How can I work on timing?

[sonatafanica]

Does anyone have any suggestions as far as good methods to practice keeping time and to cement the knowledge of note durations into my mind?

The long story short version is that I did not learn how to play guitar to any music or beat, so I really need to get this down. I'm open to any suggestion.

[PlaysLikeMyung]

The hard way: Counting everything out over and over and over and over and over again

Yeah it sucks, but it's the best way to learn

[XianL]

PLM is right. Trying listening to some more of your simplistic music, rhythm-wise, and count out the beats. A good reference song for what I'm talking about is Metallica's Enter Sandman. It's got a slow, 4-beat rhythm you should be able to pick out.

[bosk1]

Practice with a metronome a lot.  If you practice something for a while that is in 4/4 at 120 bpm, you soon develop a pretty good feel for the proper note durations at that speed.  Then you do the same thing with a different speed, and so on.

[sneakyblueberry]

I'm not sure if you're talking about singing or playing guitar?  Playing along with CD's (esp 'simple' metal like Maiden, Metallica and some Megadeth) got me pretty good timing.  Then moving over to metronome once you have a feel for things and playing scales etc.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

A desensitizing cream would probably work wonders.

[PlaysLikeMyung]

A desensitizing cream would probably work wonders.

[ddtonfire]

Practice with a metronome a lot.  If you practice something for a while that is in 4/4 at 120 bpm, you soon develop a pretty good feel for the proper note durations at that speed.  Then you do the same thing with a different speed, and so on.

Quoted for emphasis.

[ZBomber]

Just give up and put your guitar on ebay or something.

[LTE]

Practice with a metronome is like the only answer, like seriously. You should know the types of notes and get a feel for playing them in different bpms.

[PlaysLikeMyung]

Just give up and put your guitar on ebay or something.

And kill yourself

[ZBomber]

Just give up and put your guitar on ebay or something.

And kill yourself

KILLLLLL YOURSELFFFFFFF

[sonatafanica]

Okay, so I've made this excercise where I play up and down the fretboard to a metronome at a set time.


The thing is, I can tell when I've screwed up. That should be a positive indicator, right? My only frustrating problem is that I seem to do it a lot. I guess I just have to cement timing into my skull.

[ZBomber]

Okay, so I've made this excercise where I play up and down the fretboard to a metronome at a set time.


The thing is, I can tell when I've screwed up. That should be a positive indicator, right? My only frustrating problem is that I seem to do it a lot. I guess I just have to cement timing into my skull.

Start off really slow. It really does help when you slowly build up speed. You're still gonna make mistakes, but I find that when you gradually increase the speed you mess up less, as opposed to if you just start out faster.

[Birch Boy]

When you feel the time is right, you slowly start to move your hand towards her -

Oh wait, you mean musically.

[Tiko]

Play with a metronome, if you can't keep it rock solid then drop the tempo a bit slower. If you have a daw it's great to record while you play so you can see if the audio matches with the grids.

- Tiko

[PlaysLikeMyung]

Start off slowly, and with quarter notes. Those would be easy to keep up with as you progress your speed

Then eighth notes. Start slowly, then build up. If you're just working on timing, don't move around the fretboard to begin with. Keep with one or two notes (alternating, of course)

Sixteenth notes could come after, but they play just like eighth notes, just faster.

Triplets may come in handy too, but keep those for last.

Once you have all of those, alternate between the quarter, eighth, and sixteenth in each measure. Use patterns like: quarter, eighth-sixteenth-sixteenth, sixteenth-sixteenth-eighth, eighth-eighth (should be four beats total).

Then start with dotted notes. Dotted quarter, eighth, eighth, dotted quarter.

This is how I learned. And remember: PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. Practice as much as you can.

[LTE]

Don't move up to another speed until you can play it at the slower speed PERFECTLY.

[PlaysLikeMyung]

Hey Fanica if you're interested I can make you a GP file of exercises to practice to. Let me know if you're interested

[sonatafanica]

I definitely am, but I don't have Guitar Pro.


The one exercise I've been doing, which I meant by playing 'up and down the fretboard' was pretty much playing this to a metronome:

Code: [Select]

|----------------------------------------------1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2
|-------------------------------------1-2-3-4-------------------5-4-3-2
|----------------------------1-2-3-4-------------------------------------
|-------------------1-2-3-4----------------------------------------------
|----------1-2-3-4-------------------------------------------------------
|-1-2-3-4----------------------------------------------------------------
and so on, all the way up and back down. Just to get it as ingrained into my mind as possible.

[PlaysLikeMyung]

If you get a program called TuxGuitar (https://tuxguitar.herac.com.ar/), you can play GP files with it for free (it's open source)

It'll be good for note durations, which get trickier as you add different combinations. I could throw together some simple ones to help you practice

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

sf, I've always used something similar to what you're doing there.  It's part of the Steve Vai 10 Hour Workout:

|--------------------|--------------------|----------1-2-3-4-|
|--------------------|--------------------|-1-2-3-4----------|
|--------------------|----------1-2-3-4-|--------------------|
|--------------------|-1-2-3-4----------|--------------------|
|----------1-2-3-4-|--------------------|--------------------|
|-1-2-3-4----------|--------------------|--------------------|


|-2-3-4-5----------|--------------------|--------------------||
|----------2-3-4-5-|--------------------|--------------------||
|--------------------|-2-3-4-5----------|--------------------||
|--------------------|----------2-3-4-5-|--------------------||
|--------------------|--------------------|-2-3-4-5----------||
|--------------------|--------------------|----------2-3-4-5-||

Very similar to what you do, but here's one that mixes it up nicely:

|--------------------|--------------------|----------2-3-4-1-|
|--------------------|--------------------|-1-2-3-4----------|
|--------------------|----------4-1-2-3-|--------------------|
|--------------------|-3-4-1-2----------|--------------------|
|----------2-3-4-1-|--------------------|--------------------|
|-1-2-3-4----------|--------------------|--------------------|


|-4-5-2-3----------|--------------------|--------------------||
|----------5-2-3-4-|--------------------|--------------------||
|--------------------|-2-3-4-5----------|--------------------||
|--------------------|----------3-4-5-2-|--------------------||
|--------------------|--------------------|-4-5-2-3----------||
|--------------------|--------------------|----------5-2-3-4-||

With each set of four notes, you start on a different finger.  What makes it interesting is when you get to the "2-3-4-1" on the high E and have to shift one fret up - to "4-5-2-3".  Remember that you're to start that with your ring finger, as your index finger should now be at the second fret.  I generally do this all the way up the neck.  Excellent warm up.

I'll also do the same two exercises using just my index, ring, and pinky fingers (Straight 1-3-4 all the way up, then 1-3-4  3-4-1  4-1-3), playing the notes as triplets.

[PlaysLikeMyung]

That's one of the exercises I learned, too. 'Cept it was with four strings, and I had to alternate my pick-finger pattern

[LTE]

Instead of practicing straight chromatic exercises, try playing actual scale patterns and arpeggios. And just improvise with them along with a metronome. That's much more effective imo, because you won't have useless chromatic fragments engrained in your playing.