Rhythm- Groove to the beat man!

Practice your chord patterns to a drum beat. Developing good rhythm is just as important as developing your chording skills.  You want to perform songs right?   Why else learn all this stuff :-)
Well songs are played to a rhythm :-)

Another skill you will start to develop as you practice to a drum beat is your internal rhythm.  It is an important piece to playing songs by the fire or sitting with friends in your living room or out on the back deck. What do I mean by your internal rhythm? Have you ever found yourself tapping our foot to a song or drumming your finger tips on a table?   Maybe even got in some trouble from mom for drumming while waiting for your dinner?  That is your internal rhythm trying to come out.  Let it out! ok,  not at the dinner table or in the classroom LOL but definitely get into it.  For example:  The other day I was at the shoe store to get a new pair of shoes for my daughter and i was holding a shoe box.  I just started tapping the surfaces and the edges of the box and next thing I new i had a drum beat going that was really groovy.  One or two people actually started tapping their toes.  How cool is that?  Honestly deep down in the stuff that makes us tick is a constant metronome, your heart....  We are hard wired to be musical :-) Keep the beat with your foot or a hand to all the music you listen to...  get into the feel of music.

Metronomes are another way to get you keeping the beat, but they lack soul in my opinion!  You be the judge!

Make your own beat!

I use Ableton Live I started with a demo copy and from there i'm gonna spend the cash :-)  In my opinion it is the best all around Musicians tool.  Check out Zoe Keating!  she is a testament to what one lady with one Cello a MIDI peddle, 2 macs running Ableton Live and a cool plugin called SooperLooper can do. WOW!  is all i can say!

Absolutely anything you want to do in the Musicians world can be done with Ableton Live.  The Drum machine built in is excellent in my opinion.

Here is a couple minute long 100 bpm drum beat you can loop in itunes if you need something to start with. Of course made and recorded in Ableton Live.

Download
Right click and "Save AS" to get a local copy.

There are many ways to get a software drum machine, many free ones as well. I would make some recommendations but it depends on your system, the resources you have and the OS you are running.  there are freeware products for Linux, Windows, Mac.... Google is your friend.

Groove!