How to theoretically explain good time feel?

[PMB]

Yes! Wait no! Yeah no Christian taught me something new about jazz time feel, it often incorporates polyrhythmic feel. I didn't know that, I thought it was some random device.

Maybe that's because vague or random sounding language is often used to describe definable patterns that exist within polymeter. For instance, transcriptions sometimes include the verbal description to 'lay back on the beat' when the result is simply an inverted version of '6 over 4'.

Try clapping these patterns to see what I'm talking about. Firstly, count each subdivision of eighth-note triplets within a bar of 4/4. Downstems are to be played with your left hand slapping a tabletop, your left thigh or chest with the upstems taken by the right hand:

Now, accent the following subdivisions within this pattern:

Another way of notating it makes the '6 over 4' polymeter clearer:

Once you're comfortable with these examples, try inverting the pattern:

The upstem accents are one version of what is meant by 'lay back on the beat'. Tying over the middle of the bar will make that quality even more obvious:

There's a Pat Metheny lesson or master class floating around the Interwebs where he mentions hearing a grid of triplet subdivisions and associated accents underneath everything he plays. Naturally, there are also more subtle aspects of relation to the beat mentioned by Christian that distinguish the feels of Elvin, Tony etc. but this is a great thing to practise initially.

[pamosmusic]

Maybe that's because vague or random sounding language is often used to describe definable patterns that exist within polymeter. For instance, transcriptions sometimes include the verbal description to 'lay back on the beat' when the result is simply an inverted version of '6 over 4'.

Try clapping these patterns to see what I'm talking about. Firstly, count each subdivision of eighth-note triplets within a bar of 4/4. Downstems are to be played with your left hand slapping a tabletop, your left thigh or chest with the upstems taken by the right hand:

Now, accent the following subdivisions within this pattern:

Another way of notating it makes the '6 over 4' polymeter clearer:

Once you're comfortable with these examples, try inverting the pattern:

The upstem accents are one version of what is meant by 'lay back on the beat'. Tying over the middle of the bar will make that quality even more obvious:

There's a Pat Metheny lesson or master class floating around the Interwebs where he mentions hearing a grid of triplet subdivisions and associated accents underneath everything he plays. Naturally, there are also more subtle aspects of relation to the beat mentioned by Christian that distinguish the feels of Elvin, Tony etc. but this is a great thing to practise initially.

Hot dawg.

Gold Star post right here. You should charge for this one.

[PMB]

Hot dawg.

Gold Star post right here. You should charge for this one.

Thanks Peter. The insight is mine but the examples are similar to ones from books and videos by Dave Allen, Ari Hoenig, Jonathan Kreisberg, Peter Magadini and a host of others.

Funnily enough, writing the comment about Metheny I was reminded of a recording session I was hired for a couple of years ago where I unconsciously started my solo with a similar pattern and a pianist friend upon hearing the result remarked how much I sounded like PM on that take!

[charlieparker]

The Barry Harris Workshop has an exercise where you play the 3 note arpeggios of the dominant scale in ascending fashion in quarter note triplets.

I find that really challenging to execute. I think it's also a good exercise to play your scales in quarter note triplets.

Maybe we should start a study group where we work through exercises like that

Four quarter note triplets I've two ways of counting them. One as eighth note triplets omitting every other note.

Or also pretending the 1 and 3 are the pulse and counting them as regular triplets.

[Christian Miller]

The Bembe pattern contains both the triplet and the displaced triplet btw. It was two positions too.

It also relates directly to African diaspora rhythm. I tend to be a little bit skeptical of mathsy subdivision based approaches to rhythm as a basis for jazz rhythm although they represent good stuff to practice (and maybe they do form the basis, I’m not sure.)

That said, I think the traditional rhythms are primary sources of rhythmic inspiration and feel.

Not that it’s bad to practice those sorts of subdivisions, far from it. I think that side of thing mixed with a bit of intuition works wells

The traditional rhythms often relate to them as the bembe does. I’ve practiced them in any case. The displaced 6 8 is good for getting that Billie Holiday off beat.

Directionality in jazz rhythm is often overlooked. Clave is important for bop phrasing. OTOH directionality in 6/8 polymeter isn’t something I’ve looked into yet. Does one position of the bembe fit Wes better than the other?


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[Christian Miller]

I got corrected on a Monk rhythm lately which is a quarter triplet starting on a straight upbeat.

try writing that sucker down.


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[charlieparker]

The Bembe pattern contains both the triplet and the displaced triplet btw. It was two positions too.

It also relates directly to African diaspora rhythm. I tend to be a little bit skeptical of mathsy subdivision based approaches to rhythm as a basis for jazz rhythm.

I think the traditional rhythms are most important for getting jazz feel . Not that it’s bad to practice those sorts of subdivisions, far from it. I think that side of thing mixed with a bit of intuition works wells

The traditional rhythms often relate to them as the bembe does. I’ve practiced them in any case. The displaced 6 8 is good for getting that Billie Holiday off beat.

Directionality in jazz rhythm is often overlooked. Clave is important for bop phrasing. OTOH directionality in 6/8 polymeter isn’t something I’ve looked into yet.


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Do you have a link to the Bembe pattern?

Would you get the same benefit of trying to play a quarter note bass pattern with your thumb and a quarter note triplet melody line at the same time maybe starting with a single note for each to start?

[Christian Miller]

Do you have a link to the Bembe pattern?

Would you get the same benefit of trying to play a quarter note bass pattern with your thumb and a quarter note melody line at the same time maybe starting with a single note for each to start?

Do you mean a quarter note bass pattern and the quarter note TRIPLET melody pattern? Sure, I've done that stuff myself, I think it helped.

I think it probably helps to be able to reliably tap out quarter note triplets against 4/4 time before getting into more complex rhythms like bembe.

Here's the bembe - you can probably see how it rocks back and forth through the two positions of the 6/8 PMB identified above. It's also a modern jazz feel in it's own right, so it's reasonably familiar (Afro-Cuban 6/8)

EDIT: Argh Soundcloud appears not to be linking for some reason. Ah well.

Brecker has in 6/8

My version of it is in 3/4 for the head. The unison pattern we all hit together at the end of the second repeat and between the solos is the bell pattern.
Anansi Blues | Christian Miller Quartet | Christian Miller

You can divide in different ways which is cool

[James W]

I got corrected on a Monk rhythm lately which is a quarter triplet starting on a straight upbeat.

try writing that sucker down.


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Surely writing it down would just involve a quaver rest followed by the quarter triplet? I guess the problem might arise if the person is assuming swung rhythm... and as we know in jazz, the notation isn't full-proof for conveying rhythms.

Not quite what you mention, but I was reminded of Boulez's second piano sonata. Lots of off-beat triplets in this -

[Christian Miller]

Surely writing it down would just involve a quaver rest followed by the quarter triplet? I guess the problem might arise if the person is assuming swung rhythm... and as we know in jazz, the notation isn't full-proof for conveying rhythms.

Not quite what you mention, but I was reminded of Boulez's second piano sonata. Lots of off-beat triplets in this -

I haven’t listened to that piece for about 25 years. I’ll have to see if I hear it differently.

I think I do. Seems more structured to me now. Also the trills are kind of drolll.

Edit: reading the comments I now realise I haven’t heard the whole thing, just one movement I think on that CD.

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[rpjazzguitar]

I firmly believe in the value of practicing different rhythms, including polyrhythms. For example, I am reminded of the difficulty I had at first trying to play in 7/4. After enough practice, it got a lot easier.

But, I also think it's perfectly possible to play complex polyrhythms with the same quality of time feel (or lack thereof) that you bring to 4/4 swing. That is, to extend my example, being able to play in 7/4 didn't guarantee that my time-feel would be great.

My son grew up listening to syncopated music. He's never practiced polyrhythms or anything close to them. But he's had great time-feel from the moment he could play enough guitar to evaluate it.

A great Brazilian drummer once picked up an egg shaker during a group lesson (he was the teacher) and sounded Brazilian while everybody else who tried it couldn't get close to the right sound. It was how he moved the shaker (not back and forth but in an oval). Or, more to the point, how he heard the rhythm in his mind.

There are waveform diagrams which prove the point that certain common accents in samba (and swing too, I think) are not on the clicks, not the 8ths, not on the 16ths and not on the triplets. And how much they diverge from the click is tempo dependent. If you play the stuff as written, on the clicks, it doesn't sound right.

My guess is that being able to play polyrhythms the way drummers do will be great for basic musicianship, but that it doesn't guarantee great time-feel, or really address its fundamentals of time-feel.

One musician I know works on his time by recording things on his kb and then listening back after slowing the recording down considerably. This is so he can tell if he's off the click. He believes this is an excellent way to work on time -- and I imagine that it is. But, is it also an excellent way to work on time-feel? Great time-feel is not on the click. How do you practice that?

Another great Brazilian musician advised playing along with records. As I interpreted this advice, it meant, forget about trying to define it linguistically, or with anything you could write down in standard notation. Instead, go to the source and see if you can match the time feel on the recording. I think it's the best advice.

[PMB]

I haven’t listened to that piece for about 25 years. I’ll have to see if I hear it differently.

I think I do. Seems more structured to me now. Also the trills are kind of drolll.

Edit: reading the comments I now realise I haven’t heard the whole thing, just one movement I think on that CD.

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I heard Maurizio Pollini play this in 1978 and it blew my mind! I saw Boulez conduct on a number of occasions and met him at the 1988 Avignon Festival. In fact, I was lined up on that occasion to interview PB along with my musicologist friend, Peter McCallum for The Musical Times but got the one and only kidney stone I've had in my life the day before the interview (Bastille Day!).

Regarding the structural aspect, I listened to an old LP of Cecil Taylor the other day and felt the same way. It seemed so free and impenetrable when I was a teenager but I now hear the influence of Stravinsky and Messiaen.

[PMB]

Here's the bembe - you can probably see how it rocks back and forth through the two positions of the 6/8 PMB identified above. It's also a modern jazz feel in it's own right, so it's reasonably familiar (Afro-Cuban 6/8)

Teaching pop songs at schools over the years, I soon noticed how many strumming patterns are palindromic. If you tie the last eight note of beat 2 across the middle of the bar, the bembe is another.

[Christian Miller]

Teaching pop songs at schools over the years, I soon noticed how many strumming patterns are palindromic. If you tie the last eight note of beat 2 across the middle of the bar, the bembe is another.

That’s an interesting feature! I hadn’t noticed that.


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[charlieparker]

I firmly believe in the value of practicing different rhythms, including polyrhythms. For example, I am reminded of the difficulty I had at first trying to play in 7/4. After enough practice, it got a lot easier.

But, I also think it's perfectly possible to play complex polyrhythms with the same quality of time feel (or lack thereof) that you bring to 4/4 swing. That is, to extend my example, being able to play in 7/4 didn't guarantee that my time-feel would be great.

My son grew up listening to syncopated music. He's never practiced polyrhythms or anything close to them. But he's had great time-feel from the moment he could play enough guitar to evaluate it.

A great Brazilian drummer once picked up an egg shaker during a group lesson (he was the teacher) and sounded Brazilian while everybody else who tried it couldn't get close to the right sound. It was how he moved the shaker (not back and forth but in an oval). Or, more to the point, how he heard the rhythm in his mind.

There are waveform diagrams which prove the point that certain common accents in samba (and swing too, I think) are not on the clicks, not the 8ths, not on the 16ths and not on the triplets. And how much they diverge from the click is tempo dependent. If you play the stuff as written, on the clicks, it doesn't sound right.

My guess is that being able to play polyrhythms the way drummers do will be great for basic musicianship, but that it doesn't guarantee great time-feel, or really address its fundamentals of time-feel.

One musician I know works on his time by recording things on his kb and then listening back after slowing the recording down considerably. This is so he can tell if he's off the click. He believes this is an excellent way to work on time -- and I imagine that it is. But, is it also an excellent way to work on time-feel? Great time-feel is not on the click. How do you practice that?

Another great Brazilian musician advised playing along with records. As I interpreted this advice, it meant, forget about trying to define it linguistically, or with anything you could write down in standard notation. Instead, go to the source and see if you can match the time feel on the recording. I think it's the best advice.

Yeah, I almost think you have to be born into a culture to really master it's rhythms. It's like language. Learning a language as an adult without an accent is incredibly difficult.

I think many of us grew up with some exposure to Blues, R&B, Soul, and Funk music which to my ears shares some of the rhythmic elements of Jazz. But if you grew up attending a gospel church it's probably even more deeply ingrained.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Yeah, I almost think you have to be born into a culture to really master it's rhythms. It's like language. Learning a language as an adult without an accent is incredibly difficult.

I think many of us grew up with some exposure to Blues, R&B, Soul, and Funk music which to my ears shares some of the rhythmic elements of Jazz. But if you grew up attending a gospel church it's probably even more deeply ingrained.

Dance, dance, dance!!!

I am not kidding. I grew up with parents who were great parents in retrospect. But their musical taste did not include any jazz, pop, rock at all. When i formed a band of brothers with friends I was jealous of our other guitarist because he had a father who played in a samba school that played at demonstrations and the like. He hadn't been playing guitar for long but he quickly became a top funk guitarist. (Years later i found out from this father at this friend's wedding that he had envied me for my blues playing. I had been listening to blues for a few years when the band was founded and had once shaken hands with John Lee Hooker LOL). But after years of playing a lot of blues, rock, funk, hip-hop, reggae, latin and especially also dancing to those styles I get respect from Africans for my playing and get asked to play with them.

The thing can be learned.

It helped that my friend's father mentioned above managed the Argentinian latin and jazz rock drummer Omar Belmonte for a while who once gave us a free workshop whereupon i started systematically practicing the overlay of 3 or 5 against 4 on funk sixteenths until one day i didn't have to think about it anymore. I do not understand that people think you can play funk or latin rhythm guitar by learning rhythmic patterns from books instead of simply listening to a lot of latin and funk.

But the most important thing is to keep your ass moving until your hips are swinging loosely.

I've even been asked twice recently by people if I wanted to play at their parties. One was a swing dancer at the very gypsy session last week where I got a scolding from a purist fellow musician that I wasn't playing gypsy enough LOL.

The thing can be learned.

I wish everyone that it doesn't take them as long as it did me. They just has to free their ass earlier. And play with the intention of making people dance.

.

[Hugo Gainly]

How to theoretically explain good time feel?

You can't explain something you feel theoretically. It's that simple.

Which invokes the question why you want to explain something like a feeling at all, let alone theoretically. Say you've 'explained' it theoretically, which you can't anyway, what then? What does it change? I don't understand the advantage of it.

Yep. Two different things. Explain love. Some people think that if you describe it enough, you'll have it. Reality is not like that.

Theorising produces a framework, not a reality. Doing these exercises might reward your effort by enabling you to do something you couldn't before. But that's not feel, that's clarification of a problem and learned behaviour.

It's tough, but at least we can all fall in love.

[Christian Miller]

Yeah, I almost think you have to be born into a culture to really master it's rhythms. It's like language. Learning a language as an adult without an accent is incredibly difficult.

I think many of us grew up with some exposure to Blues, R&B, Soul, and Funk music which to my ears shares some of the rhythmic elements of Jazz. But if you grew up attending a gospel church it's probably even more deeply ingrained.

It does help massively. But all of this can be learned.

[ragman1]

Yep. Two different things. Explain love. Some people think that if you describe it enough, you'll have it. Reality is not like that.

Theorising produces a framework, not a reality. Doing these exercises might reward your effort by enabling you to do something you couldn't before. But that's not feel, that's clarification of a problem and learned behaviour.

Exactly.

Mr. Timmons will be coming for you too soon. He should, he needs us

[pamosmusic]

Yep. Two different things. Explain love. Some people think that if you describe it enough, you'll have it. Reality is not like that.

Theorising produces a framework, not a reality. Doing these exercises might reward your effort by enabling you to do something you couldn't before. But that's not feel, that's clarification of a problem and learned behaviour.

It's tough, but at least we can all fall in love.

Is this in some way different than practicing anything at all?

Practicing doesn’t make you an artist, but it does make you better at stuff.

I don’t tend to agree with Bobby that it can be “explained” but that’s not the same thing as saying it can’t be learned and practiced.

If you’ll permit me to stoop to your philosophical depths for a moment … you might not be able to theoretically explain love, but if you’ve been married for more than a second or two, you’ll know that you can absolutely practice it and you can absolutely get better.

[ragman1]

you might not be able to theoretically explain love, but if you’ve been married for more than a second or two, you’ll know that you can absolutely practice it and you can absolutely get better.

So love is a repetitive practice, or the result of a repetitive practice, is it? What are you talking about?!

[pamosmusic]

Is that really the first you’re hearing of that? Can’t really help you there.

[supersoul]

The problem I see with "How to theoretically explain good time feel" is that we haven't yet defined what good time feel is yet.

Is there still good time feel when playing rubato? I think there is, but it's different than having a deep and greasy funk groove going. When I think someone has a good time feel, I get the feeling that they are in control of time, they own time for as long as the music goes.

Herbie Hancock, for instance, often can sound like he's floating above the pulse, but he's also one of the most rhythmic players when he wants to be. The thing is, I always feel like he's owning the time.

Once time I had to explain "pocket" to someone. He had never heard of it. Like, pocket is like, you know, you're either in the pocket or you're not, oh nevermind.

[pamosmusic]

The problem I see with "How to theoretically explain good time feel" is that we haven't yet defined what good time feel is yet.

Is there still good time feel when playing rubato? I think there is, but it's different than having a deep and greasy funk groove going. When I think someone has a good time feel, I get the feeling that they are in control of time, they own time for as long as the music goes.

Herbie Hancock, for instance, often can sound like he's floating above the pulse, but he's also one of the most rhythmic players when he wants to be. The thing is, I always feel like he's owning the time.

Once time I had to explain "pocket" to someone. He had never heard of it. Like, pocket is like, you know, you're either in the pocket or you're not, oh nevermind.

Yeah this is really interesting. I think of Herbie and Wayne (and sweet Jesus Tony Williams) as having incredible time. But they're also sooooooo hard to transcribe because of that ability to play straight down the middle, to swing hard, to stretch or float the time, to play complex subdivisions. It's all there. I've gotten my ass absolutely kicked this month by transcribing Wayne. Tried transcribing three solos. One I finished, one I quit halfway through, and one I quit about two-thirds of the way through.

Just wrecked.

[ragman1]

Is that really the first you’re hearing of that? Can’t really help you there.

I was quoting you! You're not answering it.