Hi, this is my first lesson. I want to really emphasize time keeping as I believe it is the one main thing that seperates the men from the boys. Learning cool riffs and grooves will come with time, but is far more important that you concentrate on learning good time. THe metronome will help you a lot with this; in its basic form it makes a constant beeping sound of which you can change the time between each beep.
For starters set the time to 100bpm (beats per minute). The beep will probably get to you, but once you start seein gthe instant results metro-boy will become one of ya best friends.
So now that you've set the beat, start playing a single note for every first beep of the four beats. Make sure you play directly on the beat, perfectly in sync with the beep. When you've got that down, play on the second beat, than the third, than the fourth, and than the firdst beat again and so forth.
Easy?
Maybe, maybe not, but it won't be long till it is. SO to make it harder lower the time by 10bpm. So that would make it 90bpm. When you've got that, lower it by another 10bpm and so forth.
Now, when ya up to the challenge start playing scales with the beeps, playing a diferent note of the scale on every beat. Start at 100bpm and work yer way down slower in 10s. The slower the beats the harder to keep time. (try keeping perfect time at 40bpm)
Thats probably enough for now, but when you've got all this mastered just start playing your riffs and grooves to the metronome, getting slower and slower. You will find that spending time with the metronome will reap massive results, and you will become a lot more 'tight' with the beat, producing a magnetic groove.
Have a great time building ya relationship with metro-boy!
