Keeping steady time is one of the most important skills a musician can develop if he or she wants to play music with others. If you always play alone, you may not even notice it. I found this out the first time I played with a church organist. She always played alone and to say that her time fluctuated would be an understatement. Luckily my piano lessons came in handy as I could watch her hands. Between the sheet music and watching her hands, I managed to stay with her.
The best way to work on this skill is to always practice with some type of time-keeping device. There are 4 main categories and each one gives you a different amount of information:
Metronome - least amount of information - click, click, etc.
Drum machine - a bit more information - an actual drum beat
Backing track - even more information - a steady beat and chords and bass line
Play along with the artist - the most information - thanks to YouTube you get all the parts
The more information you have, the easier it is to keep steady. You will get the most out of using the metronome because you have to be more independent to use it. My advice is to work up to the metronome on pieces that are initially difficult and even if you never get a piece to the metronome stage, use one of the other methods. They are all helpful and using any of them is better than using none of them.
