A metronome for drum practice

Put the click on 2 and 4 only

The single most useful setting for drum practice is 4/4 with beats 1 and 3 muted, leaving clicks on 2 and 4. In the accent editor, press beats 1 and 3 twice each to mute them. Now the click lands where your snare lands, and whether you are early or late becomes obvious rather than theoretical.

When the snare sits exactly on the click, the click seems to disappear underneath it. Finding that sensation is the goal. Start around 90 BPM, hunt for the moment the two sounds fuse into one, then start raising the tempo.

Keeping fills from running away

A rock-solid groove that rushes the moment a fill starts is one of the most common problems there is. The usual cause is that the fill has been memorised as a single gesture and is replayed as a block. A block has no internal pulse, so it accelerates.

The fix is to turn on sixteenth note subdivisions for the fill only. With the space between beats filled in, you can hear which grid position each note of the fill belongs to. Repeat it ten times that way, then switch subdivisions off and play it again: the block has been taken apart into beats.

One accent per bar

Once that is comfortable, remove more. Leave beat 1 as an accent and mute everything else, so the only thing the click confirms is the start of the bar.

Play eight bars. If beat 1 still lines up at the end, your internal clock is holding. If it has slipped, find the bar where it slipped and work on that bar alone.

Approaching odd metres

With 7/8 or 5/4 the grouping is half the battle. Seven is usually felt as 2+2+3 or 3+2+2; five as 3+2 or 2+3. Choose the signature here, put an accent on the first beat of each group, and the structure gets into your body without you counting numbers at it.

Start away from the kit: just listen and tap your knee on the accents. Once the shape is familiar, adding kick and snare takes far less time than drilling it cold.