Rhythm trumps everything

**christianm77** · 01-22-2016, 05:36 AM

Originally Posted by Irez87

This post is interesting

but...

Let's not forget that practicing the rhythmic fundamentals until they are fully engrained is more important than the polys and metric modulation. Try playing a nice full quarter note at 60bpm while practicing scales. That's what Harvie S. had to me practice. Try only using a click to reference every 8 beats (2 measures in 4/4) or 64 beats (4 measures in 4/4) and engrain the SPACE between the phrases.

Comping is all about rhythm as well. Rhythm has it's own natural cadence and tension, and when used with simple melodic ideas, can be stronger than all the tritone subs you can throw into a tune. Bill Evans had a unique sense of the phrase, so did Dex.

I've noticed that my playing is on like a song when I play intune to the pulse and rhythm of the musical space. When it's not, nothing sounds right.

By the way, you can communicate rhythm just as easily as you can communicate melodic content. Talk to drummers that really know the craft, they can talk rhythm for days. A phrase built off the and of the 4 sounds different than the and of the 2. They can hear rhythm, and can build "perfect rhythm" like people have perfect pitch.

Unfortunately, as guitarists, we often get caught up in other things... Still love the guitar, though. But, drummers... A good drummer can get me going a lot quicker than a good guitarist.

Study phrasing and then you can get into that language of the drum.

Yeah I love me a good drummer. Drummers are really the people to ask about rhythm, needless to say. I wish I could learn a bit of kit, maybe I could find a studio to practice in. Would be good for me.

**srlank** · 01-22-2016, 11:14 AM

The topic of rhythmic accenting is so crucial for making or breaking any musical statement. That being said, we learn whatever scale-system, but in order to make certain phrases work, it can be necessary to move out of default fingering pattern to make a phrase rhythmically happen. And even though you could play a phrase in several areas of the neck, it might only sound good in one spot, or it might sound particularly weak in another. Take for example the notes d and g on the 12 frets on the 4th and 3rd strings. It might accent better elsewhere. This kind of opens up a whole new can of worms.

**Reg** · 01-22-2016, 11:59 AM

... you need all the skills, right. if you don't your missing out on your possibilities.

I've pushed rhythmic concepts since... I was taught, playing gigs as a kid. You want to play in the "A" group... be able to play at the speed of Jazz. Rhythm may trump to a point.... but one note solos work only so many times.

But talking about rhythm...

Rhythm being taught or how one learns, is generally about pulse and subdivisions. You really can't get into accent patterns if you can't subdivide. If you don't really understand where the attacks and accents are located... your going to need to memorize every combination etc... which will lead to lousy pulse and performance of accent patterns of rhythm.

Then after you get the basic concept of pulse and subdivision, you work on attacks, and attack patterns, different styles etc.

Then you work on phrasing of those attack and accent patterns... develop the spatial concept of Form and how what your playing works within that Form.

Then you start working on where...on and off the beat you perform all of the above.... you'll use the same organization and develop patterns of on and off the beat to reflect different styles.... and use this skill again with the spatial approach... to create grooves... all jazz grooves, groove is simple repeating patterns with feel.

And this really all works much better when you also have the harmonic and melodic skills together.

**christianm77** · 01-22-2016, 01:37 PM

Great post Reg... great info as always ...

Originally Posted by Reg

but one note solos work only so many times.

Sometimes I do actually see how many one note solos I can get with when I am particularly bored on a swing gig. And don't even start on tenor sax solos.

**christianm77** · 01-22-2016, 01:42 PM

From my own experience subdivision has helped me enormously - but, I do wonder how this chimes with traditional non-notational ways of doing things. Did Wes learn rhythm this way for example?

**matt.guitarteacher** · 01-22-2016, 01:50 PM

Originally Posted by christianm77

From my own experience subdivision has helped me enormously - but, I do wonder how this chimes with traditional non-notational ways of doing things. Did Wes learn rhythm this way for example?

I think that triplets and triple meters were just so much more a part of the fabric of popular music in previous generations. The cheesiest singers of by-gone years could phrase across a triplet time-base that puts many modern musicians to shame. When you listen to that old stuff, it's in all of the popular music, not just jazz or blues. I think the subdivisions just aren't heard anymore. You just don't have to. You can now go about daily life listening to music which is solely based in straight 8ths and 16ths, and never anything in 3/4 or 6/8. I think earlier generations had a better starting reference to 3-against-4 subdivisions and such, even from childhood.

**Nate Miller** · 01-22-2016, 02:06 PM

"I think that triplets and triple meters were just so much more a part of the fabric of popular music in previous generations" -- my mom's people are Irish and I play some Irish fiddle myself, and Jigs are a very popular form in Irish music.

It seems that the folk dancing in America favored reels over jigs, though, because a great many Irish reels are incorporated in the Appalachian repertoire, but not nearly as many jigs. In fact, there are relatively few Irish jigs in Appalachian music

so we might be looking at a function of the popular dance forms in America around the turn of the 20th century as to why triple meter is less common in our idiom

**docbop** · 01-22-2016, 02:22 PM

Originally Posted by Nate Miller

"I think that triplets and triple meters were just so much more a part of the fabric of popular music in previous generations" -- my mom's people are Irish and I play some Irish fiddle myself, and Jigs are a very popular form in Irish music.

It seems that the folk dancing in America favored reels over jigs, though, because a great many Irish reels are incorporated in the Appalachian repertoire, but not nearly as many jigs. In fact, there are relatively few Irish jigs in Appalachian music

so we might be looking at a function of the popular dance forms in America around the turn of the 20th century as to why triple meter is less common in our idiom

Yes, 3/4 tuple meter is heard more everywhere outside America. That was noted in one of the talks I get involved with a lot of classical music is tuple meter. Plus how you Feel the music can be different that a tune can be in a duple meter, but you feel it in a tuple feel . In a talk yesterday we were discussing this and even feel different parts of a song in tuple and back to duple, but the meter is never changing just how you feel it. It is said the NOLA swing feel is a tuple feel over a 4/4 meter. That's where the human factor versus the quantized view comes into play.

**Irez87** · 01-22-2016, 08:11 PM

Macro time is where it is at. Once you get good at macro time, you can do ANYTHING...

I am still working on marco time and I am impressed at how much is tied to it.

Comping, composing, soloing, all of it, in any temporal based music... Tempura... Shrimpskies?

3 little mouskies?

(heard that on the radio, by Slam Stewart)

Marco time is all about NOT subdividing and being aware of space. Not easy at all, because we are all taught to count and subdivide instead of just listening to the damn rhythm. Thanks, math teachers

Okay, I like math. But you know what I means, beans?

**jazzguy100** · 01-22-2016, 08:29 PM

you only need to count until you internalize the rhythm, then it's just feeling the time.

**bobsguitars09** · 01-23-2016, 12:39 AM

Originally Posted by Irez87

Macro time is where it is at. Once you get good at macro time, you can do ANYTHING...

I am still working on marco time and I am impressed at how much is tied to it.

Comping, composing, soloing, all of it, in any temporal based music... Tempura... Shrimpskies?

3 little mouskies?

(heard that on the radio, by Slam Stewart)

Marco time is all about NOT subdividing and being aware of space. Not easy at all, because we are all taught to count and subdivide instead of just listening to the damn rhythm. Thanks, math teachers

Okay, I like math. But you know what I means, beans?

can you expand on this?

**jazzguy100** · 01-23-2016, 12:51 AM

big beat

**Irez87** · 01-23-2016, 10:36 AM

I'll record a better version of an old pod-cast I did on the ear training thread I started.

I'm stuck inside with all this snow... so I'll post something sometime today

**christianm77** · 01-23-2016, 02:41 PM

Originally Posted by jazzguy100

big beat

Fatboy Slim and Chemical Brothers were 90s mate.

Actually is it time for the revival?

**mrcee** · 01-23-2016, 06:03 PM

Having a vocabulary of melodic licks, lines, patterns and phrases etc. for specific rhythmic applications is a good way to operate. Something like drum rudiments such as paradiddles. But with a melodic element. I saw Gene Krupa on an afternoon TV show in the 50s when I was a little kid and he said he'd think of a rhythmic phrase in terms of some words. For example a "mashed potatoes and a pork chop" rhythm. Or it could be "Skwee Deedledee Blee Blop". Or a 3-5-7-9 works for this rhythm with one fingering and another rhythm with a different fingering.

**Irez87** · 01-23-2016, 08:05 PM

This will be here until tomorrow night, as I don't have the permissions to use the music from all of the artists. This is for educational purposes (I know, Matt, I know) and I don't want to get in trouble. The first song didn't work, but the rest drive home the point about macro time. This is an old pod-cast, I was shoveling all day and couldn't get to the mic.

**matt.guitarteacher** · 01-23-2016, 10:14 PM

Originally Posted by Irez87

This will be here until tomorrow night, as I don't have the permissions to use the music from all of the artists. This is for educational purposes (I know, Matt, I know) and I don't want to get in trouble.

ha ha. I'm not the permissions police. Pretty much a common sense guy in that area anyway. I'd call posting you're own VERSIONS of tunes common sense for absolutely being educational. I did view the other post a little differently. Just my opinion.

But I'm not THE MAN here. Just another dude. Everyone can look around and kind of see what's common practice. Everyone posts versions. I certainly have. Technically, not letter of the law....

**Irez87** · 01-23-2016, 10:19 PM

Nah, I am just worried about getting sued for copyright infringement. I don't own the rights to the songs in that pod cast so I get anxious. Those fines are quite costly.

**bobsguitars09** · 01-29-2016, 12:05 PM

I missed this

**jzucker** · 01-30-2016, 10:56 AM

check out Tim Miller's lessons. There's tons of stuff pertaining to accents and the way he shapes his lines lends itself to accenting differently than the typical guitar pedagogy.

Internet Guitar Lessons ? Tim Miller Music

**bobsguitars09** · 01-30-2016, 12:06 PM

Originally Posted by Irez87

Macro time is where it is at. Once you get good at macro time, you can do ANYTHING...

I am still working on marco time and I am impressed at how much is tied to it.

Comping, composing, soloing, all of it, in any temporal based music... Tempura... Shrimpskies?

3 little mouskies?

(heard that on the radio, by Slam Stewart)

Marco time is all about NOT subdividing and being aware of space. Not easy at all, because we are all taught to count and subdivide instead of just listening to the damn rhythm. Thanks, math teachers

Okay, I like math. But you know what I means, beans?

can you expand on this? Without the non existent podcast?

**bobsguitars09** · 01-30-2016, 12:06 PM

Originally Posted by jzucker

check out Tim Miller's lessons. There's tons of stuff pertaining to accents and the way he shapes his lines lends itself to accenting differently than the typical guitar pedagogy.

Internet Guitar Lessons ? Tim Miller Music

Tim Miller is excellent

**bobsguitars09** · 06-04-2016, 11:14 AM

Originally Posted by Irez87

Macro time is where it is at. Once you get good at macro time, you can do ANYTHING...

I am still working on marco time and I am impressed at how much is tied to it.

Comping, composing, soloing, all of it, in any temporal based music... Tempura... Shrimpskies?

3 little mouskies?

(heard that on the radio, by Slam Stewart)

Marco time is all about NOT subdividing and being aware of space. Not easy at all, because we are all taught to count and subdivide instead of just listening to the damn rhythm. Thanks, math teachers

Okay, I like math. But you know what I means, beans?

can you expand on this? Without the non existent podcast?