[00:00] Does your rhythm need improvement? Do
[00:02] you find yourself just wanting to play
[00:04] better? Well, now you can with
[00:12] [Music]
[00:18] metronome. A metronome game is a means
[00:21] of hearing the metronome in a slightly
[00:22] different way than what you would
[00:23] normally do if you're just setting the
[00:24] click to beats 1 2 3 and four. Here are
[00:27] a few ways of doing that. So, for these
[00:28] examples, we're going to be using
[00:30] probably the greatest baseline written
[00:31] in the past 30 years, John Bon Joy's
[00:33] Living on a
[00:35] Prayer. And we're going to be playing it
[00:37] a little bit under tempo at 80 beats per
[00:38] minute. And we're going to count out all
[00:40] the subdivisions as we do it. Here we
[00:41] go. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and
[00:47] 3 and four and 1. And the reason why we
[00:50] just did that is because now what we're
[00:52] going to do is we're going to flip the
[00:54] subdivisions so that this metronome is
[00:56] actually clicking on the ends of all the
[00:58] beats rather than the numbers 1 2 3 4.
[01:00] It's now actually going to be on the
[01:02] ends. And the easiest way I know how to
[01:04] get into this sort of rhythm is to start
[01:06] by counting on the and of four. So here
[01:08] we go. We're going to go and 1 and 2 and
[01:12] 3 and four and 1 and two and now we're
[01:15] going to start and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4
[01:19] and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and
[01:24] etc etc. So the the advantage of this is
[01:27] that we're now using the metronome as a
[01:29] way of sort of feeling the beat a little
[01:30] bit differently than if we're just
[01:32] hearing the click on every single down
[01:34] beat. Um, when we speed it up to tempo,
[01:38] it's going to sound like this. And 1 and
[01:41] 2 and 3 and 4 and
[01:45] [Music]
[01:49] sweet. So, what we're going to do now is
[01:52] we're going to have that tempo of 120,
[01:54] which is the tempo that the song was
[01:56] recorded at. Prepositional phrase at the
[01:59] end of a sentence. Awesome. Off script
[02:01] here. All right. Uh, so 60 beats per
[02:03] minute right here. That's half of 120.
[02:07] And we're going to set this metronome to
[02:08] beats one and three. This is now the
[02:10] same tempo, but the metronome is
[02:12] clicking half as fast. So if we play it
[02:15] here with the counting 1 and 2 and 3 and
[02:17] four, and it's going to sound like this.
[02:18] 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3
[02:21] and 4 and 1. And so we actually
[02:23] ourselves have to be more responsible
[02:25] for all the subdivisions in between the
[02:27] clicks. And this is a great way of using
[02:29] the metronome to practice your internal
[02:30] rhythm rather than relying upon that
[02:32] click click click click click for
[02:33] everything. Um, just like we did with
[02:35] switching the beat around a little bit
[02:37] for the ones and the ands, what we're
[02:39] going to do is now we're going to switch
[02:40] the beat around a little bit so that
[02:41] this is now on beats two and four. And
[02:43] this is a great way of practicing things
[02:45] like jazz, rock, any kind of backbeat
[02:48] driven music where there's an accent on
[02:50] the snare or the high hat on beats two
[02:52] and four. So, here we go. We're going to
[02:53] start by counting on four. 1 2 3 4 1 2 3
[02:59] 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 So that
[03:06] click is a great sort of fillin for the
[03:08] snare. Awesome. Okay, so now what we're
[03:10] going to do is we're going to have that
[03:11] again. 60 / 2
[03:14] equ= 30. Yay, math
[03:17] musicians. And now since we divided by
[03:21] two again, this is now clicking once
[03:23] every measure.
[03:25] So we really have to be responsible for
[03:27] all of those
[03:28] subdivisions. So here we go. And 1 and 2
[03:32] and 3 and four and 1 and 2 and 3 and
[03:35] four and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2
[03:38] and 3 and four and one. So you notice
[03:40] that I was a little bit late on some of
[03:42] them. This is a great method for sort of
[03:44] laying bare the inaccuracies in your
[03:45] internal rhythm because you really can't
[03:47] hide from it the same way that you can
[03:48] hide from them when the metronome is on
[03:51] every beat. So anyway, let's uh flip the
[03:53] beat around like we did with two and
[03:55] four and the ones and the ands. Now,
[03:56] let's say that the click is, I don't
[03:58] know, um beat two, two and three and
[04:02] four and 1 and 2 and 3 and four and 1
[04:04] and 2 and 3 and four and 1 and 2 and 3
[04:07] and four and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and
[04:11] sweet. So now let's do a victor
[04:12] routinism, which is to set the metronome
[04:14] to the and before beat one. So, and 1
[04:18] and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and
[04:21] 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2
[04:24] and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and
[04:28] 1. Sweet. So, you can keep having this
[04:31] tempo and it keeps of course getting
[04:32] more and more difficult. 30 / 2 = 15.
[04:36] All right, we're getting better at this
[04:38] math thing. One and two and three and
[04:40] four and one and two and three and four
[04:42] and one and two and three and four and
[04:44] one and two and three and four and one
[04:46] and two and three and four and one and
[04:49] two and three and four and one. Awesome.
[04:51] I did it. Yay, guys. Woohoo.
[04:56] So, on some of these metronomes, what
[04:58] you can use, um I don't know if you can
[05:00] see it here, but there's a little bit of
[05:02] a line that's going back and forth as a
[05:04] visualization for what the beat is
[05:06] supposed to be. And on a lot of
[05:07] metronomes, this visualization can help
[05:10] and it can also hurt. The reason why it
[05:12] can help is because some people learn a
[05:14] little bit better from the visual visual
[05:16] stimulation and pairing that with the
[05:18] audio stimulation of the click. The
[05:20] reason why it can hurt is because a lot
[05:22] of the times when you use that
[05:23] visualization, you're actually reacting
[05:24] to the beat rather than feeling it. This
[05:26] has a lot to do with how classical
[05:28] musicians react to a conductor's baton
[05:31] versus how jazz rock and pop musicians
[05:33] might internalize the beat. And I'm
[05:35] going to talk a lot more about this sub
[05:36] subject later. Uh, but I just wanted to
[05:39] sort of get that idea in your guys'
[05:41] brains. All right. Another fun thing
[05:43] that you can do with a metronome is
[05:44] record yourself playing quarter notes in
[05:47] Logic or Garage Band or any other
[05:49] digital audio workstation so that you
[05:51] can see whether or not you're playing
[05:52] ahead or behind the beat. It can be
[05:54] really illuminating. This has been Adam
[05:56] Neil's bass lessons. Uh, stay tuned for
[05:58] more awesome lessons on metronomes,
[06:01] rhythm, etc., etc. Uh, please comment
[06:03] them, subscribe, and as always, base.
[06:07] [Music]