Rhythm and timing exercises?

[Reg]

Yea I was in Boston... didn't go to GB gig, I was poor musician. Did gig at Workshop, many times, great old school jazz dive. Usually played few nights in a row, again old school style of gigs.

Hate click tracks... probable from having to play with them way too much in studios. One of the best methods to take the live out of any performance. (but they do serve their purpose).

... and I always thought playing behind the beat was slowing down. Rich playing ahead of the beat isn't always a downbeat thing...organized use of tuplets, like using triplets and getting on top the feel creates rhythmic dissonance which when used to help organize longer sections of time, just like locking in shorter grooves, is very common practice during longer solo sections. Has the effect of rushing...

Christian... didn't study with Bill, but was a friend and learned much from him. I didn't study guitar at Berklee... I could already play and read. Did pick up most of my jazz musicianship and theory concepts indirectly and directly through the school. I was a classically trained...as kid, who wasn't. And yea.. all the Berklee materials are to be used with a teacher who already understand and fills in the blanks, part of the reason many teachers have difficulties using. And of course... you need to finish... which most don't. Somewhat like Chord Scale approach, most just think of scales, which are just part of the concepts.

If you go around the states... Berklee concepts are everywhere. It somewhat gave the organization to jazz studies which unfortunately seems to have led to justification for charging so much money at most colleges for learning how to not play jazz.

[jtizzle]

A drummer has to be freaking GREAT to be better than:

a. No drummer
b. A click

Most drummers are not that great.

And PLEASE guys, stop talking about playing "ahead" of the beat.

There is no "ahead". That's called rushing and it sounds like shit.

Sorry man, I don't mean to be confrontational, but your post sounds really ignorant.
What you're saying here is that basically you've never played with a decent band, at the very least. Many so called "great" drummers did not have metronomic time, and would play very "ahead" or "behind" (yes, that is a thing) of the beat. Think Tony Williams. If you've ever heard any of the Miles records with the very least bit of attention, you'll notice that all those recordings speed up or slow down. They miss cues, fuck up the form, and do all kinds of wacky shit that if you do that in school, they'd give you an F for. But I would absolutely would not call that rushing or dragging. It feels way too good.
Also, think of Elvin Jones. If there's no such thing as ahead of the beat, there can't be such thing as behind the beat either. But what do you call what Elvin did? He certainly was not dragging.

Also, a click can't react with you. Certainly, a "no-drummer" also can't. One of the most fun, humbling, and learning experiences I have come from playing duo with drummers. If there's a place where you can check how strong you know a tune and how good your time is, and on top of that, having to be rhythmically inventive, it's playing duo with a drummer.

I'm going to agree with Christian. You either need to move elsewhere if you think drummers in your area are that horrible, or at the very least, open your ears to how a drummer does not compare to a metronome.