Rhythm feel: solid in one case, lost in another

[emanresu]

Some players seem to have a natural snappiness to their time. Everything they play is crisp and grooving. Kind of like a natural default option.

I have seen it so many times.

To go on with OP, I'd add another example. When young students play in a band, play a song they all like, their timing is perfect. None of them have ever used a metronome ever, I'm quite sure.
When there is some friction, some dislike - nope.

[rpjazzguitar]

I'm not sure if Bossa/Sabma is meant to speed up in terms of the tempo, but I was that it feels like it is.

My understanding should be able to do this with a click on the 1 and 3, which means your playing will be off the grid, but the overall tempo is whatever you set it. It's the feel as opposed to the time, if you like.

Most samba is written in 2/4 and felt in 2/4.

Seems to me that you want a light click on 1 and a heavy click on 2. (In 2/4, there's no 3 or 4).

As far as the feel of rushing, I know exactly what that refers to. Some Brazilian players may play the time so aggressively that it sounds wrong to the untrained ear. But, not all players and not in all situations.

One experiment with a DAW suggested that the feel can be created when the bass is on the click and the drums are something like 17ms ahead. A question that occurs to me is whether the snare is actually ahead of the kick. We didn't have the drumset broken down into individual tracks which might have allowed us to answer that question. In thinking about bateria it seems that the caixa might be ahead of the surdo.

[Reg]

Yes... I like to think of rhythm or having good time... as two parts.

1) Is just the technical skills on your instrument... which yes, should even be easier in your head... nothing to get in the way, like your skills on the guitar etc... You need to be able to .... IMPLY TIME and FEEL, well enough that other musicians or even the audience.... can feel where your going etc...
As a general rule... if I can't double time it... I don't have the skills.

2) Is being able to hear what someone else is implying.... There are always.... targets.

The metronome... time or feel... is just a tool to help you learn with. But can teach you to become a Time follower as compared to being able to create and imply Time or feeling.

Also... understanding Targets and ...the what and the how of subdividing makes or helps with developing good Time and feel.

[emanresu]

The metronome... time or feel... is just a tool to help you learn with. But can teach you to become a Time follower as compared to being able to create and imply Time or feeling.

I think this is the golden piece of text right here.

[Hep To The Jive]

So WHAT can teach you how to imply time instead of following it? Is it teachable?

[rpjazzguitar]

So WHAT can teach you how to imply time instead of following it? Is it teachable?

That's a great question. I'll take a shot at it, but I don't claim to have anything like a comprehensive answer.

If you, like me, don't have a natural gift to be the guy who drives the band by the force of his own time, then you have to work at it.

First step is to be able to feel it when somebody else brings it. It's like cooking -- you can't make a good version of some dish unless you know how it's supposed to taste.

Sorry for the food analogy, but the idea is that you have to be able to feel the goal.

In order to do that you need to play with somebody that can already do it. Maybe you can get it from a record, but I can't. For me, it has to be live.

Which means, you may have to figure out a way to play with musicians who are a lot more advanced than you are, with regard to this issue.

It may be that you can't do that unless you pay them for lessons or gigs. I think that's well worth doing. After getting the basics from individual guitar lessons, my best learning experiences were combo classes and workshops. My groups have hired great players to come to our bandroom and coach us, often by sitting in.

It hasn't been a panacea, but it helps.

[emanresu]

I've gotten so far that the improvised solo, at least partially, gets to strongly suggest the time/feel.
Like, when playing comp afterwards to that, the solo insists the time for the comp. Quite fun and gives hope.
But recording comp and playing along with it, somehow it is much weaker. It kinda almost works, but when soloing on top of it,
I have to consciously "be the man" with time.

I guess "almost works" is not good enough. Never good enough.

[Christian Miller]

So WHAT can teach you how to imply time instead of following it? Is it teachable?

It's a good question. I have my own ideas on this (I'm sure you do too), but I'm quite interested to see what Reg suggests.

[DawgBone]

There are tools that can help develop it i.e metronome but I think live playing and general cumulative playing experience are the main key towards hitting that goal. I'm not sure if I'm convinced yet that some people are born with no inner sense of time and can't develop it to a usable level. The old "two left feet" adage.

[rpjazzguitar]

There are tools that can help develop it i.e metronome but I think live playing and general cumulative playing experience are the main key towards hitting that goal. I'm not sure if I'm convinced yet that some people are born with no inner sense of time and can't develop it to a usable level. The old "two left feet" adage.

Dance may provide a good analogy. There are things that a really talented dancer can do that seem to be beyond what a less talented person can accomplish. Not that lessons can't help, but I think there's a ceiling.

[Reg]

So WHAT can teach you how to imply time instead of following it? Is it teachable?

It's not that complicated... Implying Time is simply setting up Targets.

It's not just being in the moment. You need to have an understanding of the Form(s) of the music your performing and use standard musical tools, performing tools to imply primary and secondary Targets.

You use Rhythm and Harmony to create patterns that naturally setup or IMPLY Targets. Your creating patterns that become implied, the feel of repeat... even if you change them etc...

The better you can subdivide... the better or more solid your rhythm feel becomes.

[AllanAllen]

There is no such thing as metronomic feel because the metronome has no feel. There are people who play with near-metronomic time, although this again can be deceptive.

Given the choice between playing a jazz gig with someone who swings like crazy but speeds up and someone who plays with no feel at all and stays rock solid to what ever tempo you dial in at the start, I would probably choose the first - and some exciting and vibey drummers tend to speed up. We can look to the history for countless examples Tony Williams in the 1964 concert? Pushing it like crazy. Blakey... etc etc.

OTOH we don't always have to choose, which is nice. I enjoy drummers who understand musical context. Some times a slight accelerando in the music is actually a good thing. Not everything is a pop session. But sometimes you need someone to be super accurate.

Anyway I don't want to blame other players when it's probably as much me driving the acceleration as anyone else. Groups of musicians have a collective tendency.

Tony Williams sped up every song he recorded.

[emanresu]

The better you can subdivide... the better or more solid your rhythm feel becomes.

BTW, the max i got to that was letting the click go 380bpm (the target was 400 but that didn't happen) as syncopation.
Not bragging at all, just to say that human limit is around there somewhere. I am slow and clumsy.

It is a fun thing to test out. Put the metronome clicking 200bpm, but not at 1 2 3 4. instead "1 click 2 click 3 click 4 click".
Raise it until it gets challenging. No swing. Didn't try myself with swing. Play a scale or something very easy. Start with off beat with the click - much easier.

***this was a derail. Nothing to do with OP topic.

[emanresu]

After mixing things up a bit, something strange happened.
I was happy with my lines but frustrated with my comping. So, I started practicing one bar of comping followed by one bar of lines.
Guess what? My comping became more solid, but my lines got sloppy.
By the way, has anyone else noticed that when you focus heavily on accuracy, you start noticing how in-time (or not) other people are playing? I never really paid attention to that before—just a side thought.

[Lockjaw Davis]

By the way, has anyone else noticed that when you focus heavily on accuracy, you start noticing how in-time (or not) other people are playing? I never really paid attention to that before—just a side thought.

Yes. I create my own backing tracks to practice or record to. I quantize the bass line to have the notes be perfectly placed so it will get in my head how perfect time sounds. Then when I listen to other music I can hear the imprecision. A bass teacher on Open Studio was doing an all open string exercise where he said the goal was to get the same sound out of every string while playing to a metronome. I was like breh, you're placing the notes improperly each time. :P