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05-31-2023 10:41 PM
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I have not watched the video yet, but the title itself underscores something that's critically important: rhythm.
Far too many jazz musicians don't learn to use rhythm well when soloing. They often play endless streams of eighth notes without dynamics and it's boring as hell. They are focused on using modes and scales, rather than crafting melodies and expressing emotion. Saxophone players and guitar players, in particular, seem to be guilty of this. The number of truly memorable jazz solos that I can think of is really quite low compared to rock and pop tunes, as much as it is heretical to say that and will tick off a number of forum members. The most memorable jazz solos I can think of offhand are by Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery, Paul Desmond. And Ella scatting. Monk, Ed Bickert and Jim Hall made a good use of rhythmic variety and among modern players, Peter Bernstein in particular. Bill Frisell has certainly escaped that trap, too.
Miles Okazaki has a really interesting video on his YouTube channel demonstrating the use of drum rudimentals as rhythmic structures for guitar players. It's good stuff and breaks it down to a very understandable and practical approach.
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Dear God why did you have to post that of all open studio clips. That's the dumbest one. Everything is important. If that premise were true that rhythm is all you need then he could bang on low A with a really good rhythm and it would be jazz - no! Or what if you used random notes to play the chords to a song but you used really good rhythm. Lol.
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Enjoyed this. Thanks.
Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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I have to take a rare disagreement with you Jimmy. With a feeling for rhythm that excels you can entertain more using fewer notes. Most people that are listening to music are listening to the beat/rhythm and the vocals. They don't care about your scales or chord voicings so yeah, I'd argue that it takes precedence over other stuff. You say "what if you used random notes to play the chords" but that's not really a fair analysis. The point is rhythm holds primacy in all black music. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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To be fair, the video does say many times “the notes don’t matter.” But also to be fair, he does play random junk to the rhythm of Rhythm-a-Ning and it sounds pretty good to me. Originally Posted by DawgBone
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Victor Wooten agrees: notes don't matter
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I’ve been meaning to do this kind of practice recently too.
Was watching the Jerry Bergonzi My Music Masterclass on “Melodic Shapes” and he talks about stealing the shape and rhythm of a distinctive line and improvising with it. Kind of a way of internalizing the way rhythm and accent are tied to the shape of a line and Vice versa. Pretty cool but also tough … this is a good foot in the door. Worry about rhythm first and get it going, maybe in a few weeks I’ll get to the shape too.
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The attitude matters the most. Still a mystery to me.
Notes and rhythm matter completely equally. Both matter 100%. So its 200% total.
If notes don't matter but rhythm matters (by attitude) then you only get 100%! ! !
This is not enough!
I'm only 50% joking here
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The video raises the musical question, "Why Do I Still Suck?"
My sense of the answer is, "Because you are not playing the
melodic & harmonic part by ear like you already do rhythmic."
Who plays everything by ear?
Who never uses lead sheets?
Who can play on every song?
That would be your drummer
Notes scored or played have:
- initiation
- duration
- termination
- spacing
Rhythm
- literally fundamentally a given
- holds the foundation of notes
When a guitarist uses theory to
play notes, are they also using
theory to apply rhythm, or just
playing the rhythm part by ear?
What if a guitarist plays by ear
both notes and rhythm, is that
allowing a more natural sense
of integration and coherence?
Does the result sound better?
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Two things here that might be built on faulty assumptions. Originally Posted by pauln
The first maybe is the dichotomy between Theory and Ear. I usually think of theory as a tool for training the ear. When I practice I’m using theory to make myself play things that “theoretically” should sound good, but that I can’t hear yet. When I’m performing I’m usually playing by ear, but it’s mostly going to be things within the gravitational field of stuff I’ve practiced. So theory is a way of categorizing and extrapolating what sounds good to the ear. Not necessarily two separate things.
The second is that it’s maybe a good thing that we don’t use theory to play rhythm. Obviously the theory is different, but maybe we *should* be taking rhythms that sound good and breaking them down into component parts, categorizing them, and trying to apply them in different ways until we can hear and feel more rhythms than we could initially. Good drummers are doing this constantly in their practice. So it sounds like when you use the word “ear” you mean something more like “rote”, but an ear can absolutely be trained, and I think the fact that we (myself included) don’t really spend much time on that training is not exactly a good thing.
This video is funny, but it also kind of bears that out. He says just to feel the rhythm, but follows that up with specific exercises for being able to hear that rhythm differently (improvising with it, leaving parts of it empty while keeping the rhythm singing). Ari Hoenig’s internet presence is also a wealth of ideas like this. Dan Weiss too.
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Thanks for thinking it through and pointing those out.
I'm meaning performance; practice is something else.
And yes, it is a good thing we don't rhythm by theory!
So suggesting in performance nothing else should too.
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Hm. Practicing a lot will solidify the same feel when having to perform.
Meaning always judging, pushy, always a sharp stick in the behind.
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Another hm. I was doing an 8-hour workday at school. When it ended, I landed in a couch, put on a backing track and
improvised a solo. And it was GREAT. Sublime. And easy. Didn't suck.
I've spent 3 years thinking about it. Because this didn't make any sense. Why was it great? Why did it feel so good?
All odds were against it.
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True that rhythm is very important. False that good rhythm and bad fundamentals elsewhere will lead to adequate playing. Everything is important. If you play good notes but bad rhythms it will be bad. If you play good rhythms but bad notes it will still be bad. There's no point in this stupid click baity video saying notes don't matter. It's much more effective to identify the weaknesses in one's playing and then fix them regardless of if they're rhythm or note related. Originally Posted by DawgBone
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You can certainly treat rhythm theoretically and the best people to talk to about that are, naturally, drummers. Having had my brain boiled by Konnakol I can say the rabbit hole does indeed go down a long way. But it’s not just mathematics- pianists might be scientists, but drummers are also the lore-keepers. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
It’s a point not often remarked on, but Birds heads usually slot in very well with clave. Clave forms a great theoretical backbone for jazz as well as ‘Latin’ rhythms (they are of course from the same wellspring).
but really a lot of it is vocab. I think there’s a tacit assumption transcription is about pitches and analysis - but actually you could learn a tremendous amount just by extracting rhythms from solos and nothing else.
As Brad Mehldau said, the basic rhythm of jazz is not 4/4, but naturally syncopated. Syncopation creates tension in European music - for instance in Brahms - but this is not true of African Diaspora musics, including jazz. The natural state of the music is ‘syncopated’ by western standards but that is the basic structure; the clave is one typical structure in which this is governed. Syncopations from the clave can induce tension or even, in the case of crossed claves, discord. (I find this to be analogous to Stefon’s ideas around harmony btw.)
Also Mike Longo’s approach to counting is very interesting and has implications for jazz line construction. The concept of structural syncopations changed the way I think about jazz. He was coming out of Diz, whose fascination with rhythm was central.
pitch choice, at least in bop, is heavily driven by the rhythmic side.
Also Andrew Potters Candomble Ketu Jazz stuff is very interesting. These are all West African rhythmic ideas displaced into the New world via the slave trade, and show up in US music. In Northern Brazil for historical reasons these rhythms retain their spiritual and cultural associations including their association with specific deities (Candomble is a religion and the drumming serves a spiritual role); this in turn influenced Samba.
In the US afaik it’s all a lot more latent. New Orleans is one place to have more connection - and as far as the clave goes the boats often came and went from Cuba. Billy Hart talks about the cascara in the ride cymbal. You can hear it in Vernel Fournier for example.Last edited by Christian Miller; 06-01-2023 at 06:35 PM.
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It is an interesting exercise to do exactly that. Take a tune, pick a note and play a solo using only that one note. Rhythm is almost the only thing you have to work with in that case. It's a matter of restriction forcing creativity. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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I try to isolate rhythm a lot. I play Hammond so I do exercises like play my bassline by only hitting the roots and focusing on rhythm. Or I'll play a single bass note as quarter notes and work on the rhythm and time feel of my right hand work in relation. Or work on only right hand, etc. Jazz still requires right rhythms and right notes. Saying notes don't matter is pure bs. Everything needs to be worked out.
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I guess I didn't state my point as well as I should've. A musician with great feeling for syncopation and mediocre note selection will always be preferable to a musician with great note choice and mediocre syncopation because essentially you can stick a syncopated rhythm or you cannot. There is little to no in-between ground there. Whereas scalar and chord tone playing often gives a safety net in terms of note choice, syncopation doesn't offer the same luxuries. Players on the bandstand with poor syncopation will often either blame the drummer or require him/her to spoon feed them in order to hold their own timing together. And yet, since they lack syncopation, this only acts as a crutch and any experienced player will quickly recognize that deficiency. These problem rhythm section men will either rush, drag, or both alternately. It makes for a long night. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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That's true, but that's only for single note, and it's a false dichotomy. Guitars are harmony instruments too. If you're playing bad sounding chords all the time, it's going to mess up the music. Jazz isn't only single notes. And why choose between rhythm and notes? Do both well.
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Agreed. But assuming both of our theoretical players are trading off between rhythm guitar playing and soloing and were otherwise playing the correct chords. The guy with great note choice will not be selected over the guy with great rhythmic syncopation by any sane bandleader. The dude with great solos will ruin the feel when he switches to rhythm. The guy with mediocre note choice to his solos can just avoid soloing and be an effective band member. The other guy has great note choice, but his timing will suck on both ends of his playing, rendering his note choice excellence moot. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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Ok. I wouldn't want to be clueless in either aspect though. Notes don't matter is false. Otherwise you could bang on a triangle and have jazz.
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I never said notes don't matter. I am speaking from a bandleader perspective. The guy with amazing note choice is a detriment to the band if he has no syncopation. The guy with great syncopation can bring something to the table so the choice is apparent. Get a few projects under your belt, go through some players. Guys with no syncopation create headaches. As I said, they generally blame the drummer or accuse others of being out of time meanwhile they are rushing, dragging, or doing both plus pissing off the drummer! And people have pretty much banged on triangles and called it jazz. Ain't you never heard sun-ra? His rhythm is good though, lol Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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I know you didn't say notes don't matter, the video did! lol. And I agree. It's best to prioritize rhythm but not at the expense of being inept note wise. I prioritize rhythm a lot. I work on my bluez day in and day out and try to improve my rhythm with simple bluez vocabulary. I do also like the note and harmony aspect of jazz tho so I try to advance myself with that as well.
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Well unfortunately we are in agreement as usual, lol. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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