Any metronome that can hear you through the microphone and tell you if you are going on tempo?

Question

I am learning guitar and I know about the normal metronomes, but I need something that can tell me if I am doing well or something similar.

Answer 1

I know of at least one product which will do what you're asking- but for drums, not guitar.

You could record yourself playing and look at the recording afterwards to judge your playing, but this can be tedious and will not give you immediate feedback. For example,

You may find that simply recording and listening to yourself will help your judge your own time better than you can while you're playing, without ever looking at the waveform. If you do choose to look at waveforms, I recommend that you play a short segment, judge your own timing based on what you heard, and then look at the waveform to see if your judgment was accurate. Your goal is not just to see if your playing was ahead or behind for that particular recording, but to learn what it sounds like to be ahead or behind. Once you learn, you can make immediate judgments about how you played without the extra steps, which is critical for learning to play rhythms accurately.

(Note that synchronizing different audio sources can be a pain. If your recording software is generating the metronome, it may not be synchronized with your playing in the same way that you hear it. You should record both the guitar and the metronome (on your phone perhaps) with one microphone, to avoid sync errors.)

If you have a teacher, they will be able to judge your timing. If you don't have a teacher, you should find one- there are definitely other problems with your playing you don't notice or can't judge accurately, besides your timing.

Answer 2

The main problem is, that the device would not only need to listen but also to know, what note values are supposed to be played. Without that tuplets, held-over notes or loud off-beat notes will in best cases lead to black-out phases (no feedback by the device, since it is not sure enough) or in worst case provoke wrong feedback.

For rhythmically easy pieces this may work easily - but they are not the ones, where you would need the device. Another complication are instruments, which are capable of playing chords, so several notes with different durations increase possibility of confusion.

Having a software, which knows the desired notes in the format of, say, a MIDI file and then monitors your MIDI keyboard events and measures differences, seems at least imaginable but is quite restricted.

Answer 3

That's not what a metronome is for. Yes, it sets a continuous, evenly spaced, set of pulses, but that is intended for you to learn how to coordinate your internal clocks while playing. Being "told" that you are off-tempo won't help. You need to learn to observe, either visually or auditorally, both the metronome and your place in the music.

As a first step, for example, try just counting "one, two, three...." along with a metronome so you get used to the concept of matching the rhythm.

Once you get accustomed to syncing with a metronome, you'll not only be better at keeping a particular BPM thru a piece but at maintaining the same pace as other musicians you play with.