Rhythm and timing

[Munk]

Until now I have more or less neglected timing, and believed it was fairly easy as I like to dance and sense the rhythm, but when I began to record few weeks ago, I imediately realized it was unbearable to listen to. So this year rhythm and timing will be my main goal.

I started to work on some Parker tunes, which I slow down, loop, and record, when I think I'm getting near. A big challange to get it up in his tempo later on, but I like to have long term goal. But I would also like to focus a lot on comping precise in different patterns and variations, so I have searched for mp3 files, without a lot of playing. Just a guitar or a metronome sound only hammering on the patterns. Not a complicated wish, I thought, but I still haven't found anything like that, and I still hope I don't have to spend a lot of time to get into a drum machine 'study' just for this purpose. Maybe a notation software could do? What do you think, and how have you managed?

[eddy b.]

Play note for note with James Brown, Bob Marley and the Wailers and any Aebersold with Guitar comping instead of piano

[christianm77]

Until now I have more or less neglected timing, and believed it was fairly easy as I like to dance and sense the rhythm, but when I began to record few weeks ago, I imediately realized it was unbearable to listen to. So this year rhythm and timing will be my main goal.

I started to work on some Parker tunes, which I slow down, loop, and record, when I think I'm getting near. A big challange to get it up in his tempo later on, but I like to have long term goal. But I would also like to focus a lot on comping precise in different patterns and variations, so I have searched for mp3 files, without a lot of playing. Just a guitar or a metronome sound only hammering on the patterns. Not a complicated wish, I thought, but I still haven't found anything like that, and I still hope I don't have to spend a lot of time to get into a drum machine 'study' just for this purpose. Maybe a notation software could do? What do you think, and how have you managed?

Ahhhhh my favourite subject! Fascinatin' Rhythm....

So much to talk about. It's hard to know what your specific problems are, and how to go about fixing them though. IF you don't mind saying here, was there anything in particular that jumped out at you that you didn't like?

The best thing would be to get a teacher to critique your playing and advise... On the other hand, if you would be willing to do it here I'm sure you'd get some very good feedback from the likes of Reg. Pretty scary though - I'm not sure I would put my playing up for critique.

I think playing along with records is very good - incidentally why not play along to some comping in the same way as you do with heads? Ear learning is great - try and learn bop heads by ear if you aren't already doing this...

I have got a lot out of Mike Longo's 3 Rhythmic Nature of Jazz DVDs. The first 2 DVDs are a good buy (the 1st one explains the philosophy behind the approach, the 2nd covers the practical work...) I really like this - you should get the playalong CD as well.....

[Munk]

Ahhhhh my favourite subject! Fascinatin' Rhythm....

So much to talk about. It's hard to know what your specific problems are, and how to go about fixing them though. IF you don't mind saying here, was there anything in particular that jumped out at you that you didn't like?

The best thing would be to get a teacher to critique your playing and advise... On the other hand, if you would be willing to do it here I'm sure you'd get some very good feedback from the likes of Reg. Pretty scary though - I'm not sure I would put my playing up for critique.

I think playing along with records is very good - incidentally why not play along to some comping in the same way as you do with heads? Ear learning is great - try and learn bop heads by ear if you aren't already doing this...

I have got a lot out of Mike Longo's 3 Rhythmic Nature of Jazz DVDs. The first 2 DVDs are a good buy (the 1st one explains the philosophy behind the approach, the 2nd covers the practical work...) I really like this - you should get the playalong CD as well.....

I hope to be able to record Charlie Parker Confirmation (just the head) within a few months, when it's less obviously vague. Then I would be very grateful to get an honest opinion of how it sounds!


At the moment I work on nailing Band in a Box real track rhythm guitar for the same tune. I think it's called Charleston rhythm and the guitar is playing the same all through the tune without any variation.


In the begining I was sure there was something wrong with my sound interface like a problem with latency, but after doing one hour Charleston every day through January, I believe it's not computer related. Now half of the beats are getting somewhat okay, when I'm practising 160 bpm, at least to my ears. But if the mind just wander a little bit, and I turn on the rhythm autopilot, I can later hear awful impact on the recording – somtimes it's consistenly error on upbeats, at other times it the downbeat.


I planned to continue this excercise until I reach 210 bmp, and hope it can bring me to a state where I can improvise with good timing. But I could also stand to exercise longer time every day and with more joy, if I have some more variations and rhythmic ideas to record than just the Charleston. Btw, when I record my own rhythm improvistions on the fly it gets messy as if I change ideas too much, but also in between some pieces I find worth to remember.

[christianm77]

I hope to be able to record Charlie Parker Confirmation (just the head) within a few months, when it's less obviously vague. Then I would be very grateful to get an honest opinion of how it sounds!


At the moment I work on nailing Band in a Box real track rhythm guitar for the same tune. I think it's called Charleston rhythm and the guitar is playing the same all through the tune without any variation.


In the begining I was sure there was something wrong with my sound interface like a problem with latency, but after doing one hour Charleston every day through January, I believe it's not computer related. Now half of the beats are getting somewhat okay, when I'm practising 160 bpm, at least to my ears. But if the mind just wander a little bit, and I turn on the rhythm autopilot, I can later hear awful impact on the recording – somtimes it's consistenly error on upbeats, at other times it the downbeat.


I planned to continue this excercise until I reached 210 bmp, and hope it can bring me to a state where I can improvise with good timing. But I could also stand to exercise longer time every day and with more joy, if I have some more variations and rhythmic ideas to record than just the Charleston. Btw, when I record my own rhythm improvistions on the fly it gets messy as if I change ideas too much, but also in between pieces I find okay.

I wrote a very long reply because time/feel is a vast subject and I am very interested in it. I then deleted it.

I want to be specific and help you if I can.

Let's isolate the Charleston rhythm. How are you thinking of this rhythm - how are you breaking it down?

[Munk]

I wrote a very long reply because time/feel is a vast subject and I am very interested in it. I then deleted it.

I want to be specific and help you if I can.

Let's isolate the Charleston rhythm. How are you thinking of this rhythm - how are you breaking it down?

Don't censor your thoughts.


Well, it's maybe important to mention, that I never count 1234.


I tap my foot on 1 and 3, and as this rhythm is 1 and the upbeat after two (with a kind of swing and not straight?) I try to feel the a nice moment for the ”2 and da” before I tap my foot, and here I try to feel it as the guitarist play it on the BIAB realtrack.


If I play the rhythm with a pick instead of fingerpicking, I do downstroke on both 1 and 2-and-a.

[christianm77]

Don't censor your thoughts.


Well, it's maybe important to mention, that I never count 1234.


I tap my foot on 1 and 3, and as this rhythm is 1 and the upbeat after two (with a kind of swing and not straight?) I try to feel the a nice moment for the ”2 and da” before I tap my foot, and here I try to feel it as the guitarist play it on the BIAB realtrack.


If I play the rhythm with a pick instead of fingerpicking, I do downstroke on both 1 and 2-and-a.

Well it's so easy to produce a wall of text that has more to do with me than the question. I slip into it so often.

I think that's cool. Tapping your foot in two is a good idea IMO. But what I tend to find is that foot tapping is something (like dancing!) that happens when the rhythm is good rather than something that makes the rhythm good. AS you dance, hopefully that'll make sense.

I also think downstrokes on Charleston are good too cos that's the way I do it... But the technique is perhaps less important than the conception....

There are two ways to count this rhythm. The first is the standard way which is the European way to do it, which is based on the hierarchy of the 4/4.

1+2+3+4+ where you go 1 and + of 2 for our dotted quarter dotted, quarter quarter, rest rhythm

Between you and me I don't think this is an approach that facilitates syncopation, though some cats are good at it.

Then there is the additive way which is essentially to count the eighth notes. This is the way I use and is advocated by Mike Longo...

So if we have our Charleston it goes:

12312345

Accent the 1

And if we include 4 we count

12312312

Now what are doing is not in fact counting the beat but filling in the eights. It's like if you were hand drumming you would keep a steady flow of very light ghost taps between two hands and hit the accents as needed...

It's hard to say numbers fast, so try this 'Ba' for accents and what ever seems natural for filler. So Charleston becomes (for me):

Ba-ka-ti-Ba!

Or

Ba-ka-ti-Ba-ka-ti-Ba-da

(There are more worked out systems for this such as Takadimi or Carnatic rhythmic solfege, but it all does the same job)

I wouldn't worry about 'swinging' the eights - keep them as even and smooth as you can when scatting and practice evenly subdividing the beat in eights.

I think if you can feel a steady stream of 8ths between each accent, your beat placement will start to become more accurate. If you think about it this is how funk/soul rhythm guitar works... But for swing/jazz guitar I dislike the sound of the muted strums and like you I like downstrokes for the accents... So you have to be feeling it but not playing it.

Let me know if this helps! I find it often helps to practice my rhythms away from the guitar...

[Vladan]

IMO, to join christianm77 in his opinion, the world of difference in "FEEL" is btw

123 123 12 and

1& 2& 3& 4&

Sometimes one works better than the other. Anyway, it is one of the couple of rhythmss I use all the time and base everything on them.

[Munk]

Well it's so easy to produce a wall of text ....

I do it too especially when dialogue is in my own motherlanguage, and I often wish there were more music examples in here at all kind of levels.

But you write many interesting ideas, which I will try dig into, and text is important.


Your webpage seem not to be running, but I remember having heard you playing at a high level, so I wonder if you are still counting while playing or regard it as a way to internalise and get the rhythm into the body?


Btw, years ago before tendonitis made me stop in first place, I had a teacher, whose philosofy was that the rhythms could be viewed as alterations of latin. He taught me to keep moving the pick op and down as 16's in funk music with dead notes and sounding like a steam train, and this for several months. Maybe thats why I now think there is a big difference between equal and swing, though I'm still not able to hit Charleston accurate enough for 32 bars so it's worth listening to. Well, I thought I was until I revealed myself myself by recording. I will try slow down and count the swinging 8ths as these Ba-ka-ti-Ba, and only increase tempo when it's close to perfect.

[christianm77]

I do it too especially when dialogue is in my own motherlanguage, and I often wish there were more music examples in here at all kind of levels.

But you write many interesting ideas, which I will try dig into, and text is important.


Your webpage seem not to be running, but I remember having heard you playing at a high level, so I wonder if you are still counting while playing or regard it as a way to internalise and get the rhythm into the body?


Btw, years ago before tendonitis made me stop in first place, I had a teacher, whose philosofy was that the rhythms could be viewed as alterations of latin. He taught me to keep moving the pick op and down as 16's in funk music with dead notes and sounding like a steam train, and this for several months. Maybe thats why I now think there is a big difference between equal and swing, though I'm still not able to hit Charleston accurate enough so it's worth listening to. Well, I thought I was until I revealed myself myself by recording. I will try slow down and count the swinging 8ths as these Ba-ka-ti-Ba, and only increase tempo when it's close to perfect.

Well sure 'latin' rhythms and jazz rhythms came from the same source - West Africa... And New Orleans is only across the water from Cuba....

I think that if you play along with records and other musicians enough, the swing rhythm will naturally express itself. I would urge you to practice straight and even, though this might sound odd at first.

I went up a bit of a blind alley with this in my playing because I was trying to make everything dotted - unequal. In fact the accents are enough to make a phrase swing. Peter Bernstein is really good on this in his Vimeo video, which I highly recommend.

Listening to some swinging guitar players - Herb Ellis for example - it's amazing how straight they are...

[christianm77]

Another important aspect is the polymetricity of jazz, BTW. You should also practice 1/8, 1/4 and 1/2 note triplets against the 4/4 pulse.

[Munk]

I once learned a polyrhythm called 3 against 8, which took 3 bars for a cycle to complete. At that time I wasn't told too much about the theory behind, and for each lesson even more complexed stuff was introduced. But 3 against 8 was an interesting thing, and a nice feeling when it was suddenly walking by itself, though I don't think I have ever heard a jazz guitar playing this kind.

Another thing was playing along with a rhythmic tree record going through many different subdivisions 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 and the triplets in between them like for example quarter note triplets. The idea was not to count anything but to play the same three or four notes as a simple fraze in order to internalize the rhythm by ear.

But I think, if Charleston is an important Rhythm, isn't it then possible to mention a handful of other basic patterns as good basic patterns for later improvisation? Cause I have this idea of producing simple mp3 files to use as metronome. So then I can hear exactly when I'm hitting middle of the beat, and I believe it could also turn into freedom both to vary rhytm ideas and to decide where to lay (in the middle, a little in front or after).

[christianm77]

I once learned a polyrhythm called 3 against 8, which took 3 bars for a cycle to complete. At that time I wasn't told too much about the theory behind, and for each lesson even more complexed stuff was introduced. But 3 against 8 was an interesting thing, and a nice feeling when it was suddenly walking by itself, though I don't think I have ever heard a jazz guitar playing this kind.

Another thing was playing along with a rhythmic tree record going through many different subdivisions 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 and the triplets in between them like for example quarter note triplets. The idea was not to count anything but to play the same three or four notes as a simple fraze in order to internalize the rhythm by ear.

But I think, if Charleston is an important Rhythm, isn't it then possible to mention a handful of other basic patterns as good basic patterns for later improvisation? Cause I have this idea of producing simple mp3 files to use as metronome. So then I can hear exactly when I'm hitting middle of the beat, and I believe it could also turn into freedom both to vary rhytm ideas and to decide where to lay (in the middle, a little in front or after).

Yeah it's not really counting.

With the 1/4 and 1/2 triplets it's always tricky to get the placement of the 2nd triplet correct...

Yes charleston is important as is reverse Charleston.... And Charleston on the 3....

Here's a good metronome exercise for beat placement: set the click to half the tempo and have it click on the + of 1 and 3 (straight.) Now practice your rhythms. The metronome is showing you in this case how consistent your off beat placements are.

[Vladan]

But I think, if Charleston is an important Rhythm, isn't it then possible to mention a handful of other basic patterns ...

Maybe you forgot, or haven't noticed, but this site is not just this forum. There are many lessons. More than enough to become good player (I wish I was patient enough. Sigh!). There's probably as much info as in any praised Jazz Guitar Method Book:

Free Jazz Guitar Lessons | Learn How To Play Jazz Guitar

http://www.jazzguitar.be/jazz-guitar...g-rhythms.html

[matt.guitarteacher]

I'm sorry, but triple meters and triple rhythms are basic, cold-blooded math. They're not mysterious something somethings to be only "felt" while we have more concrete understandings of duples of all types. Apparently, guitarists in the 21st-century can't count them, but that doesn't change the basic reality of playing, practicing, and learning music.

Play a basic, 8th-note-triplet, blues double-stop pattern with your thumb and ring finger of the right-hand. Your thumb is playing quarter note triplets with the eights in between played by the other finger, that is, if you start with thumb on the beat. If you reverse it, finger-wise, now, you have the melody playing the quarter note triplets with the bass in between.

You can work this out in mechanical ways using pick direction or multiple fingers of the right hand, the way pianists work complex rhythms, with a left hand to right hand reference, or drummers with L-R drumstick patterns. I mean, crap, horn players do this stuff better than us, because they do in school. It's not voodoo or something which has to come one day, when the magic unicorn brings it to you.

There are basic, mechanical and technical ways of working out complex triplet rhythms without guesswork..... syncopations.... polyrhythms....etc. Schoolchildren work on the stuff at school , but they're actually MADE to work on it.

The blues triplet is the basic common denominator for swing, regardless of how MUCH the music actually swings in practice. It's really beside the point , whether you're talking about classical or jazz. Straight eights and sixteenths are not always straight. There's push and pull through them, in all styles. It's like if swing is not completely even, triplet-based, perfect swing, then, there's no conversation for basing them basically on triplets.

BUT.... that doesn't change the fact that the triplet is the BASIS . If you're not down with the triplet, you're going to have trouble with a lot of swing feels. A lot of it's purely mechanical stuff to be worked out with practice.

Does one of the resources referenced in this thread actually teach this stuff with triplets using mechanical references like pick direction or fingers of the right hand? I work on this stuff all the time, myself, as a student. I'd be happy to share some of what I do, but surely, someone else is really teaching this?

[Munk]

Maybe you forgot, or haven't noticed, but this site is not just this forum. There are many lessons. More than enough to become good player (I wish I was patient enough. Sigh!). There's probably as much info as in any praised Jazz Guitar Method Book:

Free Jazz Guitar Lessons | Learn How To Play Jazz Guitar

10 Jazz Guitar Chord Comping Rhythms

Great, the 10 chord rhythms are exactly what I need. Unfortunately the files are only a few seconds, but if I can find some kind of notation software, that also can produce sound files, I can type them in (maybe even with and without swing), and have the rhythm metronome I'm looking for.

[Munk]

Does one of the resources referenced in this thread actually teach this stuff with triplets using mechanical references like pick direction or fingers of the right hand? I work on this stuff all the time, myself, as a student. I'd be happy to share some of what I do, but surely, someone else is really teaching this?

If it's possible, I would like to hear/see an example.

[Vladan]

Great, the 10 chord rhythms are exactly what I need. Unfortunately the files are only a few seconds, but if I can find some kind of notation software, that also can produce sound files, I can type them in (maybe even with and without swing), and have the rhythm metronome I'm looking for.

Let me google that for you = metronome

[Munk]

Let me google that for you = metronome

Thansk, but I already have a standard metronome and look for one who one only click the rhythm patterns, I want to practise.

[Vladan]

Thansk, but I already have a standard metronome and look for one who one only click the rhythm patterns, I want to practise.

Huh, ok, good luck, I mean ..., whatever ... @#$%*& ...