The Swing Click Metronome App came about as a solution to a problem. I needed to find the best way to improve my timing on drums, improve my swing, and get better at playing more advanced, interesting grooves and time feels as found in jazz, latin/afro-cuban styles, funk, and – frankly – any music.

The problem 

I’m Jack, a musician and tutor from London, UK. I’ve been playing and teaching drums professionally for over twenty years. As an intermediate drummer trying to reach a more advanced level, I always had trouble with my timing that I couldn’t figure out. I would listen back to my recordings and feel like something wasn’t right. I would get vague feedback like, “The timing isn’t quite there,” or “It’s not quite in the pocket.” 

I knew my timing was off, but I didn’t know how to fix it. When I asked for help, the suggestions were sometimes helpful (metronome games!) but often vague or frustrating. “If you have to ask, you’ll never know!” Oh well, I guess I’ll just never know how to improve my timing…

The (partial) solution:

After a long while, the penny finally dropped about micro-timing and degrees of swing (swing percentage). I started to hear exactly what I needed to work on. It took me a long time but I could finally see a logical, methodical path to improvement.

It was just like any other musical skill I’d worked on. To improve my groove and timing, I needed to practise different time feels very precisely at slow speeds. Also I needed to be brutally honest with myself about whether it was ‘there’ or not.

The (new) problem: 

The only way to practise micro-timing and swing precisely – starting slow and gradually speeding up – was laborious and limited. I had to download music to play on other software, slow it down, try to play along with it, record my playing, and repeat this process many times. I spent ages setting up custom metronome sequences in a DAW and varying the tempo. 

Eventually, all the hard work paid off. Using my own custom swing percentage metronome settings, my playing vastly improved. Other musicians on gigs started to comment on my groove and timing, and my recordings needed fewer and fewer edits.

All I needed was the right metronome to practise with. Something that would combine all these elements in a flexible package.

The solution:

Realising its massive benefit on my playing, I realised that this could be a valuable tool for other musicians to learn swing, micro-timing and groove on any instrument. I designed the Swing Click Metronome app to bundle the various practice methods that worked so well into one simple package.

After a chance meeting in a studio session, I was introduced to Luke, a jazz saxophonist and software developer. He shared my belief about how useful a tool this would be, and had the skills to bring it to life. After two years of development, testing, and refining, version one of the Swing Click Metronome app was released!

We love hearing feedback and people’s success stories with the app. Drop us an email or find us over on Instagram: @swingclickapp

Happy practising!

– Jack & Luke