3 Ways To Improve Your Timing (with a metronome)

Holding down a groove to a metronome (“the click”) is the best way to improve your timing.

Here are my favorite exercises for getting better at grooving to the click.

Subdivision Exercise

1.) Get To Know The

Guitar ! 44 Subdivisions
8 " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " "

!
5

Guit. 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

8 """""""""""" """""""""""" """""""""""""""" Over on the left is an exercise to get

used to playing through each
subdivision of a quarter note.
!
8

Guit. 5 5 5 5

8 """""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""
By the end of the page you’ll you will
!
10

Guit. 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 have gone through eight notes, eight

8 """""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""" note triplets, sixteenth notes,
quintuplets, and sixteenth note
triplets… each for two measures.
!
12

Guit. 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 5

8 """""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""
This exercises will teach you how to
switch back and forth between the
!
14

Guit. 5 5 5 5

"""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""
8
different subdivisions of the beat with
confidence. If you do it enough, you’ll
be able to “pre-hear” the potential
!
16

Guit. 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
rhythms all happening underneath the
8 """""""""""""""" """""""""""" """""""""""" click.

!
19

Guit.
8 " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " "
 2.) Jam with the little kick drum

A metronome isn’t just a thing you use to get faster at playing. It can be used for that, for sure, but a
better use of it is to improve how well you can groove with a steady beat.

For this exercise, put the metronome at a comfortable pace - somewhere between 70-90bpm - and
then jam with a scale you might be working on.

Play with the different rhythms you used in the first exercise and improvise a solo!

If you need some easy scales to do this with, here are the five positions of the minor pentatonic scale:



Start with the first one, improvise some stuff, and make sure to play WITH the beat.

3.) Slow It Down!

Now let’s really stretch how well you can keep the beat. Instead of speeding up - we’re going to slow
down! With more space in between each click there’s more room for you to miss the beat.

Here we’re going to do the same thing as the last exercise - jamming to the little kick drum - but now
let’s make it interesting by slowing down the metronome to an uncomfortable pace: 30-40bpm.

The better you are at locking into a slow groove, without speeding up or missing the beat, the better
your timing is going to get overall.