New discipline

[polansky]

I just got the John Petrucci Rock Discipline exercises, and read so much on him stressing the use of a metronome.

Two issues here, when he says "slow" does it mean even slow for a begginer?, like boring slow (you know the kind, leaking faucet slow), or just confortably slow, and the other thing is (maybe this belongs in another thread but this one comes as a package deal) any suggestions on a nice metronome (maybe one that you can use with headphones)?

[ren]

depends which bit your talking about.

The foundation of everything is solid performance at a slow tempo - you HAVE to get it spot on slow before you can think about being able to play it at 200bpm.

Play the exercise at a tempo slow enough that you play it 100% perfect without any tension anywhere etc, and build it up from there. Some exercises I might start to practice at 100bpm and work up to 130 (sixteenth note triplets for example), some I might start at 150 and work towards 200 (quarters maybe)... Some of the sweep patterns I practice I might have the metronome way down - I still use it on 40bpm sometimes...

On the metronome itself - I use a Korg MA-30 - works fine, and has headphone out. There are loads available - this was the just the one the store had in stock when I went to buy a new one... :D