3 Myths About Using A Metronome For Guitar Practice That Slow Down Your Progress

Most advice about practicing guitar with a metronome leads to poor practice habits and less results. Get more out of your guitar practice by avoiding these common myths:

Myth #1: Using A Metronome Increases Your Guitar Speed

Using a metronome does not inherently increase your guitar playing speed. A metronome is simply a tool you use to test your current level of mastery with a specific technique, exercise or any other practice item.

Pay attention to things that cause your guitar playing to break down at faster speeds. Refine your guitar technique by practicing away from the metronome (usually at slower speeds). Later, test yourself again to see how much progress you’ve made.

Myth #2: Everything Has To Be Practiced With A Metronome

Guitarists who practice with a metronome all the time often get locked into using quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes when they solo. They rarely use dotted notes, triplets or rests in the middle of a musical phrase. This creates too much rhythmic similarity in your lead guitar phrases and makes it harder to be creative.

Your lead guitar playing becomes more interesting and expressive when you use a variety of note rhythms to build and release musical tension. Take the time to practice without a metronome and force yourself to think of as many rhythmic variations as possible while improvising a basic 3–5 note phrase. Use various rhythms while keeping the note’s pitches the same. Then, use the metronome to make your timing tight.

Additional tip: Practice playing scales and arpeggios while using many different rhythms (rather than only using strict sixteenth notes or triplets).

Myth #3: Practicing With A Metronome Limits Rhythmic Creativity

A metronome only limits your musical creativity if you let it do so. Great guitar players use a metronome to improve their rhythmic creativity. Here is how you can do the same: Set the metronome to a slow or moderate tempo (around 100–120 beats per minute). Freely improvise rhythm guitar riffs using a basic power chord. Challenge yourself to use rests (silence), syncopations or unusual rhythmic values you wouldn’t normally use. You become more creative when you force yourself to step outside of your comfort zone.

This exercise also helps play perfectly in time with the beat. This skill is important for playing music with a band, recording songs and improvising lead guitar over backing tracks.

Want to get tons of results in your guitar playing during every guitar practice session? Read this article about how to use a metronome during guitar practice and become a great guitarist faster than ever.