When you’re first learning guitar, you have to have a metronome. Now, don’t think you need to buy a metronome. This is the age of electronics and the internet. You can download free software which will give you a metronome, or you can go on-line and find a javascript version of a metronome.

www.TabGuitarLessons.com has a free metronome that’s simple and has a real metronome sound. Download it, then install. There are no adware that he installs, so you don’t have to worry. Then you just go to the Start menu and look for ‘Free Metronome’.

Click ‘Start’ and it will begin. It doesn’t let you pick your settings as it’s going, so you’ll have to click ‘STOP’ to reset the tempo. It lets you pick either 3/4 or 4/4, it lets you pick the number of ticks per minute. It lets you emphasize the beat, it can ‘stay on top’ in case you have some other music program which shows tablature that you want to not make the metronome go away when you click on it.

A metronome will let you start getting the rhythm of quarter notes. Try playing a quarter not on each beat. If you don’t know what to set it at, go to YouTube and listen to one of the guys who teach guitar lessons on YouTube. They might have a metronome ticking. Try and synchronize your ticking with their ticking. Then you’ll see what they’re doing.

It does let you choose between 3/4 and 4/4, so try listening to the difference. When set to 1 for Emphasize beat, you will hear the beginning be a bit louder, then less loud ticks. When you have it set to 3/4 , you will hear TICK, tick, tick, TICK, tick, tick, TICK, tick, tick.

When you set it to 4/4, you’ll hear it go TICK, tick, tick, tick, TICK, tick, tick, tick,
TICK, tick, tick, tick.

So, there you go. In 4/4 time, each of those ticks would be quarter notes. The louder TICK is saying that’s where you start the bar. The next loud TICK would be the beginning of the next bar on the sheet music page.

So, if your sheet music says 4/4, then you choose 4/4 on your metronome. Then, when you are playing the notes, and you see quarter notes, the quarter notes will receive one beat every time the metronome ticks. If you see eighth notes on the sheet music, then you’ll play two notes every time you hear it tick. If they are sixteenth notes, you play four notes every time you hear it tick.

In the other direction, when you see half notes, you strum at the beginning of one tick, then you wait for one more tick to go by, then you strum on the third tick, then you wait for the next loud tick again signifying that the next bar has arrived.

If it is a whole note, you would only play a note every time you hear the loudest TICK out of the four ticks. TICK, tick, tick, tick,

So, now you’re learning guitar. See, it’s not that hard!

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