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Great post! I think this is a really accurate explanation! See, I never would have uncovered this on my own.
Originally Posted by PatrickWD
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09-30-2023 11:43 AM
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Yes. The way he organises the elements in a pyramid is also a good way to illustrate how to practice time feel as well. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
You need consistency and precision first before you can build on it with flexibility and subtlety.
The last two are the two hardest to practice though.
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I hear three things going on; pace, pause, and beat width Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
Pace is what a metronome does, the strict mathematical period
Pause is what occurs in classical music, and some other types, it is where the pace either slows down for an instant or a tiny section of the pace is omitted. It is very subtle and when done right it does not impair the feeling of moving forward (does not sound like a glitch) but actually sounds "right" for that instant. In classical guitar this often is used at the end of a repeating line (maybe just for the last line) where the pickup into the next phrase starts very slightly sooner that the metronome would call for - it sounds natural and right if done right.
Beat width is what you are asking about; it is the lead and lag span about the pace that makes melody and lines sound natural and vocal. The sound of jazz is learning to acquire and control the fattest beat width while maintaining a net cumulative synchrony with pace. Sonny Rollins is a masterful example of a very fat beat width that never losses the pace.
The mention above about the two phase aspect is right on; you have to feel two things, the pace and the stuff produced with beat width... so like the pace being you foot tapping steady and using your hand to tap a rhythm leading and lagging - except in actual playing you hold the pace in your mind's ear and play your instrument around it, about it.
Theoretically you can observe the mechanics, for example Wes started many lines from the fifth scale degree before the first beat of a measure taking the tonic, so his beat width with respect to the tonic included a "grace note" with the line shifted early... but also as mentioned above, if you try to do that deliberately it is going to sound stilted and square. Wes made it sound like jazz, with feeling, as he famously explained to the host's questions after a TV show performance, "I dunno... I just cool".
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Of course you can, but if there's no natural feel what then? Someone with natural feel can study it and build on it for sure, but if it's not there naturally nothing much is going to produce it. A similarity, maybe, but not the real deal. And it's only that real feeling that communicates properly. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
I know, it's depressing. From the post above:
There it is from the horse's mouth, I dunno, I just do it.Wes made it sound like jazz, with feeling, as he famously explained to the host's questions after a TV show performance, "I dunno... I just cool".
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You really think this is true? Originally Posted by ragman1
You can’t listen to music and copy and incorporate enough to produce a good time feel where, before, you didn’t have one?
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Everyone can improve, even Ragman
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Tragically, no, not really. Any more than a normal person can become Kim Peek. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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Good time = consistent awareness of the pulse of music, not speeding up or slowing down unintentionally, not playing at a different tempo from the band unintentionally.
Creative approach (feel) to time = ability to vary tempo intentionally and/or shift your pulse ahead or behind the group pulse without losing the pulse or your place in the form or instigating confusion/train-wreck
How to "visualize" either of those? No clue. It doesn’t strike me as a visual domain. To learn both there are specific practice techniques (e.g., various metronome exercises). To develop rhythmic creativity in a band, the main thing is to force yourself to pay attention to the band and not veer off into solipsistic autopilot. And of course practice with other people.
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I said that. If you have some of it, it can be polished, improved, like someone's who's not naturally athletic can train up. But they won't have that gene, or whatever it is, that'll take them to the Olympics. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
I'd like to play piano like Brad Mehldau but it's not going to happen. In fact, I can't play the piano at all, I've tried it :-)
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Now we're talking about phrasing. Part of it is being able to feel 4 bars or 8 bars without counting. Another part is knowing where 1 is without counting. It is a feel thing. I think it comes from being musical. You feel where to start, where to expand, where to end and where to start again. And so do the other guys if you're lucky. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
A beat is a division of a bar, a bar a division of 4 bars, 4 bars a division of 8 and so on. Division is part of where 'good' phrasing and time feel comes from. Expand the horizon. I don't know how you theoretically develop this other than by playing a lot with others.
I think it's good. If it isn't I've wasted a whole lot of time. It's been such a big part of my life that I find it relaxing. Also working on sub-dividing a slow beat down to 32nds including quarter note & 16th triplets.Last question: do you think it's good for your feel to work some strictly slow, even, and legato practice to build up good feel during normal playing?
You know, it's not strictly a jazz thing. It's music thing. Classical players and blue-grass players need the right time feel too. Just 2 EG's. Everyone who plays any kind of music needs it.
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This is a fun one:
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I was just thinking about classical players. In some ways they have a more sophisticated time feel. A string quartet may have pieces where the beat is constantly shifting. They do it without a conductor. It happens by practice and by following the lead instrument.
There must be a metronome app out there that let's you set a wave form of accelerating and decelerating BPM's. Theoretically, I think this would be good practice for us. Anything that gives you ever more subtle control of time has to be good.
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Yes but everyone has some of it. Originally Posted by ragman1
Ask someone to walk and watch them subdivide perfectly from one foot to the next. Usually if people can’t access it on command, it’s because no one taught them the concept of steady beat when they were five. Some people don’t need to be taught that. Some people need to be taught that, but it doesn’t mean they don’t have a natural sense of time and rhythm.
When I have a kid (or adult) struggling with time, I literally have them stand up and walk around the room and step with the pulse. Even Steven every single time. If you ask someone to play a rhythm on their instrument, it’s the Wild West, but if you ask someone to put a rhythm in their body, they almost always get it. It’s bridging the gap that’s tough.
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This is why I've suggested learning to dance will help. A lot. Especially if you're playing Latin. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
I saw Ray Barreto one time. The bass player blew my mind. Our band of white guys was trying to play salsa at the time, and I always thought our bass guy needed to get a grip on the feel. So I asked Ray's bassist what he was doing. All he could say was "I just try to get the feeling of a fish swimming upstream against the current."
I got it, but it didn't help our bassist much. Learning the dance did.
(theoretically he might've been talking about tied triplets against 16ths, and 3 against 4)
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Theory can explain precise time feel, but not necessarily "good."
Good time feel can be on the beat without sounding metronomic.
Good time feel can be ahead of the beat without rushing.
Good time feel can be behind the beat without dragging.
Good time feel knows when to use all three.
Good time feel acknowledges the other players and finds it's place with them.
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as we know you can't teach "feel" good or otherwise..
but you can show an example of it---when the trumpet takes a solo..look the kufc out
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I've struggled with this issue. I don't think I've mastered it. So, clearly no need to read the rest of this post.
I have looked at graphs of where samba drum orchestras (batarias) place the 16ths. They aren't all on the click (two of the four 16ths are pushed by different amounts). And, they aren't displaced the same amount at different tempos. So, it can't be conventionally notated, except perhaps at a specific tempo.
I believe that the ride beat in swing is subject to the same sort of thing.
My guess is that, if you can't notate it because of the way it varies from the click, you can't teach it with words. Maybe some basics, like learning to play a triplet, but not the advanced displacements.
You have to get it by hearing it and imitating it.
You know you've got it when you play a comping pattern for somebody and they start tapping their feet unconsciously.
If the audience doesn't feel like moving to your groove-based music, you aren't there.
For examples, I'd recommend Reg's videos. You can hear and see exactly what he's doing.
If and when you get it, the phone will ring more.
EDIT: The OP asks for theoretical explanations of good time feel. There is a technical literature on this. It is usually based on recording some musicians with good time feel and graphing the amplitude vs time with vertical lines for where the metronome clicks. The musicians aren't consistently on the click. The technical papers are long, detailed and complex because there are multiple ways to do the analyses. Good time feel isn't one thing (e.g. different players do it differently) and it's unclear what the underlying Unified Field Theory might be.
Having read a couple of them, I think the main thrust is that you can't learn it with math, nor by syncing with a metronome. You learn it by listening to and hopefully, playing with, players who have it.Last edited by rpjazzguitar; 09-30-2023 at 05:54 PM.
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Bottom line, not everyone has the talent. Sad, maybe, but true.
Also, there's a lot of difference between technique and a natural feeling for time and rhythm. Techniques can be taught, worked on, polished, improved, all that - providing, of course, the person has the drive, the energy, the interest, and perhaps the ambition, to get somewhere with it.
I used to know an artist. He was very, very good. I used to say to him get an agent, find a gallery to show your stuff, but he'd sort of grin and shrug and that was that. The walls of his room were stacked with his pictures and there they stayed. He really didn't care. Tons of talent and skill but no interest in doing something with it.
Perhaps a good question is whether a person who does have the drive can overcome a mediocre talent and succeed as a player. I don't know, perhaps to some extent, but they're never going to make it to a height of excellence. Simply because it's not in them, it's not there.
And it could well be that such a person may be a lot happier in life remaining unknown. Great success is not necessarily the road to happiness at all.
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Yeah, I think this was the point I was trying make earlier... Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Time feel is about the harmony for me first of all.
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If you are having trouble with beat width time feel, there is an exercise you may do to see if you can learn to hear it, then learn to feel it and play it.
The way that the guitars works is different from the rest of the jazz instruments. Saxes and trumpets blow their notes throughout their duration, upright bass can bend notes, drums can do rolls, pianos have three strings for the majority of their notes and those are very slightly tuned "off" to form a slow beat frequency that gives each note a varying tone with duration.
Of all the common jazz instruments, the vibes is the closest to the guitar in the sense that once you have conked the metal bar with the mallet the result is deterministic until you damp it, but even the vibes modulates its sound during the tones with the spinning deflectors under each pipe... and that is a clue for guitarists.
The jazz guitar especially is deterministic with respect to what happens after picking a string... it sounds until damped. Conceptually, all the other instruments allow some changing of the sounding note throughout its duration, and this encourages a different thinking about what it means to "play" a note. It may have been Miles that mentioned conceiving that notes are "laid down into the music" and how they sounded different if you imagined laying them down "head first" (focus on the initiation of the note) or "tail first" focusing on the end of the note. This is the beginning of grasping beat width, what it sounds like, and how to develop control of it, while growing it fatter.
The exercise is to plug into the amp's vibrato channel (or use a vibrato pedal) and set the vibrato (tremolo) speed to its slowest and the intensity to its highest - so you get a series of swells with soft empty spaces between them. Then play lines and solos a little faster than the speed of the swells.
What will happen is that the initiation of some notes will occur between the swells and ramp up, others will occur on swell peaks and ramp down, and almost all notes will have some ramping change. Don't play in time with the swells, let them just happen independently. This will sound very much like the vibes where the swelling pace is independent of playing pace, and the notes get the feel of being a little displaced in time without sounding out of pace.
On the guitar, if you play somewhat faster than the swell speed, you will begin to hear less of the swell pace and more of the sense that the notes are being displaced in their "heads and tails", and yet the pace is maintained. The idea of placing the notes into the music head first or tail first will come to make sense. When it starts sounding like a well played steel guitar, you are getting there (steel guitar is the extreme inverse of a jazz guitar - no attack, no decay, continuously non-deterministic).
Happy beat width time feel development!Last edited by pauln; 10-23-2023 at 11:14 PM.
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You are trying and failing to quantify something that cannot be measured. That is not a 'music principle'. It is folly. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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This is very much debatable. People absolutely have aptitudes and that’s all well and good, but most of what makes music interesting and pleasant has little to do with the extreme ends of the spectrum on any measure of skill.Also, there's a lot of difference between technique and a natural feeling for time and rhythm. Techniques can be taught, worked on, polished, improved, all that - providing, of course, the person has the drive, the energy, the interest, and perhaps the ambition, to get somewhere with it.
And with that said … what you call a technique is extremely limited. Not everyone has perfect pitch, but great relative pitch can absolutely be taught. We’re talking about the ability to hear and feel time. It’s an aural skill. Skills can be taught and everyone has *some* aptitude for them. Greater or lesser aptitude is a red herring, because people can learn these skills well enough to use them.
I don’t know man … I’m absolutely a mediocre talent who has become a pretty good musician. Not the height of excellence or whatever, but that’s a silly standard in the first place. People used to tell me in ear training class that they “wished they had my ear” but honestly I kind of struggled with it sometimes. I just sat at a piano practicing solfège more than most people practiced their primary instrument.Perhaps a good question is whether a person who does have the drive can overcome a mediocre talent and succeed as a player. I don't know, perhaps to some extent, but they're never going to make it to a height of excellence. Simply because it's not in them, it's not there.
I still work a lot on time but jfc it’s way better than it used to be.
It can all be taught. Whether or not they meet your subjective standard of high excellence is beyond the scope. People need tools to make good music and anyone can learn those tools well enough to utilize them when they’re playing.Last edited by pamosmusic; 09-30-2023 at 04:57 PM.
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People should work on their faakin time innit
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It seems to me that to have good time feel, one must have a good sense of time. Get married to your metronome and use it all the time when you practice. It doesn't lie, and it will improve your sense of time.
The better your sense of time, the more you can play around with the feeling of time. Play ahead, play behind, but you always know what you're doing because you always know where the beat is.
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