Metronome: even clicks and one try
Listen to the click. Then one downstroke on every click. Leave muting for later.
Adrian7 minupdated
Open the Metronome. Set ♩ = 72 and 4/4 time. For half a minute, only listen. The click should be even, like a breath, not like a command.
One downstroke on the click
BPM is beats per minute. At 60 the click lands once a second. 72 is a little faster and still leaves room for a calm movement. That is the tool start, not a threshold after which you may sing.
Take one grip that already sits, or rest the left hand on all six strings without pressing. One downstroke on every click. The hand returns in silence. Eight bars, with the click audible the whole time.
The click will not wait for a chord change and will not speed up with your hand. It will not repair coordination either. If the left hand presses the fret after the right hand has already struck, you hear a mess, but you have to practise the change itself, not a denser click.
Then take some of the clicks away
Only when eight bars come back on the click do you leave empty spaces. You want to play at 100 BPM: set 50 and treat every click as “two” or “four”. You keep “one” and “three” yourself. At 60 BPM and slower this exercise makes no sense, because the gaps become too long.
A stronger try is four bars with the click and four without it. When the click returns, you hear at once whether the inner pulse stayed in place.
If the result still drifts, put the guitar down and tap your knee or the phone screen. Without chords it is easier to separate a pulse problem from a finger problem.
Tempo rises after a result, not a calendar
The books propose different ladder steps, but the shared condition matters more than the number: you raise the tempo after an even pass, not because a day has gone by.
| school | start | step | condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexander | 60 | +8 | four recorded passes sound even |
| Carter | 50 or 60 | +5 or +10 | four clean repetitions in a row |
| Fujita | 40 | one click | no mistakes, because one slip means the tempo is too high |
| Chord Changes | 72 | +2 | eight bars without the hand stopping |
Slow playing helps you keep things clean, but it does not replace a try at the target tempo. The ladder is there to stop you from locking in a mistake, not to promise that time itself will turn a slow movement into a fast one.
Practise in short, regular sessions. The books disagree about the number of minutes, but each of them puts repeated, focused work above one long marathon.
In the study Svärd describes, it was repeating a specific pattern that counted, not just moving the fingers. For this lesson that means one thing: for ten minutes practise one rhythm, instead of changing the material every moment.
When you cannot hear the start of the bar
The Metronome in Guitarmatic has an accent on “one”, your own strumming patterns, and presets. Start with the accent if even clicks blend together and you lose the beginning of the bar.
If the accent is not enough, turn on the Drum Machine. The Pop/rock 1 preset puts the kick on one, three and the “and” after three, and the snare on two and four. That is a map of the bar, not a new pattern for the hand.
Do not treat a drift as a score for your ear or talent. The click only shows where the problem sits. If you lose time without the guitar, work on the pulse. If it happens only during a chord change, go back to a slow change of the hands.
Do this now
Metronome, ♩ = 72, 4/4 time, accent on “one”.
Eight bars with a full click. One downstroke on every click. Silence between bars is for later.
Measure: eight bars, the click is audible the whole time, and the downstroke comes back with the click.
Play this
two songs, one patternMary Had a Little Lamb has eight bars and one chord per bar, so the click has nowhere to hide. In Hej sokoły open the chord sheet (Kwit): you can see the bars, and the chorus likes to push the hand.
Read more
- The Complete Technique, Theory and ScalesJoseph Alexander · “How to Speed Up” and ch. 18You will find the ladder in steps of 8 BPM here, along with the two exercises that take the click away: on two and four, and silence every other bar.
- Guitar WisdomTomo Fujita · “Metronome Setting”This is where the sentence the courses leave out is written down: a metronome holds the tempo but will not repair your hand coordination.
- Beginner Guitar Chords in Theory and PracticeSean Laughton · “5 Steps To Good Timing”The author builds his ladder the other way round: the tempo stays at 60 and only the number of strums and changes in a bar goes up.
- MetronomeWikipediaThe entry collects the history of the device (Maelzel's 1815 patent, Beethoven as the first to write tempo markings) and gives the source of the robot complaint, Brahms quote included.
- TempoWikipediaThe entry explains BPM and lists the Italian tempo ranges, which differ a little from the guitar books, and that difference shows nicely that the bands are conventions.
- teoria.com exercisesJosé Rodríguez AlviraThe site runs free rhythmic dictation in your browser with no adverts, and an account only saves your scores.