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a metronome can be good for general time work, but i don't think it's necessary to stick to "2 & 4."
everyone has different advice here. Barry Harris and Hal Galper both recommend tapping your foot on "1 & 3." Barry Harris is even more specific, advising people they should tap their foot on "1 & 3" and clap on "2 & 4."
go look at videos of a range of different jazz performers from different eras. you're going to see all sorts of approaches to foot tapping. some guys do it on 1&3, some guys do it on 2&4, some guys on all four beats, some guys just on one beat (but different beats for different guys). there's a lot of different approaches out there, there's not just ONE correct approach. swing is not found in a metronome or foot-tapping approach.
it may be helpful to have a variety of approaches to the metronome. try it on "1&3" and "2&4." try it on one beat per measure. try it very very slowly (this is something Ben Monder and others recommend). try using an app like TimeGuru where the click periodically drops out. try it so that the metronome is playing on various offbeats.
Reg's advice to use a book like Louie Bellson is a good one (Reg is invariably worth listening to). getting a good handle on syncopation will pay big dividends. i'd also recommend that the jazz player look into Second Line rhythms and clave. they both are part of jazz's rhythmic DNA.
i've never understood the advice to use strict alternate picking and accent the upstrokes. i have NEVER heard any jazz player -- from Louis Armstrong to Lester Young to Charlie Parker to Coltrane -- who accents the upbeats of eighth-note lines in that manner. and there are so many slurs, triplets, and playing with beat placement that it quickly becomes an exercise in futility trying to align your picking with eighth notes. if you want to use alternate picking, that's fine, but i would choose it because you like the SOUND of alternate picking, and then just work on being able to accent whatever notes you want in a given phrase or line.
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08-18-2014 11:24 AM
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True, it is not necessary but it is a good way to learn to swing.
Originally Posted by dasein
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Generally alternate picking with accents on upstrokes is a student technique for the masses. It's a method to develop a feel for the rhythmically challenged. (for beginners)
Eventually swing becomes a feel not a technique, just as with most rhythmic feels... they're not mechanical. But I guess you need to start somewhere.
Go to church...when your young, generally not the Jesus loves me this I know... versions. I apologize if I offended anyone.
But it's very difficult to learn rhythmic feel from those who don't have it...
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There are churches in New Orleans with great "bands" and singers. It's one of the things I miss about living there. And everyone could tell when the band was grooving because everyone was swaying, moving. Originally Posted by Reg
You're right, it is a feeling more than something mechanical.
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Think about it , what does having a metronome and 2 and 4 have to do with learning to swing eighths and quarters? Metronome on 2 and 4 is an attempt at simulating having a back beat accompanying you. 2 and 4 is a drummer's role. John Clayton (bass) and Jeff Hamilton (drums) told me it's a myth that metronome 2 and 4 is some special way to learn to swing, they said it's simply ridiculous in their opinions. They said they have never seen any cat swinging and tapping on the 2 and 4. They said we know we are in trouble if somebody comes on their bandstand and does it. So which masters can be seen on Youtube really tapping their foot on 2 and 4? Everybody in the Basie band and the Ellington band tapped on the down beats of 1 and 3 or 1 2 3 4... none of them tapped just 2 and 4 (except the drummers).
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Really! I guess someone forgot to tell Emily Remler that. Originally Posted by rintincop
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What's tapping your feet have to do with using the metronome on 2 and 4? Did someone suggest tapping your feet on 2 and 4? Am I missing something?
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If you need to tap your feet on 2 and 4 ... or 1 and 3 in order to be able to swing... you might be missing something.
You should be able to swing without taping. If your using triplet feel to base your feel for swing. Setting metro... on 2 and 4 usually gets in the way of faster tempos. Swing is not straight time, metronomes usually don't adjust the attacks for quarter note triplet feel.
1 2 3 , 1 2 3
1 2 3 4
2 and 4 creates a somewhat straight feel...more like the doted quarter eighth swing feel
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The 2s and 4s always helps me in counting off a tune. I feel the up beat much more. Originally Posted by Reg
If my metronome is set, I'll pick up one of the down beats at 2. Then, it's kinda like this; 2 - a-1 - 2 - 3 - 4. Then, for me anyway, feeling the up beat automatically helps me feel the swing.
In anything other than common time . . . all bets are off!! :-)Last edited by Patrick2; 08-26-2014 at 10:27 AM.
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I think you are confusing two things: 1) learning to play with a swing feel and 2) how you tap your foot onstage after you've learned to play with a swing feel. Originally Posted by rintincop
Emily Remler says this is how she learned to do it. She had a great swing feel.
Carol Kaye says she knew drummers in the '50s who practiced with a metronome clicking on 2 and 4. Other instrumentalists did the same. She recommends it to her students too.
This doesn't mean one has to tap on 2 and 4 when playing with a real drummer! (One may not tap at all, or on 1 and 3, or just 1. Whatever works.) Playing live with a real band tends to come after one has developed a good time feel.
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Here is an exercise I posted on some other threads, it will help you learn to feel jazz rhythms.
... the point is to develop... feel.
Everything in music is subdivided... how we deal with those subdivisions... or are aware of them is what gives different styles of music their feel... what makes them lock into their groove. There is no slow, there are just less attacks.
Loop a four bar phrase at 240...or faster. one chord, no chord, whatever..
-play one downbeat on beat one of each bar. Accent that attack on beat one of each bar.
-then play the upbeat of beat one of each bar, but don't feel or count that... up beat or + of one ...as the target, play off of the downbeat of the downbeat of one you started... play off that accented downbeat... it will become a feel.
Now do the same thing but this time play the... + or upbeat of beat four of each bar. Still use the original accented downbeat one from first example for reference... your playing off the downbeat, but this time your anticipating the accented downbeat of one. ...... and one.... and one...and one etc...This will also become a feel.
See how you pick these examples... try different picking patterns, see how your picking influences the feels... obviously you can add more beats and variations and begin to develop feels at faster tempos.
Sorry, trying to give examples where there are choices at real time tempos.
Hey Patrick... what ever you use will become habit... right, wrong, good or bad. Counting off tunes with 2 and 4 is great for straight swing tunes, like with most college big bands etc. At faster tempos 2 and 4 is great to hang with drumers but that isn't always where you want to be.
So really you should be able to be locked in with any countoff...
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My good friend Henry Johnson (Chicago) knew Emily very well. HJ (for my $$ one of the top five jazz guitarists in the world) told me that they'd had lengthy discussions before she passed, and that among other things Emily had completely changed her tune on the value of using a metronome in that manner. Apparently this was something that Remler had picked up on very early in her career, and of course she had already documented her original take in various lessons/videos. Artists are ever-evolving and changing, but what they leave behind can still be regarded as gospel truth. She was a great player. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
Opinions being subjective, I believe the notion that using a metronome on 2 & 4 to improve phrasing is one of the biggest myths still being perpetuated in jazz guitar circles. It had the opposite effect on me, which is why I stopped using it many years ago. Just my two cents.
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Thanks for that, Mark. People do change their minds. I understand your take---that it didn't help you so you stopped doing it---but I wonder why Emily changed her tune. Was it that she didn't think it helped her after all or was it that she found it didn't help most of her students? Or had she found something she thought better? Originally Posted by JazzOnSix
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I know this has been posted here a few times....probably by me....But when I read this a few years ago it hit me like a ton of bricks....I've been trying to erase the crutch ever since.
"You snap your fingers on 2 & 4 because those beats swing. They are often used by player‘s as a “crutch” for keeping place and imparting a false feeling of swing to their ideas. Those who count using these beats have yet to reach rhythmic maturity. Learning to play in half time is adult rhythmic behavior."
Half-Time | Hal Galper
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If swing is about *feel* . . and I strongly believe that it is . . how could anyone possibly propose that it is so black and white that there are correct and/or incorrect ways of developing it? I tried twice to read Hal Galper's article (essay?) which was posted by djangles . . couldn't get through it. But, what I did get out of the little I was able to read through, was that it's more of his opinion or theory on the matter than it is fact. Also, I have all the respect in the world for Henry Johnson . . but, why would he or anyone else for that matter choose to accept Emily Remler's *evolved* opinion on 2s and 4s, over her original one? Which of her two positions on the matter is the correct one? The answer is neither are. They are both just her own opinions as it relates (related, RIP) to her own playing.
djangoles says that relying upon the 2s and 4s becomes a crutch. Reg offered the same opinion in a reply directly to me earlier in this thread. Maybe . . . maybe not. Maybe they're like training wheels on a bicycle. They help you learn to not need them.
Some people will have more of a natural swing feel and a great sense of time, with no need for further developement than others. Some will have a bit of a sense, but need further developement. Some will never get it no matter what.
IMO . . there is no one correct or incorrect method of developing a sense of swing feel that can be applied to all players.Last edited by Patrick2; 08-27-2014 at 12:53 PM.
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Mark, I forgot to ask: what do you recommend instead? How would you advise a player who needed to improve his time / feel? Originally Posted by JazzOnSix
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Originally Posted by Patrick2
you are correct there is no black and white....
but 2 things that I know for sure....
1) Play with a drummer who doesn't mark standard time on 2 & 4 with his hat and things could get ugly. Might not...but could...
2) When tempos start to get in the 250's and up...2 & 4 felt internally can be awkward and overexcited....
which I believe is the whole point of Hal's article....how one is interpreting the subdivisions internally has direct outcome effect on feel..... the goal is to be totally relaxed and not overexcited, which he argues is almost impossible to do with a quarter note or 2 & 4 internal feel.
If you didn't play through his example then try this experiment....
Mark time tapping 2 & 4 with fingers for an a chorus.....
Then mark time tapping 1 & 3 for chorus....
is there a difference in how you are feeling the music?
I know for me the second way is much easier to follow and be relaxed than the first. He argues this is the mental state you should be playing from....
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Yeah . . there was definitely a difference, quite substantial too. That was a great example. Thanks for posting that. I'm going to have to summon up all the discipline I can (maybe eat a valium?) and try to read through that whole article by Galper. I'll also work repeatedly through the exercise example you referenced in the recording. That was really very revealing.
By the way, great drummer in that recording. Who the hell is (was) that guy??? ;-)
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Yes, there was a difference 1 & 3 was much more relaxed---2 & 4 gave me the jitters! Cool example, thanks. Originally Posted by djangoles
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There's a video on YouTube where Joe Lovano discusses the differences in how you phrase depending on how feel the pulse. I think that feeling one and three is the way to go. Get on YouTube and watch a bunch of videos of the older guys and take note of how many tap their feet on one and three. Also, there's a video of Barry Harris getting on to someone for tapping their foot on two and four.
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One thing I would suggest to break the 2 & 4 four connection a little bit is load up a bunch of quick tunes and just tap out 1 & 3 while it's playing for a week or two...
Then take it out further by treating each measures 1/4 as a 1/16.....
1 2 3 4 becomes 1 e a +....this actually works pretty well for stuff in the 280 - 300......
One big benefit I see from doing stuff like this above is you start to see and hear longer phrases....(meaning one bar of 1/16's is in reality 4 bars).
Also Reg's example is also really great to do and if you want and organized approach to that type of thing I would recommend again Jerry Bergonzi Melodic Rhythms. Contains enough material to work on for the rest of your life and it has some the best backing/playalong tracks i've heard.
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Is this what you mean? Originally Posted by jasonc
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I guess we'll never know the reason for sure, because sadly she's no longer with us. I could speculate and say that it had something to do with Johnson's influence, because Emily respected his playing (Wes school with powerful blues roots) and philosophy so much. In that regard they had a lot in common. HJ has always been very generous in sharing what he knows with fellow players, myself included. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
It could also be that being criticized for having bad time was something she took seriously, but the reality is that critics are often wrong, yet artists are frequently effected by it and tend to second-guess themselves.
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With all due respect, to me there are vastly superior and more musical options than using something that was always traditionally associated with beginning (first year) players. At that stage and especially when it comes to classical music and scale practice, a metronome can be a useful tool. Of course, in writing scores I'll often use one as a measuring device in entering tempo indicators on a chart. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
However, once you get beyond the first stage of learning and if your interest lies in jazz/blues improv plus other forms of contemporary music, why use a metronome to improve your timing, feel and phrasing? It's abstract and unrealistic, since you're never going to be on stage performing with one. You can use BIAB, Aebersold tracks, etc, etc, for precisely the same purpose. It's even better if there's harmony involved, because at least you're replicating reality in the woodshed. Beyond all that, it's simply a lot more fun.
The biggest tip of all I can offer is the epiphany I had decades ago. That's when I realized that none of my blues and jazz guitar influences ever used a metronome to get from point A to point B. They practiced with solid rhythm sections and also along with their own heroes on records, and no one had better timing, feel, and phrasing than them. That's when all of my frustration and uncertainty came to a screaming halt and the real growth began. What worked for them worked for me.
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Yes, that's the one I was talking about. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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