How much rhythm absorbed from passive listening

[joe2758]

How much do you think passive listening to jazz all day affects our rhythmic vocabulary? I.e. how much just sinks in automatically? Does listening to jazz all day = 15 minutes of actually practicing various rhythmic figures? Does nothing happen unless you are engaged in "active listening?" May be interesting for discussion

[Irez87]

Honestly, I have to say--you all are posting threads that I actually find extremely interesting as of recently.

Joe, that's an important question.

I forgot who said it, was it Aimee Noltee (who I almost got a private lesson from, but she didn't want to do it in person...and we lived not to far from each other at the time... I get it)

Anyway, I think she said something like "A lot of my more advanced students want to play fast, so I just tell them to listen to fast players--like Oscar Peterson"

A lot of what we play is informed, in some way, by what we listen to.

I started listening to Wes Montgomery again--how did I take a break from WES!--and I noticed that the rhythms for his comping started showing up in my comping--YEY! I never sat down and transcribed those rhythms, I knew that they hit me in the gut when I listened to him--so they had an effect on me.

Time feel as well. I started listening to Cannonball again--I love Cannonball's time feel! I haven't "formally" transcribed (written it down on manuscript paper or notation software) in years, but listening to him over and over again--I started to embody where he places his accents, dynamics, and note length--all of those contribute to his swinging sound.

Direct rhythmic practice is great--even better if you can practice it on a drum of some sort to embody the sound of the rhythm in your head. Chris'77 likes to talk about audiation with me and a couple of other forumites--I guess we're audi-azy? A lot of this "vocabulary" seems to take root in sonic imagination before it solidly manifests in your playing.

All practice and no listening makes Jack a dull player.

[mr. beaumont]

Absolutely...

To the point of where I think you can "practice" rhythmic ideas, but if it isn't absorbed through listening to the point of where it's the stuff that "plays in your head" it's not going to happen in the moment, much moreso than "playing the right notes" pitch-wise.

You HAVE to be able to feel it.

[Hep To The Jive]

Well, there are people who listen to jazz every day for years and have no rhythm. Or weak rhythm.

I think maybe its more important when you growing up, soaking it like a sponge, like kids do?

One thing I figured, when I was playing in a gospel band up in the Bronx, when you move and clap like crazy(on 2 and 4 of course!) to the music every week since you're kid, you prolly bound to develop a good rhythm. So maybe active physical listening is the key?

Ultimately, who knows!

[christianm77]

How much do you think passive listening to jazz all day affects our rhythmic vocabulary? I.e. how much just sinks in automatically? Does listening to jazz all day = 15 minutes of actually practicing various rhythmic figures? Does nothing happen unless you are engaged in "active listening?" May be interesting for discussion

What an interesting question.

I think you have to be keyed into the rhythmic aspect of the music, feel it to some extent, to get anything out of it in this way.

[ragman1]

How much rhythm absorbed from passive listening

Personally, I think the results/effects would be short-lived.

[TOMMO]

When I was a teen and worked on learning how to play blues (B.B., Freddie, Albert; Hubert etc.) I didn't know s**t about which notes to play and where to find them on the fretboard but I kept on playing along with the records and I was listening to that stuff day in and day out. I think that I picked up a lot of rhythm and phrasing by doing just that.

[Irez87]

One thing I figured, when I was playing in a gospel band up in the Bronx, when you move and clap like crazy(on 2 and 4 of course!) to the music every week since you're kid, you prolly bound to develop a good rhythm. So maybe active physical listening is the key?

Hep, I think you're on to something. My baby girl is taking baby music classes. A big component of the class is movement and imitation.

I feel like when we try to make rhythm purely about mathematical subdivision, then it loses it's presence and power.

I'm starting to feel like that about the study of improvisation as well--it's too mathematical.

There's nothing wrong with maths, I'd love to go back to college and take a calculus class (I'd fall on my arse, but it'd be interesting--I love learning, that's why I teach)

But there's something to learning how to dance to music, sway to music, or even walk in time to music. Get the body moving, kinesthetically and all.

People might balk "you CAN'T teach that!"

As a teacher myself (albeit in a different field) I think you CAN

[grahambop]

I think it helps to first transcribe some stuff by players who are rhythmic and use space (as opposed to someone like Sonny Stitt where it’s mostly strings of eighth notes). I think the difficulty involved, and the concentrated/repeated listening, can improve your ability to hear and feel rhythm.

Some good examples of this are Wes Montgomery and Chet Baker. When I transcribed them I had to listen really hard in places to figure out how to notate the rhythms they used. After that, I found I was much more aware of rhythmic accents and note placement when I was just listening more ‘passively’ to jazz in general. But I think you still have to focus a bit when listening, maybe it can’t be 100% ‘passive’.

Certainly these days I find I can imagine lines in my head where the rhythmic component is as strongly heard and ‘felt’ as the melodic content, and I’m sure this helps me when playing.

[Rhythmisking]

When I was a young teenager I listened a lot of fusion in odd time signatures, even though the bands I was playing in at the time were mostly just rock, R&B, etc. So all 4/4 with maybe the odd 6/8.

Now I play lots of music in my band (by myself and others) in odd meters 7, 11, 13 etc. I don't ever recall 'working' on playing in odd meters -I could always just feel it. But I've found that many musicians, even otherwise accomplished ones really struggle with them.

I think the feel of those patterns just sort of got hardwired into my brain from listening to them.

[Irez87]

I implore you to listen here:

Not my Speakpipe this time, but it's pertinent none-the-less

By the way, why don't most jazz guitarists talk about stuff like Pete and Adam do? I think most jazz guitarists get too consumed in scales and gear... I'd love to find a podcast of two great jazz guitarists talking about the same stuff Peter and Adam do on the daily.

[christianm77]

Hep, I think you're on to something. My baby girl is taking baby music classes. A big component of the class is movement and imitation.

I feel like when we try to make rhythm purely about mathematical subdivision, then it loses it's presence and power.

I'm starting to feel like that about the study of improvisation as well--it's too mathematical.

There's nothing wrong with maths, I'd love to go back to college and take a calculus class (I'd fall on my arse, but it'd be interesting--I love learning, that's why I teach)

But there's something to learning how to dance to music, sway to music, or even walk in time to music. Get the body moving, kinesthetically and all.

People might balk "you CAN'T teach that!"

As a teacher myself (albeit in a different field) I think you CAN

I agree.

[geogio]

When I was 8 possibly 9 I was interested in a local small town marching team. And I wanted to be part of the Drumline which consisted of a bass drum 2 snares 2 Tom's cymbals and a glockenspiel.

In order to become eligible for inclusion into this small marching Corps Drumline you had to take rudiment drum lessons from an accomplished high school drummer named Garth. Garth used a method book that we all had to buy and we all had to start from rudiment number one and progress through the book. Once we graduated Garth's rudimental and note reading drum lessons to the point where we were a going into the second book then you could be eligible pass the audition and learn the Drumline material.

I became a member of the drum line and marched for a year or two before we moved away.

Also when I was 10 I started in the school band program playing the trombone and when I was around 12 I took piano lessons.

Prior to this formal childhood music education, at age seven or eight my dad picked up a Gibson L 45 archtop he worked a trade using a nice clock at a secondhand hand store, (today we know them at pawn shops). And we took some guitar lessons from a lady who played a Fender with a Tweed and she wore poodle skirts and she was very 50s looking she was pretty good guitar player but we learned out of the Gibson book at the time which is kind of an adult version of the Mel Bay's beginning books... but the Gibson book got you into chords a lot sooner than the Mel Bay books.

Anyway long story short in the whole point of this soliloquy is that today 50+ later I firmly believe in retrospect that anybody who wants to play music should start with drum rudiments, because learning to play the drum rudiments and understand time and understand Rhythm will never leave you. I have witness many people who had never done this and in many cases their rhythm is just terrible and their time is just as bad. Not everybody, but a good and large enough number that I have come to the conclusion that drum lessons might have been very helpful at that early impressionable age.

[Irez87]

When I was 8 possibly 9 I was interested in a local small town marching team. And I wanted to be part of the Drumline which consisted of a bass drum 2 snares 2 Tom's cymbals and a glockenspiel.

In order to become eligible for inclusion into this small marching Corps Drumline you had to take rudiment drum lessons from an accomplished high school drummer named Garth. Garth used a method book that we all had to buy and we all had to start from rudiment number one and progress through the book. Once we graduated Garth's rudimental and note reading drum lessons to the point where we were a going into the second book then you could be eligible pass the audition and learn the Drumline material.

I became a member of the drum line and marched for a year or two before we moved away.

Also when I was 10 I started in the school band program playing the trombone and when I was around 12 I took piano lessons.

Prior to this formal childhood music education, at age seven or eight my dad picked up a Gibson L 45 archtop he worked a trade using a nice clock at a secondhand hand store, (today we know them at pawn shops). And we took some guitar lessons from a lady who played a Fender with a Tweed and she wore poodle skirts and she was very 50s looking she was pretty good guitar player but we learned out of the Gibson book at the time which is kind of an adult version of the Mel Bay's beginning books... but the Gibson book got you into chords a lot sooner than the Mel Bay books.

Anyway long story short in the whole point of this soliloquy is that today 50+ later I firmly believe in retrospect that anybody who wants to play music should start with drum rudiments, because learning to play the drum rudiments and understand time and understand Rhythm will never leave you. I have witness many people who had never done this and in many cases their rhythm is just terrible and their time is just as bad. Not everybody, but a good and large enough number that I have come to the conclusion that drum lessons might have been very helpful at that early impressionable age.

Or any age, for that matter. I carry drumsticks in my car. When I did the drive from LA to Washington, on those long stretches of boring farmland (not knocking farmers, but when you pass by fields of crops with no other scenery in sight... well, you know) I listened to my iPod and drummed along on my steering wheel--just drumming with one hand, mind you. I do this on all my long trips when I'm alone in the car--that way if I get in an accident, I'll be the only one that gets hurt... I also do a lot of ear training in the car... no accidents yet (knock on wood... jeez, I'm a daft sausage )

Anyway, I agree. Everyone should learn a little piano and a little bit of drums. My skip beat isn't where I want it to be, but according to another younger drummer I met--my time isn't half bad and my coordination is pretty good for someone who isn't a drummer.

Plus, you can pretend that you're Max Roach or Elvin Jones. Since you don't have all the prejudices that experience gave you on the guitar, you can live in that dream of being a great drummer for a minute or two... It's quite fun

[TH]

How much do you think passive listening to jazz all day affects our rhythmic vocabulary?

I've played music I find inspiring in the work space I used had. It was actually a music store where just about everyone was a drop out from Berklee. I'd play a LOT of jazz from Oscar Alamain, Eddie Lang up through Ben Monder. For me it was great, listening to a track of Kenny Garrett, I'd get a lot of ideas on phrasing, time and lyric content just through immersion with my ears open. But other people I worked with would comment "Oh I LOVE jazz! I love your music. It's so mellow" or superficial commentary along those lines. Nope. They didn't get anything. No trace of residual time sense.
If I'm listening with a question in my mind, or just an open mind, I can get lots of answers. If all you hear is music you don't get, or can't find a place for, if your ears don't swing, then I dare say, it's not necessarily going to change you. You might THINK it's going to make you more astute or aware, but maybe it won't.
If you watch French films all day, will it make you speak with a French accent or speak french convincingly? Maybe. Maybe you just think it will.
If you don't get it on a certain level, listening alone even all day isn't going to do it.

Now going out and attending live music...THAT's a very different story.
That I can believe in.
David

[cosmic gumbo]

I think there are limits to the passive listening where you reach the point it has to be instilled physically in some manner. You certainly need to hear it first, because the musical gateway to your mind is the ear.

You can't become a great dancer only by watching a lot of great dancing.

[ruger9]

Well, I'll keep this simple... I was listening to Glen Miller and Tommy Dorsey from birth. Literally, because my father was in WWII.

I am 100% convinced that my ability to "swing" and even alot of my phrasing choices, was imbedded in my mind (and heart, and soul) many years before I ever picked up a guitar. I can't play WITHOUT swinging.

Add to that, around 25 years old I decided to jump in with both feet, and now have an enormous big band swing and jump blues collection.

Now, (referencing another current thread), if I could just find me an ES-125....

[Hep To The Jive]

Or any age, for that matter. I carry drumsticks in my car. When I did the drive from LA to Washington, on those long stretches of boring farmland (not knocking farmers, but when you pass by fields of crops with no other scenery in sight... well, you know) I listened to my iPod and drummed along on my steering wheel--just drumming with one hand, mind you. I do this on all my long trips when I'm alone in the car--that way if I get in an accident, I'll be the only one that gets hurt... I also do a lot of ear training in the car... no accidents yet (knock on wood... jeez, I'm a daft sausage )

Anyway, I agree. Everyone should learn a little piano and a little bit of drums. My skip beat isn't where I want it to be, but according to another younger drummer I met--my time isn't half bad and my coordination is pretty good for someone who isn't a drummer.

Plus, you can pretend that you're Max Roach or Elvin Jones. Since you don't have all the prejudices that experience gave you on the guitar, you can live in that dream of being a great drummer for a minute or two... It's quite fun

I was just thinking, often when I listen to a tune and it's inspiring and I have a guitar handy, I would grab a guitar and start playing along. Sometimes I just can't help it! Or even drums for that matter. (Unfortunately my gf strongly objects to the drums, so mostly guitar haha). I focus on rhythm. I think it's a habit that might help with the rhythm, but it's not a passive listening.

Speaking of Max Roach, I have this recording Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet Live, and no matter how I try, I can't keep up. Tempo speeds up so much! Or it's pushed too hard. Either way, this kind of rhythm I can't absorb.

[mikostep]

Listening to WHAT and for what REASON?
How to transfer what we heard into our playing?
How do we incorporate this into our SYSTEM?
Do we have the system?

[pingu]

dad used to blast out Basie Band , Sinatra , Ella , Dina Washington and four freshman records when i was little

i was lucky with all that , it gets into your bones ...

best swing Rhythm for me is
Basie mr Atomic album ...
a mammoth tap dancing in spats

also concert by the sea Garner
teach me tonight ... indeed ....

[matt.guitarteacher]

There have been a couple of mentions of the fact that some people can listen to great music all their life and somehow not get a sense of rhythm from it. I think this is interesting.

There is certainly a degree to which things are more easily heard when you know how to PLAY them at a basic level. This is probably more easily understood in terms of melody and harmony , but I'm sure there are rhythmic implications as well.

For me, basic subdivision work in PLAYING tightened up my ears more then any amount of listening. Players like Wes Montgomery and ALL singers, specially Billie holiday and Louis Armstrong etc, have made a lot more sense since I really worked quarter note triplets and eighth note triplets and subdivisions beyond. If you come up in western popular music in the generation I did , it's really easy to miss basic subdivision based in 3's, but it's very fundamental to jazz rhythm, feel, and phrasing.

[basinstreet]

There have been a couple of mentions of the fact that some people can listen to great music all their life and somehow not get a sense of rhythm from it. I think this is interesting.

There is certainly a degree to which things are more easily heard when you know how to PLAY them at a basic level. This is probably more easily understood in terms of melody and harmony , but I'm sure there are rhythmic implications as well.

For me, basic subdivision work in PLAYING tightened up my ears more then any amount of listening. Players like Wes Montgomery and ALL singers, specially Billie holiday and Louis Armstrong etc, have made a lot more sense since I really worked quarter note triplets and eighth note triplets and subdivisions beyond. If you come up in western popular music in the generation I did , it's really easy to miss basic subdivision based in 3's, but it's very fundamental to jazz rhythm, feel, and phrasing.

this sums up my experience too.

I never worked on it because i couldnt hear it and i didnt realise how fundamental subdivisions in threes are. As soon as i did work on it (when someone kindly pointed out i sucked) I heard it EVERYwhere

[mr. beaumont]

If you cant hear it in your head first, itll NEVER HAPPEN.

Technique is important so you can pull off what you hear, but if you're practicing rhythmic figures, you need to practice more listening.

[Irez87]

I think there are limits to the passive listening where you reach the point it has to be instilled physically in some manner. You certainly need to hear it first, because the musical gateway to your mind is the ear.

You can't become a great dancer only by watching a lot of great dancing.

I respectfully disagree.

Dancing is a purely physical act. Watching someone dance won't help anyone dance because watching is visual and dancing is kinetic.

Music is an aural act--we are all learning how to manipulate sound and space.

So if music is an aural act--we should place a premium on learning by listening.

We spoke on another thread about the nature of learning rhythm. Pauln said something really interesting to that effect. I'll let him chime in so I don't misquote him

You can teach babies to play with more rhythmic confidence and clarity than adults. Why? the methods change. For babies, it's all about imitation. When we get older, all of a sudden it's all about "calculating" everything in music. However, when you mathematically calculate rhythms before you can hear them--you end up playing with rhythmic ambiguity. Rhythms become stiff and "janky" because you end up internalizing the wrong "feel" of the rhythm.

Conversely, if we learn from masters of rhythm--master drummers would be great--then we would internalize the proper feel. It's aural, and it's also the intangible "feeling in your gut".

[ruger9]

Started playing in the 80s lifting Chuck Berry and all sorts of blues from records. I swung without realizing it for many years. Sometimes a singer (always female) would criticize me for playing too guitaristic. Didn't realize the me swinging was the culprit before long time down the road

Berry surely swung!!! T-Bone Walker and Charlie Christian taught him everything they knew (even if not personally)