As previously mentioned, playing in time is a VITAL component for live music and using a metronome is a critical tool to help to develop and keep good time keeping skills! 😉
For scale practice, I set up metronome to ‘keep time’ on each beat – in musical parlance the metronome bangs out one beat for every quarter note in 4/4 time.
- time through I’ll play the major scale in a 2 octave series up then down in quarter notes – one beat for each click.
- time through I’ll play the major scale in a 2 octave series up then down in eighth notes – two beats for each click.
- time through I’ll play the major scale in a 2 octave series up then down in eighth note triplets – three beats for each click.
- time through I’ll play the major scale in a 2 octave series up then down in sixteenth notes – four beats for each click.
For each series of scales, I’ll start with the lowest note on the low E string that will allow fingering without using any open strings, then play through that pattern 4 times, one each for each of quarter, eighth, triplets, and sixteenth notes. After concluding that pattern, I then move up the neck ½ step and begin the series again. I’ll do this until I have played up the neck to the octave…
For time practice
I often use the metronome is slightly different ways – for example I may slow it down to “half tempo” and allow it to click only on the back beats – simulating a drummer – So, instead of hearing quarter note clicks, the metronome is only clicking on beats two and four…
Of course, as your time keeping improves you can use the metronome to only play on beat one or set it up to play only on beat four 😉 this may reveal much about your time keeping abilities 😉