For years I had heard about people developing their “inner clock” but had no idea what that really meant in practical terms. I just figured it was people playing with a metronome _all the time_. It wasn’t until I started going through this book that I bought a while back, “Bass Grooves: Develop Your Groove & Play Like the Pros in Any Style“, that I started to see one way of developing it.

Along with stylistic exercises this book has a whole section on playing to a partial click. Meaning, the metronome will only sound on certain beats (e.g. 1 & 3, or 2 & 4 or just beat 1, etc.) of every measure. At first the goal is to simply feel the beat accurately, independent of an instrument. The next step is to play a notated exercise against that click, with the goal of locking in with it yet sounding relaxed and musical at the same time. BPM starts at 40 and gradually moves up to 80.

At first this seemed impossible to me, but I took it slow and started getting the hang of it. I’m still in the early stages but can already feel a difference with my sense of timing. Looking forward to seeing what it can develop into.