One of the prime skills to develop as a musician is in playing tightly to a metronome. Unfortunately, too many players don’t fully grasp the use and purpose of the metronome. Not only are many individuals uncertain of how to use it, but many people are unaware of why is so important to become very well acquainted with one of the most valuable tools in your arsenal! Plenty of information about how to use the metronome has already been written, so I don’t intend to rehash popular exercises here, but I would like to expand on what the metronome means to us as modern musicians and suggest some tips on how to maximize your efforts in developing tightness.

A metronome is a device that helps musicians play at a steady tempo, that is to say, at the speed that was intended by the composer.

Have a look any “official” music score and you should see it at the very beginning of the piece.

The “Heavy Rock” part is a description of what kind of feel the composer is looking for. This is fairly subjective but it helps steer the player in the right direction. Following that is the tempo indication. It states that one quarter note, or one beat, occurs exactly 156 times in one minute. Hence, we would say that this piece is played at 156 Beats Per Minute (BPM). That is great to know, but it would be very difficult to estimate with any precision how fast this actually is. This is where the metronome comes in. Its raison d’être is to provide a audio or visual cue as to how often each beat occurs. Visual cues are usually some kind of blinking light, whereas audio ones could be a beeping or clicking sound. In fact, many modern digital metronomes include both.

Two styles of Metronomes

A Windup Metronome

A Digital Metronome

Modern Applications

There is a lot more to using the metronome than simply sampling a few bars to get the tempo of a song. In fact, the metronome is quite essential to all musical activities these days. You can thank artist/guitarist extraordinaire/inventor Les Paul for elevating the status of the metronome from a mere device for providing tempos to the indispensable live and studio tool that it is today. You may have heard that he is the creator of multitracking, which is the process of recording one track at a time and then mixing them together afterwards. Before the advent of multitracking, bands would all get in a soundproof room, place a microphone in the center of them, and record a few good takes to choose from. Multitracking allowed each instrument to be recorded separately for the first time. This approach had a number of advantages, but it also meant that there had to be a steady pulse for everyone to follow. The multitracking process is used to produce the vast majority of CDs today.

Multitracking necessitates being able to play with a far greater accuracy than was required in the early days of recording.

The typical modern procedure for recording a song goes like this: The band will spend some time playing the song to a metronome to determine its tempo. Once a consensus has been reached, a metronome track will be recorded for guidance. This is what’s referred to as the click track. In digital recording, there is no need to record anything because the click can be set and played during recording and even during playback. When viewed on the screen, each track will be stacked from top to bottom and will extend from left to right. Time intervals can be denoted in time or in bars and beats. These divisions are what’s known as “the grid”.

Screenshot of a Digital Recording Program

Usually, instruments are recorded in order from the most rhythm-centric to most melodic – E.G.: drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, vocals. However, because of the grid, it is possible to record in pretty much any order. That’s one of the reasons that recording is done this way today. If you have a famous session drummer flying in to do tracking in two weeks, why hold up production? As long as the bass and guitars are in time, they will sync up. For this purpose, a scratch drum track can be recorded using a drum program or machine. This would be replaced later by the real drums. You can see why it would be beneficial to be able to play very tightly to a click!

As I mentioned in my last article (How The Pros Practice), amateur musicians tend to shy away from using click tracks because they falsely believe that it will take away the feel. This assumption is based on inexperienced players’ tendency to try to chase the individual clicks rather than feeling the groove of the pulses. Having recorded guitar tracks myself over drums that were not recorded to a click, I’m not sure why anyone would put themselves through the hell of trying to sync up a riff with uneven drums! The truth is that recordings done this way will almost always sound sloppy and will take three times longer to record. The exception is highly skilled players who record everything at once to capture more interaction between the instruments. Unless you’ve done at least ten CDs using a click track, I don’t recommend that you even think about experimenting with recording without one! The fact is that, even bands who do record everything at once or that use an analog system to get that old school warmth, still need to be extremely tight because it is standard practice to have a professional digital editor go over everything to clean up the tracks. When the difference between tight and sloppy tracks can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars, you can bet that no record company would let you put down anything less than near perfect parts.

For the reasons stated above,

no matter what instrument or style of music you play, it is crucial that you can play very tightly to a click.

In a live setting, you can get away with playing without a metronome, but you may not have considered all the circumstances that would necessitate playing to a click live. The most common is the dreaded live “speed up” phenomenon which can affect even the most seasoned musicians. A cheering crowd and adrenaline rush can make for a more energetic performance than you were prepared for! The solution is to have the drummer wear an earpiece with a click. The rest of the band don’t need to wear one, since they can follow the drummer. Oddly enough, I haven’t met many drummers, or even whole bands for that matter, who want to do this. They say that it takes too much effort to follow the metronome and it takes away from the enjoyment of the live experience. This is a very interesting response because it highlights the difference between playing for fun and playing professionally. It does take some getting used to, but the difference is a loosey-goosey “bar” band sound versus a tight pro sound.

The other common scenarios for using a click live are when sequencing is involved such as time sensitive lighting or sound effects and live recording. If you release CDs, there comes a time when you will want to release a live CD and/or DVD. Just check out most any professional live recordings and I think you’ll find that the playing is surprisingly solid. That’s because the drummer is almost certainly playing to a click! If not, he or she undoubtedly practices to one regularly.

More on Practicing for Tightness

I have discovered something interesting about tight players. They all spend a lot of time recording! In my early days as a musician, I practiced to a metronome when I was getting ready to record and the odd time that the mood struck me, which wasn’t all that often! This did very little to help my timing at all. It seems that playing along to a metronome will not do wonders for you by itself. At best, it will make your live performances more solid. It was not until I put together a home studio and began to use it every day that I started to see some real progress. Having read interviews and spoken to some of the best players, I have come to realize that the habitual recording to a click is what separates the really tight players from the so-so ones. It acts as a mirror to your playing that does not lie. All too often, players will only hear what they want to hear when playing a part!

Recording a part forces you to listen to the sounds that your hands are actually producing as opposed to what you’re hearing in your head.

Here is the process that many pros follow when perfecting and recording a part:

The first step is to play along to the metronome or drum machine for about fifteen minutes or until you feel that the part sounds as noise free and tight as you can play it. After you’ve recorded a few satisfactory takes, listen back to them. If you’re like me, you’ll be amazed by all the ways which the part could sound a lot better than you thought it did! Once you have ascertained what needs to be improved upon, repeat the whole process again and listen a second time. The kinds of changes that I personally would make (as a guitar player) will usually consists of tightening, picking more clearly, eliminating string and position shifting noises, as well as making minor changes to the part to make it sound clearer. This iterative process can continue up to a half-dozen times. Sometimes I come back to a part a few days later as well. Even a pretty good sounding part will improve with a couple more sessions. In other words, you can always play tighter and better!

Tightness is not just about following a click track to a very exacting degree, but it is also about clearly enunciating each note and making what’s in your head come across on “tape”. The tightest players happen to be the ones who spend a lot of time working on this very skill. Whether you’re a hobbyist or a full-time pro, you can’t go wrong by recording yourself over a click track – often. Until next time, happy practicing!

References:

Online Metronome:
http://www.metronomeonline.com/
http://www.answers.com/topic/metronome
http://www.answers.com/topic/les-paul

There are a number of differences between professional and amateur musicians but if I had to single out one above all others, it would be that the pros play with a much higher level of consistency. When you watch live performances, you’ll notice that the players seldom make mistakes and they play all their parts very solidly, no matter how technically difficult the part. I used to think that there was such a thing as “good enough”, especially when dealing with difficult passages. Not so in the pro world. In the big leagues:

No matter how easy or hard a part is to play, you must be able to play it perfectly.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s whole note chords or 32nd note arpeggios. Also keep in mind that any recording project has a fixed budget, which means that you have a set amount of time in which to put down your tracks. If you’re struggling with playing your parts, in order to keep the project on budget, a producer will likely bring in a session player. Let me repeat that with more emphasis, in case it didn’t quite sink in the first time:

If you cannot record your parts withing a reasonable amount of time, the producer will likely bring in a session player!

In my amateur naiveté, I used to joke to my bandmates that I’d like to see them try to find someone who could lay down my rhythm parts in any reasonable amount of time! After talking to Jeff, I am convinced that they could and would replace me if I were to give them a reason to. That’s when it really hit me that:

As a professional musician, you must be able to play consistently well under pressure.

Playing music is a lot more fun than working in an office, but let there be no misunderstanding, with potentially large sums of money at stake, you are expected to do a job and do it well. Now I don’t mean to imply that you have to be some kind of virtuoso. Far from it. To be successful in the studio, a musician simply requires a strong sense for what a song needs and be able to capture those ideas on “tape” in a timely fashion. Live, consistency is one of the key components for giving each audience a good show for their hard earned money.

Practice Principles

As you might have guessed, to attain this level of proficiency, it takes a very specific approach to practicing – one that is surprisingly quite foreign to most players!

Everyone knows that practice makes perfect, but few people realize how much impact the quality of their practice sessions will have on their career. Most people focus too much on unimportant things and way too little on the really important stuff! For example, one of the biggest mistakes that amateurs make, myself included, is to equate chops with skill. Most amateurs try to hide their lack of solidity by throwing in a lot of licks and embellishments in their playing. Once in the studio, they quickly discover that music industry professionals are not fooled for one second by frivolous flashy parts. To them, sloppily executed licks just look ridiculous and merely detract from the song that they want to capture. Get in the habit of practicing to achieve solidity and consistency in every recording you do and leave the licks for when you can play your parts in your sleep.

Pros practice exercises and techniques as much as songs

I used to spend the vast majority of my time going over songs. Now, most of my practice time is allocated towards playing scales, chord progressions, and a variety of exercises aimed at improving my picking, fingering, fluidity, consistency, and timing. The idea behind this is that the better your technique is, the easier it is to put down songs solidly. At a recent drum clinic, drummer extraordinaire Mike Mangini remarked, “Music is not just art, but a skill as well. There are many talented musicians, but only a few skilled ones.” He went on to say that one of the key traits that separate him from most musicians is the discipline to practice mundane and basic techniques over and over again until they are perfect.

Practice everything to a metronome

Some people, including many, many drummers, feel that they can somehow avoid metronomes believing that they instinctively possess pretty good timing already. One of two things tends to happen to these people if their band is lucky enough to get signed. They either get replaced before the deal goes through or, if they are integral to the band because of creative input or image, they are relegated to watching the recording from the sidelines. The producer will know who practices to a click and who doesn’t, and he or she will very likely bring in someone else, because it’s too late to catch up at that point. This is especially true for drummers, since it’s extremely difficult to punch in drums.

General Tips for Practicing and Working with the Metronome

I asked my band’s vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, John Devadasan Perinbam, for his thoughts on this subject. Here’s what he had to say:

1. I’d advise people to start with the metronome on SLOW! Every book I have read on drums and piano mentions this! That will help work the muscles that need it…and yield much better control.

2. George L. Stone recommends in his acclaimed book Stick Control to repeat each pattern twenty times without stopping before moving onto the next pattern. This forces the player to be conscious of counting the pattern, not just ripping through each pattern.

3. In my opinion the purpose of practice is to fine tune the muscle memory so that the muscles obey the brain with a minimum of conscious intervention – whether the practice is for music, sports, whatever…

4. WATCH FOR TENSION when you practice. Vocalists should practice in front of a mirror and observe posture, use one hand to feel the muscles under the jaw while practicing. If something feels like it is tensing, you’re probably not doing it right.

5. I’ve heard many people say that they don’t want to use a click track because they won’t “feel” the music the same way. That’s usually because they are not used to working with the click and they are “chasing” it rather than feeling the groove of the beat.

6. By the time you’re ready for the studio, you should be able to play the parts in your sleep. There should be nothing that challenges the limits of your playing ability. If there is, then the parts are too difficult.

6b. By the same token, when it comes to recording, a simple part, played solidly and consistently, is infinitely preferable to a challenging part that is “hit-or-miss”.

7. A point regarding discipline: always set goals that are attainable. The person that suddenly decides to allocate three hours a day for personal practice after twenty years of not practicing at all is likely the same person who is no longer practicing regularly after three or four months!

8. Learn another instrument, at least at a beginner level. At the very least, you’ll get a different perspective of the music, and you’ll be more understanding of your bandmate who regularly plays that instrument. Additionally as you become more proficient you’ll likely develop your muscles more evenly than if all your attention is focussed on one instrument.

9. Allow time for new techniques to sink in. It takes time for information to filter through the conscious mind and stored in “muscle-memory”. Patience.

Practicing everything to a metronome is a great habit to get into, and will put you leagues above most players, but there is more that you can do to make the most efficient use of your practice time. Most pros have very busy schedules. What with public appearances, business meetings, traveling, they have a lot less time for practicing than you might think! But that’s OK, because:

Pros know how to make the most of limited practice time.

Each time a professional musician sits down to practice, he/she knows what he/she is going to go over and for how long. Here is a sample practice session:

• 15 minutes of hand stretches and strengthening exercises.
• 1/2 hour of picking/timing exercises
• 15 minutes of scales played at different tempos
• 1 hour of rehearsing songs for evening’s band practice

Depending on what needs more work and what kind of guitar player you are (IE: rhythm or lead guitar), your practice agenda could differ substantially from the one above. I strongly recommend that you have a look at John Petrucci’s Rock Discipline instructional video for some useful guidelines. Just keep in mind that he represents the extreme far right of the pro player spectrum and is by no means “typical” in his degree of perfectionism. If you take it as the benchmark for what it takes to play at the highest level of technical proficiency, you can scale it back from there to determine how much is enough for you. For example, if you play rhythm guitar in a rock & roll style band, you would put most of your emphasis on strumming chords along with a click track and a lot less on pentatonic licks. What you would NOT do is reason that you want a loose feel, so you avoid using a click track! That’s what an amateur would say and it won’t serve you well in the studio.

Practicing for Tightness

Even playing along to a metronome every day is not enough to ensure that you are ready for recording. In case you haven’t yet enjoyed the thrill of recording, you’ll find that it is a lot different than playing in your living room. And the best way to prepare to do recording is to do some recording! I strongly recommend that you purchase a small portable digital studio for this purpose. You can snag one for a couple of hundred bucks and it could pay huge dividends for your career. Here’s how to use it. When ever you make up a part, put it down. Not only will that help you remember it, but it will also provide you with practical rehearsal for the real thing. Once you’re satisfied with the performance, go ahead and double it, and then even triple it! I like to record a part ten times and then pan individual parts hard left and right so that I can hear how closely they match up. Ideally, you should be able to do this with any of the ten takes and they should all sound good. In reality, you will probably find that several of the parts that you thought were bang on are in fact less than rock solid! Once you can play the part and double it virtually every time, you’re ready for the real recording. I can remember too many occasions going over a part a zillion times to capture that one magic take. Lucky for me, I was recording in a home studio. I could never have gotten away with that in a real one. At the very least, I would have received a strong tongue lashing from the engineer. In a big budget scenario, the producer would have probably banished me from the recording and replaced me until I was ready to get down to business. The lesson here is that:

Pros record all their parts several times before attempting the “real” recording.

There are exceptions to all the rules I’ve outlined above, but you will find that the best and most sought after players do follow all these practices. Don’t let yourself become one of those artists who refuse to regiment their practicing because that they fear it will homogenize their playing, because, rest assured, these fears are simply unfounded. It can only help your cause to become proficient at your chosen instrument. So give these practices a try, and get yourself on the right path before you’re told to! Until next time, happy practicing!

Today, I’m going to talk about tremolo tapping, which is a technique that I used to create a dramatic run in the song Up from the Ashes from my band’s Unconscience album (see figure 7). I “borrowed” the technique from Randy Rhoads’ work on the classic Ozzy albums Blizzard of Ozzand Diary of a Madman. Other artists who employ this technique in their songs include Joe Satriani and John Petrucci.

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of this song. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Before we get into the specifics of tremolo tapping technique, let’s have a gander at the tremolo effect, its origins, and uses. Tremolo is the repetition of a note by means of very fast alternate picking. This creates a kind of a “trembling” sound, which is used especially for dramatic effect and/or tonal intensification. Double stops (2 notes) and even chords can also be played with tremolo. Usually, tremolos are measured, meaning that it subdivides the beat accurately according to the number of bars through the note stem (see figure 1A). An unmeasured tremolo, usually indicated with the word trem, can also be used. Tremolos were first seen on the piano and other keyboard instruments. The composer Franz Liszt often called for the technique to be used in his piano pieces. By the beginning of the 19th Century, tremolos had made their way into the Orchestra’s string section’s standard repertoire of effects.

Here are some examples of tremolo notation and their equivalents in regular notation:

Playing tremolos that involve several notes is very challenging if you use only one hand to alternate between the notes. In fact, you would probably have great difficulty keeping up in quick tempos. By tapping the higher notes, you can achieve a speed far surpassing the fretting hand. To execute tremolo tapping, use the back or side of the pick to strike the string. This will give you a more pronounced attack. In fact, some players, such as George Lynch, have been known to use quarters and other objects to get different sounds. Another important point is to keep your arm very stiff as you tap so that you are using your forearm to move the pick rather than your wrist. For extra speed, concentrate on keeping the pick very close to the string at all times because the further from the string you get, the longer it will take to hit it again!

Here’s our first example of tremolo tapping in action. It is short filler lick from I Don’t Know off of the Blizzard of Ozz album. To play it, place your index finger on the 5th fret of the fourth string and tap the higher notes with the pick. There are some slower notes at the beginning and end of the lick to give you time to get into and out of position.

An Ozzy favourite, Crazy Train showcases yet another amazing display of Randy Rhoads’ virtuoso technique. This time, he uses odd note groupings to create a kind of wavering in speed that very much blurs the line between a measured and unmeasured tremolo:

Our next example is an excerpt from Surfin’ With The Alien by Joe Satriani. This is a real fast and long descending sequence, which is sure to put your endurance to the test!

And finally, let’s look at the Up From The Ashes lick from off of my band’s Unconscience album. My aim was to combine Rik Emmett’s “Pentatonic Waterfalls” with tremolo tapping. Whereas Rik Emmett used pull-offs on a nylon string guitar to achieve a soothing waterfall-like effect, I used rapid-fire tremolo tapping, a doubled track, and lots of distortion to unleash unbridled metal fury!

To play the Up From The Ashes lick, slide your index finger up to the 12th fret and move it down to the next string as you descend. I don’t recommend barring the 12th fret because that will result in a lot of ringing. It may look fast with all the 32 nd notes, but at a mere 115 beats per minute, it actually works out to be slightly slower than the Joe Satriani example.

That brings us to the end of today’s lesson. I hope that these examples inspired you to come up with your own unique licks. Feel free to email me some of your ideas! Until next time, happy practicing!

All examples in this lesson were notated using Guitar-Pro software.