'll talk about, you know, avoiding the most common pitfalls.
And this is a podcast. I don't want to sit here and overwhelm you and speak for 45 minutes about different things, different crazy things you might want to do and New York style with your metronome and, you know, have your metronome click on every every fifth, 16th note of every bar of five data. Like, I don't want to do that.
I just want to give you the bulk, the the crux of how it is to practice with a metronome. So I have my phone right here and I use a that's typically I will recommend if you're serious about practicing with a metronome, get a quartz one with a dial with around that. They're the best. And they have these subdivisions of that basically come from the classical era.
Lowest tempo is 40 beats per minute, and then it goes to 40. I guess 40 doesn't go to 40 to 40 to 44, etc. And then 60, 63, there's a whole science behind why you're not actually playing in 41 BPM in terms of classical music, but doesn't really matter for us. Actually, here is my excuse because there's always something going wrong in podcasts.
My battery, my nine year old is dead on my dial metronome, so I'm going to use this app. I'm not affiliated. It's called guitar Tuner, as in tuna fish, tuna fish and it's actually a tuner, right, for mandolin and guitar and whatever. But there's a metronome tool with it. So how people would practice what a metronome is. You've taken lessons as a kid.
Probably your teacher would have said, you know, practice with a metronome to play direct rhythms and it would sound something like this, right? That was very faint. Sorry. So this would be one, two, three, four, one, two. You know, that's the the normal way to have one accented. And then you set your metronome to four four and that's that.
So if we played, I don't know, Autumn leaves, we play two, three or a one, two, three, four, three, four, one, two, three, four. Right. And and that's the first thing I want to cover in this podcast is guys, you should avoid or at least try to move away from that method of practicing with a tempo, with a practice tool.
And here's a reason. This is a spoon feeding you the time. It's spoon feeding you exactly where each one happens. It's feeding you all the strong beats of the bar, which are one and three and two other weak beats. To ensure the classic way of practicing jazz with a metronome is using it as two and four of every bar.
And this is a pretty simple exercise is if you you're not used to any of this. This is where you should start. By the way, I filmed the video. Might have been seven or eight years ago on YouTube on how to set, how to use a metronome on two and four. So by the way, this tempo was one or four.
So what you're going to do is two things. You're going to take this down to 52, which is half, and you're going to set it so that there is no subdivision. So basically you're setting your metronome in in one four or in zero four, so that every click is the same click. So this is 52 and which we say we will play autumn leaves at a tempo of one or four.
But actually the metronome is clicking only on every two and four of the bar. This does not mean that we have to do only two and four is just that. That's the time. The time I will count yourself in. Now count the tune in and you'll notice this is what the high hat of the drummer does in a jazz style.
At one, two, a one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four, two, three, four. One, two. And we're still playing autumn leaves, but with two or three, four one. If you played four on the floor, go. But notice how now the metronome is giving you only half of the information you had previously. From a classical standpoint of practicing with a metronome.
And I will play the melody just to give you a little bit of a pointer. So remember, this is clicking at 52, but we're actually playing at a tempo of one or four brutal four beats per minute, a 1 to 1. It's pretty. It sounds easier than it is at first. I know I have suffered through this when I was much younger, when I had to, you know, really pay attention to what was happening.
What's going to happen is you will try to do this while playing a simple melody, the song or playing the course of the song, and you will get lost, as in the clicks will no longer be happening on Beats two and four of your performance. It is your job, actually, to know where each one is and more where B2 three is.
So you're you're down, beats are not spoon fed to you. There is two clicks every four B so you can say it's clicking half of the time. If you're considering, you know, you're considering your quarter notes to beat the time, the time where to you know you're your basis this all together a one, two or three four armies this would the basis would do so those are quarter notes right one, two, 3412, three, four.
Oh sorry. It's hard to teach. It's like at the same time as playing time. So the bass player would do a walking bass like this and you would hear this one cheek to cheek. That's that's a drummer's high. I've been like about 5 minutes on this, so I will give you a demo of how it could sound in context or say, I cranked this up to I will put the metronome at 72 and I will improvise a little bit on B-flat blues and 72 on the metronome here means we are actually thinking of a tempo that's 144.
That's double 72, right? So actual BPM is 144 and Metronome is clicking halftime. So Blues and B-flat. Ready? One, two and two, three, four, something like that. So you see that this if you're new to metronome exercise, this is really your your next exercise, especially if you're always only using backing tracks or playing along with records. Now you are response cymbal for holding a lot of a lot of the times like it's all in your hands because no one is telling you what chords are happening.
No one's telling you what's better on and this this is, I would say, some sort of a mental gymnastics. It's like meditating if you want, and after you get the hang of it, it gets really boring. So then you can of course, crank it up. You can put it much faster or much slower and see how you, you hold your own.
And I actually I recommend you do this on songs that are super familiar with you don't do this on all things. You're just learning. You know, blues is second nature to most of us, and that's why I use blues to demonstrate these things so we could and I don't want to take too much time on this, actually, but what if I put it at 92?
So 92 is an actual BPM of 180 4021234. You know, you can really learn to cook and if you're able to do this, it means you're going to be pretty solid on your feet. When you get to a jam session, you get to a recording session, you get to a gig because you don't need anyone to sort of, you know, babysit you the time you are strong, you're only like, okay, I got it, guys, because that's what's going to happen.
You know, you've been there. I've been there, you solo, everything is going well. And then all of a sudden you just you raise your head up and go, you know, it's like, whoops, we're not in the same place. The drummer is not at the same place as me in the basis and what happened. So metagenomics or sites like this at all tempos can really make you cook and you can learn to do this several ways.
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There you go. I want to address another thing that's really useful that I talked about in some YouTube videos, which is playing fast with the metronome, not on two and four. And here's the the problem with Metronome. All three or four is I want to play to 20 C, So I put my metronome at 110 and this is a click.
It's pretty darn sax. It's a lot of clicking for no reason. So it's like a one, two, one, two, three, four. You know, it's like. Dee dee dee dee dee. So the trick for this is instead of talking, I'm going to do it slower, actually. So there's hundreds. So our target is 200. The trick and I got that from Frank Lozano is put your metronome.
If you want to play at 200, don't put your metronome at 100, put it half of that and the result will be you can use it as two and four of your half tempo. And that's a really neat trick. And it's sounds weird when I say it, but you're totally going to get it and it's simply is You're going to wind up with your metronome on beat three of every bar for four.
But this works really well on fast tempos because three is actually your down beat. We'll take this out and this is how you you would count it in a one to a one to a one, two, three, 4 to 1, two, three, four. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two. So it's it's giving you even more responsibility for your tempo, meaning that instead of clicking on two and four, it's clicking on three only.
And you notice how two things, when I counted it in, I counted one, two, one, two, one, two, three, four. So two and four of the half time translates to beat three of the actual time and that gives you room to play in the half time and to feel really loose at those faster tempo. That's totally a Frank Lozano takes it This is Thanks Frank.
If you're listening to this you're probably not. But Frank was one of my mentors and we played recently and it's it's it's awesome the way he plays famous tenor sax from Montreal and Ottawa. So so if you want to play loose, that's how you think of it. Beats blues again. A one, two, one, two, one, two, three, four.
I think two. So you still have this Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Ticketing, ticketing. They can do better that ed there. They do, but they lubo but they did your ace and ding tap br to pay per bedroom batting. It's like playing to halftime. So if you can really feel both at the same time and I know that's a bit esoteric what I've just done, but that's if you're confident which are shoo in for this is totally your next step.
This is seriously your next step in the direction of mastering time, because then your click is 50 and you are feeling the 100 that's in between and you're feeling the real 200 the time that you think at the end. So it's really, really neat little exercise. All right, let's switch gears a little bit because we've been talking about this.
So I just want to emphasize playing with beat on two and four and then playing that way the two and four as the halftime is your entry point. It is not is not the end all. How would you say in English and French French-Canadian. It's not the cure all and all remedy for all your time issues, but it's a great place to start because people will tell you, well you know, play every bar for for with the beat on every beat two is clicking.
All right. That's a good one for me. It's difficult to start there if you haven't mastered it. Two in four and then the two and fourth to halftime. Let's talk about you could also have a click happening only once every two bars and that's that's a gear switching and want to do that in a way I'm a bit scared to demonstrate so I'll just tell you what it is because I'm not afraid to say this.
I'm not courageous, courageous enough to try this in a podcast. So here's the thing. I got my friends that studied in New York. It gives me this exercise. The click is 40, and they will say, Well, imagine 40 subdivided in five equal pieces. And those five pieces are two quarter nails, meaning that it will flick on beat one of the bar and then it will click on B2 of the second bar, and then it will click on B three of the third button and beat four Of the foregoing, I'm going to I'm going to sing it.
I'm not going to play it. All right. So here we have 40. So one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four or five. One, two, four, five. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. So it's a cycle of five bars with a beat, a click that is migrating through the bar. That's really interesting. But imagine and that's 40. So 45, that's 200 actual bpm. Imagine if you're strong enough to improvise on B5 lose and you never missed that beat.
You already know where you are. It means that for the span of five beats you are responsible. Except that hits point. It's like a check point with your time. And if you can do that and improvise same time and comp and play standards and whatever you're in business that can, I could try to pull it off, but it's not something I worked a lot on and it's a it's a really good one.
When I meant changing gears, I was thinking that maybe we could do a little bit of three or four of this question from students alone. They go, How do you how do you use your metronome? And you want to do three or four? Well, you could use your metronome one, two and four, and then just out one, two, three, one, two, three.
Something like, oh, a one, two, one, two, three, four. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three, one, two. That's one way to do it. I don't really like that. So what I would do is simply go. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. Well, that's a bit. Sorry, Let me go down to 58, actually.
So you just say it's a bar. Four, four. How about we have a click every bar so it's on B one. So I will play it. Let's do all the things you are actually. All right. One, two, three, one. I know all the things in three, right? One of my favorite things to do. One, two, three. One, two, three.
One, two, three, one. To get to go. So that's that was of course, of all the things and every beat one has a click. Now you could say, well, you could move that click to every eighth note in the bar, every triplet, whatever. But I would say, your best place to start. Say, what if that click is be two, three.
One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, one, two, three. Sorry, two, three, one, two. So I dropped the a little bit and then of course I'll be three, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three, three.
One, two, three. Sorry. Trying to see and try to teach and count and do these things is really challenging. But you get that's a framework you can use. It's a great starting point by no means it's the end of the journey, but that's, that's good to know how big to vary. And once you get really good at the downbeat and that's another courageous thing I'm not willing to do in the bunker you can set your metronome on what if it clicks on the end of beat three on and you know, three and one, two and three and then everybody has that click and one place.
Then you can say, What if it clicks only every two bars, every other bar, as we've discussed with the, you know, the click on three or click on every other bar three. So there's always ways to get to get down to using a metronome more creatively like this. We're already over 20 minutes into the podcast. I want to wrap it up with certain exercises that are more that are crazier, and I will start with the less crazy of the two 1 to 1 of the ways to practice integrating double time to me is really to be playing slowly and to force yourself to hear these double times line in conjunction so simultaneously as these regular
time lines. So I will do this. I'll put my metronome at 40 and say that this is a B-flat blues at 80 BPM, so it's a pretty darn slow blues, but I will just play the scales and you can see this on a website called the Barry Harris Framework for playing Scales up to seven. So if you go, you don't go, you go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
All right. And this is the basic framework and 1 to 1 to get three four E-flat. And here does a little trick and just to F, so no big deal. We're playing P5 blues, we're playing eight nos, eighth note scales over two changes. No mystery. You're a jazz guy. If you're listening to this podcast, you know you understand improvization and such.
And that's not a mystery. What I like to do in this context is what if you superimpose double time lines with the same scales? And that's a great place to start because you don't have to worry about fingerings. You are doing your scales, you don't have to worry too much about what chords and scales are coming in the song because it's just blues.
And as you did listen, I only used three scales. I use the B-flat, the E-flat and the F and are all mixed Lydian scales, so they're not crazy altered or whatever. It was just the one exception where when I landed on B natural instead of of B flat. And that's with regards to the chord, that's the G7 that happens.
Bar eight You can find a lot of stuff about this on the blog, by the way, on jazz guitar is not that. So what I would want to do is see if I can play the same scales but twice as fast. So it will mean that sometimes I have the time to go up and down. So for my bar, one with the B-flat blues, I only had time to do this one.
Sorry. A one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Bars over. I have to move to the next scale and I only wind up. I climbed up, but now. One, two, three, four, back to eight notes again. Eight notes which I'm landing on B natural double time. And then once that's really in green, you can see if you can start to solo and go dig, dig, dig, dig, dig it, dig it.
So what's interesting is, you know, a bar of 16th notes, it has 16/16 notes in a regular bar for four, and yet your click is only clicking twice. So you have to be really solid with your subdivision of time naturally for this to sound good. So let's I'll try to solve a little bit to give you an idea how how the double time lines can involve a12, a one, two, three, four.
Sorry, that was rushed to get the ticket to get ticket ticket ticket, something like that. So you see, your teacher now is not in the greatest time shape. Plus, this is a those. I'm just making of excuses. I know it sounds bad. My nylon string, my metronome. And anyways, so you see, I apologize in the moment. I was like, oh, that felt a bit rushed.
And that's exactly what the exercise about, is you use a metronome as a tool to see, like now if you only improvise with eight notes, eight notes are really common jazz, that's one thing. But now if you double this up and your metronome just keeps clicking slow, especially at this type of slow blues that remembered a metronome was clicking at 40, and then you're actually playing darts with the timing, which means it's more challenging slowly because you can't really fudge it.
You can't. It has to be to subdivision or else it becomes apparent either your pick, your picking technique is off or you're missing a change or you're not playing the right skill. So this is the less esoteric of these are three things I wanted to tell you. It's like you can develop your own little routines and and I would say workouts.
It's like a workout. You're working out for your muscle time. You can do this to practice double time lines, and you can do this in several ways with the metronome. The last thing I want to address, and I will not demonstrate is here is meditative rhythms. And it's just a fancy term for saying you put your metronome at a certain click and you subdivide it.
And I start with open strings. Personally, I just go, you know, this is my my G-string. And I will attempt to to be exactly on par with the Klich playing exactly with it. Every one click and then later on or sorry screensaver. This means I've been talking for too long, by the way. And then after one click is easy, you go to two clicks, so you you click once, but you subdivide two, meaning you pitch twice for every subdivision.
It has to be equal subdivisions. And then you go to three and four and five and there's a great blog and YouTube video about this. This is one of the exercises, one of the few ones I give all my students, all my private students. And it's a it's a rite of passage like you have to to tackle this and then realize, oh, we're clicking now that single click, I'm subdividing it five times equally over an open string.
And then you're like, okay, now I want to jump back to two subdivisions and you're screwed because you don't know if you'll be able to do it. So you fall back on your two subdivisions and you rush or you or you're too slow, you're too fast, and you're playing darts with the time once again, and then you establish your too firmly and you try to jump between two and five and then jump between three and five and then jump between seven and four and jump between nine two.
You know, all these things happen and make your time much stronger. However, these are not in the timing. They're not in four forward or not in three, four, two are not on a standard. And when you get really good with that, you can start to play more than an open string. You can sort of play around scales. You can start to see if you can improvise freely.
If you're going to improvise within a scale of record, then if you're brave, you can do that on a standard. But check it out on on YouTube. Meditative rhythms. This on the jazz guitar is ultimate channel. So that's all I have. Thanks for being with me today. In this podcast, I reiterate what I say every time I record a podcast.
This is by far my favorite way of getting stuff across to you. And it's not because I'm trying to hide my face behind the microphone, but I really love this format. Please do let me know if you have any sorts of questions, feedback, comments. You can do this below. You know, if you have a comment form below the Spark gas right here on the website or wherever you're listening to this.
And I want to tell you, I'm very happy to take requests because, you know, we're up to podcast 41 and if you want to send me directly an email mark at Jazz Guitar Lessons thought that it'll be a pleasure to see if we can cover whichever lesson topic you want me to dig deeper on. All right. So once again, my name's Mark from Jazz Guitar Lessons Improve your jazz guitar playing with a real teacher, and I will see you in a next podcast.
Take care.
