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Disorganized late night rant about rhythm:
We talk about rhythm sometimes, but not often enough.
There have been a few threads about defining degrees of swing 8th vs straight 8ths, but not much about specific rhythms or more specific rhythmic concepts.
To me, saying "always practice with the metronome on 2&4" is on the same level as saying "know a few fingerings for the major scale." There's so much more out there!
I was going to make a video, but I don't think I'm ever going to get around to it, but here's my basic rant:
I really think that as improvising jazz musicians, we need to have a melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic vocabulary. We need to know melody, we need to know harmony, and we need to know rhythm.
It seems like what we mostly wind up talking about is harmony - and harmony is awesome, harmony is my favorite, but unfortunately it's only a small part.
Getting specific, I think there's a certain degree of rhythmic-ear training that's just as important and fundamental as hearing melodic or harmonic intervals.
Let's just stick with 4/4. If all 8th notes we have
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
In a typical swing rhythm I think it's essential to be able "hear" each 8th note subdivision - to be able to hear a rhythmic hit and know where in the beat it came, or even (more practically) to hear a melodic line in a solo or head and know which part of the measure it started and/or ended on.
So a simple exercise (for "soloing") is to improvise two bar phrases trying to start and end the line on any combination of beats. So it could start on beat 2 of the first measure and end on the + of 3 in the second measure. Or start on the + of 2 in the first measure and end of the 1 of the second measure. Obviously there are a lot of combinations, and this is a small limited exercise hinting towards a vast array of possibilities. You could use more measures, you could make parameters about how many notes are going to be within the phrase, you could simply play all 8th notes in two measures but experiment with every and any possible combination of accents.
Similarly, for comping you could comp two bar phrases and experiment with all the different parts of the measure you could use to attack the chord.
Same concepts can be applied to 16th notes, and 3/4, 5/4, etc.
I think that time spent with these type of exercises really adds some variety to one's lines - I certainly don't want to take a whole night of solos where all my phrases start and end in the exact same places every time.
There is also a whole world of material within triplets. We could take 4/4 and look at like 12/8:
1 + a 2 + a 3 + a 4 + a
It's typical in this feel to just play on the downbeats or the "a" but there's so much to explore in the 2nd partial of each group. Here's a rhythm I like playing around with (accented or attacked notes underlined)
1 + a 2 + a 3 + a 4 + a
Applying this kind of idea to 3/4 or other meters certainly gives a lot of possibilities.
I recognize fully that this type of perspective might be too technical for some. Rhythm is definitely something to "feel," but not just feel. Playing along with records, listening to great players with great time, those are all essential. Most importantly, playing with players and rhythm sections with great time...that's probably the most essential. I try to do as much as I can of all that, but then there is still more to practice to really have control over the material.
None of this is "modern." In fact, what can get a little frustrating is that there is so much discussion of voicings, scales, etc of the giant mainstream players (bird, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, even Wes) but no recognition of the blunt fact that their rhythms were highly sophisticated (especially Herbie, Tristano, Joe Henderson), and without the rhythmic placement of all of those voicings and lines, we probably wouldn't want to be listening to them.
I'm really grateful that I lived with this incredible bassist for a couple of years who really kicked my ass with all of this stuff, and he would constantly rant about how people didn't work hard enough on their time and their rhythmic vocabulary. Years later I still agree that he was right!
Rhythm is the "most perceptible and least material" thing. It's a little harder to talk (or write) about, like Morten said, but it's one of the most perceptible elements of music. Somebody gets on stage and has thousands of voicings and lines under their fingers, but if they can't play one measure with a convincing time-feel or have some logical, interesting rhythmic content, generally the music doesn't really resonate. I'm sorry to be say it, but this is really how I feel watching most of the guitarists on youtube trying to play jazz. Maybe my playing has the same flaw, but I work on it!
Not to mention that it's pretty common in modern circles to want to do things with a "broken" feel - where the rhythm section isn't always keeping the downbeat obvious, so the soloist has to have the time internalized. (Another reason why I think band in a box can become a crutch!)
I work on time a lot, so I could post all day about different rhythmic stuff I've worked on. Part of the reason I focus on it so much is that of melody, harmony, and rhythm I consider myself weakest in rhythm. I still feel I have a long way to go, but I've made huge strides in the past four years or so.
So...
1. Any more thoughts from the peanut gallery about rhythm?
2. Anybody want to share rhythmic concepts they've been working on lately?
3. Anybody want to hear more about the rhythmic stuff I've worked on/been working on?
4. Want to bang on my head with a drum stick?
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11-03-2011 02:35 AM
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This is something that I feel I need to work on, too.
One thing that I think is particularly important could be called "rhythmic licks". Take a rhythm of some kind- doesn't have to be long - and start, say, playing the major scale in that rhythm, or arpeggios, or anything. The idea is to have a rhythmic vocabulary that you can call upon immediately.
Then there's the "Modes of Rhythm" that Victor Wooten's Groove Workshop mentions- take a rhythmic lick, like I described above, and play it through the first time. Then play it again, but play the second "note" of the rhythm first and put the first at the back, and do that cycling around.
People keep "licktionaries" for licks that they invent. Why not for little rhythmic figures that you think are interesting, work with them and such, so that you have a massive rhythmic vocabulary that you can utilize in combination with your harmonic vocabulary?
Also: polyrhythms are ALWAYS worth working on. Managing to fit seven equal notes into a 4/4 bar is always fun.
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Jake,
Yeah, sounds like a late night rant but the good thing about it is that there is truth in what you say and it is important.
I would be interested in hearing about the things that you and others work on.
Some of mine.
These are things that I have worked on. It is much less consistent and organized in comparison to the harmony thing.
It might be fun to take a month or a year and only deal from a rhythmic mindset.
1. Basic subdivision from 1-16 parts at metronome 30-40 and changing back and forth between subdivisions.
2. Sub groupings within those subdivisions of combinations of 2 and 3 and accents.
3. Playing along with drum solos.
4. Listening and learning music from different cultures.
5. Regrouping bar lines ex. 4/4 = 3/4+5/4 (2 measures) or at the triplet level 7+5 = 4/4 (one measure) etc.
6. Taking a rhythm phrase (from a recording) and playing through songs exclusively with it.
7. One I learned from Steve Coleman // sing a familiar tune while clapping a clave in a different time feel or meter.
An interesting thing about when he presents this in a workshop he has little interest in defining the math aspect, just the aural one.
8. Practicing rhythms by combining simple stepping patterns, clapping pattern and vocalization.
9. Trying to stay aware of the shapes formed by silences.
10. Creating music with one or two notes
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I definitely agree that having a vocabulary of rhythms is important. Similarly, cataloging the differences in rhythms used in different eras (or players) of jazz is quite useful.
Originally Posted by Shadow of the Sun
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I should do this - I suck at following drum solos, and am ignorant to a lot of a common drum soloist's vocabulary.3. Playing along with drum solos.
Cool, like where?4. Listening and learning music from different cultures.
If interested, there have been other contexts on forums where I've written about some of the work I've done and do with the metronome. Since it was long and took a while to write, I saved it:
*I'm realizing with this kind of stuff, actual familiarity with the specific tempo is crucial. Sometimes I'll play in one exact tempo for a while, and then use software to create a click that is only once every two measures, or once every four, or every eight, twelve, sixteen, etc. Takes a lot of concentration, but certainly forces one to not be sloppy...also good to then observe at which tempos I rush and then at which I drag. I noticed that I had a tendency to drag at the 190-220bpm range, but for some reason not when faster. So I worked on it, and now I feel more comfortable at those tempos.Basically, take any of the following:
comping rhythmic patterns
comping sparse/syncopated/broken
walking bassline
consistent 8ths in lines
general soloing
consider also cycling between the any of the above (for example, bassline into comping rhythmic patterns into more syncopated/broken comping without pausing) and you could apply that to any of the following metronome "settings"
click at any of the downbeats (1,2, 3 or 4)
click at any of the upbeats, any "ands", or a half note click that clicks at the and of one and the and of three, or the and of two and the and of four
click at either of the above but for every second measure, so beat 2 of every two measures, something like that...obviously could extend to every 4 measures, every 8, etc, (or every 3, every 5) and this is the challenge of holding tempo. This is something I do a fair bit of every now and again to "check" myself.*
click on a dotted half note, or a dotted quarter note
click on a group of five quarters or eights...so you mentally arrange the click so that it's like (clicking on the capital letters and not anywhere else): ONE two three four one TWO three four one two THREE four etc, and the same concept with eighths (ONE and two and three AND four and one and TWO etc)
click is a group of seven 8ths...ONE and two and three and four AND one and two and three and FOUR and one and two and three AND
click is the 2nd partial of a group of 8th note triplets...or quarter note triplets
obviously you have to do this with a drum machine or a sequencing program unless if you have a metronome that goes down really low (I just use simple midi programs like "tabit," very easy to do this kind of stuff, very quick to put it together)
I actually have a metronome on my iPhone that goes down to ONE beat per minute - unfortunately it's a hair inaccurate against the real bpms. It's consistent with itself - like 30 is half of it's 60 is half of it's 120, but it's 120 isn't actually 120 bpm. Odd, right? Still works for these exercises as long as I know I'm not dealing with "True" bpms
All good stuff for genera tempo-maintenance as well as better feeling all subdivisions
I spent a few years being pretty immersed in rhythmic stuff as it relates to "straight ahead" jazz, more or less. I'd say my main area of focus, the goals of these exercises were:
1. Keeping tempo and placing attacks where they ought to be placed
2. Having more rhythmic variety in comping and soloing
3. At minimum, being able to internalize and keep time while playing with others who might not make the pulse might as obvious - ex, no 2 and 4 high hat, no walking quarters on the bass, or even just playing with people who have a more advanced rhythmic vocabulary that's harder to accompany (or solo over.)
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Also, I have a lot of fun implying one meter over another. The challenge is to be able to do it for long periods of time but still know how to fall back on the right part of the tune:
|: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + |1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + |
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + |1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + |
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + |1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + |1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + : |
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Good point. Originally Posted by Reg
Those books are great for reading, but the amount of typos (at least in my copies) makes me rip my hair out sometimes.
Some of the unconventional notation can be kind of aggravating for me too, like a lot of examples where they don't employ the invisible bar line.
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You would be amazed how many charts, both new and old, by hand or program have notational mistakes.. it's good practice. The invisible bar line is great in concept... there's another book, "syncopation by Ted Reed that's also good. But as I said there are more typos at gigs... at least in my experience... The whole point is to learn to recognize and feel the possible sub-divisons ... then possible articulations...
The best method would be to take the time to notate out yourself... I did when I was a kid... back in the stone ages...but Most don't get around to it...Reg
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Thanks Reg, after I made that point I realized what the response was probably going to be - we have to learn to navigate the errors on a chart.
There are some pretty funky things in those books, some of it gets quite hard...really good practice.
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Rant or not, rhythm is probably the thing that separates the men from the boys.
I try to listen to drummers as much as I can, not just solos, but the way they "comp." To me, that's the source...
The thing to me is, we can analyze rhythm to death, but it has to be internal, maybe moreso than the harmonic content of our playing...there's no visual aid for rhythm like the fretboard gives us...
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Originally Posted by JakeAcci
(You should also check out some of his videos where he's playing the drum machine, incredible.
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Hey, great topic. I don't have a lot to add, except sometimes what I do is loop a solo, slow it down and nust try to sing along with the rhythm. Another thing I like to when listening to the radio is just focus on listening to the rhythm of one of the players....such as the soloist, drummer or bass player.
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There's actually a tune I'm writing where I'm putting big emphasis on the rhythm of the melody.
I'm basically making a rhythmic motif throughout the A sections. Harmonically, it's a completely reharmonized Rhythm Changes. The melody sounds like a weird Monk tune (not as good obviously :P). The rhythmic motif I'm working with is basically, 8 8th notes and a dotted quarter, the second motif is 5 8th notes and a half note. So I'm going with motif one, then motif two, motif one, motif two. So it ends up turning the beat around like crazy. It's really fun to work with stuff like this.
I also wanna point out a solo I've been transcribing, Lage Lund's All The Things You Are, his solo is full of really weird rhythms, and some points he starts playing beat 4 as if it were 1, it drove me crazy at first but then I got used to it, and he goes kind of back and forth from turning the beat around to the 4 then to the 1 again.
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This is an AMAZING resource to ANYONE who wants to work on getting a better time-feel.
Combine this with the other stuff- rhythmic figures, working on polyrhthms...
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Great topic and rant, Jake. I'm right with you there! I've always had to "work" on rhythm; whereas melody and (especially) harmony feel like play. In Zappa and prog rock you'll find overt uses of polyrhythms and such- these don't really get my goat though. Guys like Bill Evans, Herbie, Wayne Shorter, Monk, Bird, Miles, Andrew Hill and Joe Henderson inspire and amaze me much more.
I just started a thread at AAJ discussing Bill Evan's rhythmic approach- I'll re-post some in this topic since it seems appropriate. Any insights you make have here are welcome.
The idea of Bill's famous "Floating Pulse", "Elastic Meter", "non-obvious pulse", "phrasing across the bar line", and "de-emphasizing the beat" has me intrigued. I am seeking a "method" to it, if there is such a thing.
Textbook quotes about Bill Evans:
His work was rhythmically very involved. He frequently constructed phrases without starting or stopping them on main beats. He did not necessarily accent beats that indicate the meter of the piece- the first of every four beats, in meter of four, for example.
Though his melodic ideas are very rhythmic, many are not obvious in terms of the beat. Evans may, for instance, stagger a melodic figure across several measures, always accenting the upbeats, never squarely accenting a downbeat. He may float past it instead.
Evans conceived his improvisations in reference to the meter and tempo of the piece. Yet listeners often could not gain a clear indication of this unless they also heard walking bass or ride rhythms as a reference. Unlike most hard bop pianists, Evans evolved away from playing long strings of bouncing eighth notes that explicitly delineated each beat that evenly rose and fell. The architecture of his lines was more complex, and tension was resolved less often.In this he explains some of his ideas and demonstrates in a tune:An elastic meter is created when the soloist or rhythm section masks the strong metric downbeats. The meter seems to be stretched beyond its normal parameters. This illusion is often created by playing unusually long phrases that move the metric emphasis off the expected downbeats that occur at the beginning of each measure.
Metric displacement is a technique whereby the soloist implies or states a rhythm in the melody line that seems to go against the underlying basic rhythm of the piece. It can also be achieved by placing melodic phrases irregularly against the underlying rhythm.
He was known for "leaning forward". I think his displacements created that effect, because he never actually rushed.Last edited by JonnyPac; 11-03-2011 at 09:11 PM.
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Agreed!! Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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hey Johnny, responded on AAJ!
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Rhythm has to be internal AND rhythmic concepts that we want to exist in our improvisation have to be internalized. Yes. But sometimes that internalization takes strategic work just as it does for harmony and melody, or even fretboard knowledge. Jonny's post at AAJ has a discussion of some of the WORK Bill Evans would do to manifest his rhythmic conception - the result is beautiful. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
One way to phrase my rant is that I don't think it's right to put so much effort towards harmony and then expect to "get by" rhythmically by just "feeling it" or flying by the seat of our pants. Some people get away with that, sure, but just as most of us here don't want our playing to be harmonically stale or primitive I'd imagine we wouldn't want our playing to be rhythmically stale or primitive either, and I think that's exactly what happens (to my ears) when a player doesn't work on his/her rhythms often enough.
So what I advocate, for myself and other players who are trying to reach some listen-able level of proficiency and musicianship as improvisers, is to WORK towards internalizing rhythmic concepts, and sometimes that takes analysis and structured practice. Or, at minimum, consciousness of rhythms, beat placement, accents, etc, with whatever one might be working on.
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11-06-2011, 02:22 PM #20Nuff Said GuestVery true, I like your ranting. Originally Posted by JakeAcci
This fact says a lot, Charlie Parker played drums well.
Nuff
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THRILLED to see drummers getting some love in this thread!
I am primarily a drummer, but I often comp on the guitar (usually my Godin Kingpin) for singers, and the biggest problem I run into is time-keeping.
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Yes. Yes. Yes. Originally Posted by JakeAcci
Great posts, Jake. Your post at AAJ is very helpful too. Lots of food for thought and practice material. Thank you.
Internalizing is everything. It must come from inside out in a performance, but then one might ask "how'd it get inside?"... You must WORK it inside- play it, repeat it, think it, sleep it, etc. I believe that all three "elements" of music (melody, rhythm, harmony) must be internalized and "heard" within (mind's ear), and as a feedback loop between your mind/ear/hands.
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Exactly, and then it comes out effortlessly and one can use it as part of his or her natural musical vision.
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The myth is that the drummers are the ones who keep the time. In a good combo, everybody is responsible for keeping time. Originally Posted by Norman931
THRILLED to see drummers getting some love in this thread!
I am primarily a drummer, but I often comp on the guitar (usually my Godin Kingpin) for singers, and the biggest problem I run into is time-keeping.
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Right, but the drummer still gets the blame! Originally Posted by JakeAcci
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