Originally Posted by: maggiorIf you've identified something you need to work on, you've accomplished something already!!

For keeping in time, I find that tapping my foot helps tremendously. You can also try hitting a single note (drone) over a track. First try with quarter notes, then 8th notes, and so on. The idea is to just focus on keeping time.

Use a slow backing track if you have to.

A slow "simple" lick sounds that is in time sounds far better than any fast "cool" lick that is out of time. Playing in time is tremendously important!

Eventually it comes naturally, but even now I sometimes have to step back and conciously focus on keeping time!

Yeah, I tried to tap my foot while playing but the timing still slipped... And I already tried slowing down my backing track from 88BPM to 76BPM. Maybe it's just exhaustion after a hard day at work followed by a trip to the gear store to pick up my SG which they had completely forgotten about repairing for me and then driving home... Or maybe my timing just needs work... I'm hoping it's the exhaustion thing, really. Normally, I have no problems with hitting the notes at the right time... Well, I'll just have to try again tomorrow... After getting some sleep.