Just anopther couple of quick thoughts from someone that did not bother with playing with a metronome when he (me) started; play along with songs too in addition to the metronome.

The metronome is in a way something like the replacement to a snare drum. The key is to learn how to play in a groove and keep good time. When I finally gave in to using a metronome, though I didn't have the worst timing, I wasn't exactly a swiss-made watch either.

I really started playing along with songs and hearing the snare as my 'groove detector'. A metronome can almost seem militaristic in its relentlessnes in timing until you realize that it is a way to establish a simple groove.

I play in our church band (mostly bass but I do drums...a lot lately...and guitar of course). Not long ago, we needed to add a girl on piano. It's a small church so the skill of our musicians is a bit varied. She was not a piano player with a tone of experience and particularly playing with others. She knew the notes but had little sense of timing in as far as groove. She had practiced with a metronome but never played with others where you had to hear the groove. In the end, a metronome is about a sense of timing but it is really a very important tool to set you up for playing songs (ie - finding that groove). I simply told this and added that she should play along with songs on her off time to understand how it all comes together and not just the metronome. She said this has helped.

Like Chris said, it takes time and 'automate' these skills and sooo very true. Playing along with songs helps build that 'automatic' deal because you start to feel where the changes comes from and get a sense that throughout most songs, they all seem to follow a similar pattern of when key changes happen etc. It helps to apply to the metronome in that you aren't furrowing your brow to remember 5 different things while keeping time.

It's about making timing natural in the end....this is what I did to clean up my timing.