Playing with a Metronome or a Click Track

My students learn early on that I value playing with a metronome or a click track during their lessons. I encourage them to continue this during their practice sessions away from my teaching studio. There are many options to make this happen: a dedicated device (an actual metronome); an iPod with downloaded metronome tracks; a smart phone with an app and/or a computer with internet access.

If there is not a way to get it loud enough for the drum set, then it can be used when practicing on the snare drum or even a drum pad. I prefer the snare drum over a drum pad for a few reasons: (1) the feel of the drum is so different as compared to the feel of a pad; (2) the sound of a real drum is nice; (3) when you go to the gig, you play the drum and not the pad; and (4) it forces you to work on dynamics.

The majority of my practicing is done with a drum machine. Sometimes I play along to a simple click and other times I’ll play along to a percussion part that I have programmed. When I’m working on swing, I’ll set the click to be my two and four (when playing in 4/4). It’s a lot of fun, but it did take me a while to get to point where I could do this comfortably.

So much music today is being recorded to a click sometimes with SMPTE timecode. I find that if my students get used to doing this sooner rather than later, then they are much more prepared for the next step. Needless to say, their bandmates seem to like the fact that the drummer is rock solid even in the garage!