All That Jazz: How to Practice with a Metronome

The following content is related to the December 2012 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now, or in our online store.

In this month’s column, I’d like to talk about practicing with a metronome. I’m sure most of you have read or been told at some point that practicing to a metronome is an important thing for guitar players to do on a regular basis. I think that practicing with a metronome can reap many benefits and have spent a lot of time doing it over the years.

Although I’ve always felt that my sense of “time”—my ability to play at a steady tempo and in a groove “pocket” without speeding up or slowing down—has been pretty good, I realized at one point that it was not quite as good as I wanted it to be. So I spent a considerable amount of effort really focusing on that aspect of my playing, and I think there are ways to practice with a metronome that are more beneficial than others.