The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    I know, Jonah, but that's not the point. Can you tap along to it? Can anyone? Switch on your video (so we can see you!), turn on the background music, and tap along with it in beautiful time... it ain't so simple.

    Saying you can hear it and doing it yourself are two different things.

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  3. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    I know, Jonah, but that's not the point. Can you tap along to it? Can anyone? Switch on your video (so we can see you!), turn on the background music, and tap along with it in beautiful time... it ain't so simple.

    Saying you can hear it and doing it yourself are two different things.
    Honestly I can tap the beat to it, and I don’t see why you need people to prove they can, just because you can’t.

    Just to check, I have just played the whole thing and tapped the beat to it all the way from 40 seconds (where Jim Hall comes in) to the last few bars (where they do go back to rubato playing). The whole thing between those two points is at the same steady 4:4 tempo.
    Last edited by grahambop; 10-04-2019 at 11:33 AM.

  4. #28

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    You're taking me a bit seriously!

    I don't need people to prove anything. I'm just saying there's a difference between hearing it, which I can mostly, although I find it hard in parts, and being able to keep the beat myself. I'm not jealous of people who can do it! Also, it would be interesting for me to hear it done, seriously. It might educate my ear, apart from anything else.

    Don't forget you yourself said it took you a lot of listening before you could get your head around those really slow tempos. But I'm glad you can do it, your ears must be honed to precision now :-)

  5. #29
    I think it's admittedly not easy to play a chunk chunk Freddie Greene accompaniment along with this or something , but that's completely missing point. This is a good example of a jazz feel which is more easily felt in three IMO. It's pretty easy for me to tap the beat with kind of a brush pattern swing eighths or light triplets (and simply accent the actual 4/4 beat) than it is to just tap the beat out like a rock drum or something.

    Most things are actually EASIER if you subdivide somewhat, especially when it comes to really locking into a groove. One thing which tips you off as this being a particularly jazz feel is the fact that it's probably easier to tap the upbeat poor clave than it is the downbeat.

  6. #30

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    Yes, I think you have a point there.

  7. #31

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    Okay, I've sort of got it! But I cheated. I went to where the beat became obvious then applied it to where the guitar comes in. Trying without that, cold, I couldn't do it.

    I also think they speeded up a bit as they went along... not much, just a bit :-)

    Soundcloud won't let me show it, it's copyright. Needs a video.


  8. #32

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    Yes that’s the correct beat, you see you can do it! Also you did not cheat, it’s not possible to count until the guitar starts, because Bill Evans plays the intro rubato. I agree they did speed up a fraction.

    It does get a bit harder to follow later during Bill’s solo bit, as he sort of plays games with the time, I think he switches between triplets and sixteenths at the drop of a hat, and his left hand chords anticipate the ‘one’ quite a lot. But the pulse is there and it still comes out right.

  9. #33

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    Oh, yes, I cheated. I went forward (before the clip was recorded) to where the beat was obvious, got the beat, then started the recording applying the same beat. If I'd started from cold I couldn't have done it, or done it very badly.

    It was only because I ignored what they were playing and just kept tapping that it worked at all (and how I knew they'd speeded up!).

  10. #34

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    I know, Jonah, but that's not the point. Can you tap along to it? Can anyone? Switch on your video (so we can see you!), turn on the background music, and tap along with it in beautiful time... it ain't so simple.

    Saying you can hear it and doing it yourself are two different things.
    Sorry for late response I did not notice the answer

    Yes I can tap it.. actually this is why I said it was clear 4/4 becasue I just tapped it.

    Oh, yes, I cheated. I went forward (before the clip was recorded) to where the beat was obvious, got the beat, then started the recording applying the same beat. If I'd started from cold I couldn't have done it, or done it very badly.

    It was only because I ignored what they were playing and just kept tapping that it worked at all (and how I knew they'd speeded up!).

    I would not call it 'cheating'... it is retrospective implication of relationship - imho it happens quite often in music - and in classical music on much more complex level --- that is that we realize some realshioship only later when composer or performer shows them to us more clear and distinct... it is something that happens in good books too when you read till some point and then you see that the thinhgs that happened before had actually different meaning.

    Bill in Jim were already in that timing but we were not... so thee is nothing wronf in doing it restropectively.

    I myself do not know how I did it... I already heard the whole track so I definitely had an impression of overall timing.

    Last but not least - these 2 pick up notes that Jim plays set this timing - they are perfectly in time. THis gives us a feel of time too probably

  11. #35

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    Now try to beat it in 2/2 in triplets it also fits well))))

  12. #36

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    Maybe there is a well definite borderline between asking for (musical or learning) advice and just arguing... Many valuable advice we got here from the beginning of this thread, and all concluding that Jim Hall uses ballad tempo idioms, which are will be clear for the listener after listening similar tempos from the greats. Patience and repetition needed of course. If one has doubt, then it may help to re-read the advises, and re-listen the recording based on that advises.Even Bill Evans could help, my observation was that the count in rhythm is definitely there in the very preceding bar before Jim Hall enters. At least of the 2,3,4 of that bar. Once the listener is able to catch it would be easier to keep it. Bill Evans start the second bar (after JH enters) with on "1 and" but this is also not so strange at all, should not distract the listener.

  13. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonah
    I don't try to be nice.This is how I think things are.You have fantastic ability to make people feel sorry they have answered you.. retrospectively. And this is life.
    It's probably linguistic. Things like that are said with a smile, not offensively.

    Do you want me to explain it? I'd rather not, but I will. By 'cheating' I don't mean in any serious sense of trying to deceive. It just means I used a bit of a trick to make myself establish the rhythm. I couldn't get it the first time of listening, it was too difficult. At least for me. But, having speeded it up, I could hear them following each other, waiting for each other, playing off each other. And then, of course, there was the obvious strumming.

    Personally I found it hard for the reasons mentioned. So, to try to get it, I did what I said, applied the later rhythm earlier. I called it 'cheating' but that was a joke word. If you understand that.

    That's all. I still think it's a hard tune to follow, mainly because Bill Evans plays rubato at the start (if you'd never heard it before).

  14. #38
    Thanks for all the discussion, and advice. With further listening, and bearing in mind the insight shared, I can follow the beat now from the bar preceding Jim Hall's start. I can't say that I can yet confidently hold the beat all the way through without faltering - there are a few changes in feel(?) that still seem to throw me, but at least I can recover pretty quickly and get back to following where the pulse is again. I'm sure that this will also resolve itself with time.

    One thing that surprised me was that when I tapped the tempo throughout the piece (on a metronome) I found that what I had perceived as a change of speed, was actual still pretty much the same bpm. I suppose I put that down to the change of "feel"?

  15. #39

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    Probably an audio illusion. Like thinking colours change against different backgrounds, and all that.

    Timing in Jim Hall's Romaine-1-gep8sth8pozzujflp7-8cw-gif

    Er, you tapped it on a metronome? You've got to tap it!

    The trouble with triplets is that they can sound like 3/4 when it's 4/4. I'm sure that's one factor here. I know it befuddled me at first and I'm not bad at time. It's actually easier to count it in 3 than 4.

    I also have a nagging feeling about those who dismiss the timing on this tune this as 'obvious'; I don't think it is.

    Last edited by ragman1; 10-11-2019 at 06:32 AM.

  16. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by clovie
    Thanks for all the discussion, and advice. With further listening, and bearing in mind the insight shared, I can follow the beat now from the bar preceding Jim Hall's start. I can't say that I can yet confidently hold the beat all the way through without faltering - there are a few changes in feel(?) that still seem to throw me, but at least I can recover pretty quickly and get back to following where the pulse is again. I'm sure that this will also resolve itself with time.

    One thing that surprised me was that when I tapped the tempo throughout the piece (on a metronome) I found that what I had perceived as a change of speed, was actual still pretty much the same bpm. I suppose I put that down to the change of "feel"?
    Around 1:48 to 2:40, it has a distinctive double time feel. If you're able to tap the beat and count swing 8ths up to that point, you'll notice that at that point the eighths straighten out and there are triplets for each eighth instead of each quarter.

    The easiest way to feel this is probably to tap your would-be 8ths at that point and count "1-2-3-4" in place of "1-&-2-&". You'll hear the triplets on each beat at a tempo basically twice as fast.

    There's a ton of this in ballad recordings of jazz. On some recordings the band goes in and out of doubletime feels every 4 bars or so, kind of trading fours. There are a lot of other recordings where one player is hinting and pulling towards double-time while others are keeping things locked down in more of a straight ahead 4. Sometimes they all gradually transition. So, it gives a big arch to the performance, achingly slow to start, with a gradual build to pretty cooking doubletime feel by all, and then, gradually back to the original.

    Keith Jarrett' s standards trio ballad recordings are a clinic in this kind of thing. Very often it STARTS as double time from the very beginning, but is very well disguised as very slow, straight-ahead 4. The big give away is usually a straight-eighths feel with tremendous swing feel, usually involving a difficult-to-count, fast, 8th note triplet subdivision.

    The best example I know of is Jarrett's my foolish heart, not available on YouTube apparently. You can listen on spotify. Beautiful arch. The head starts at 2:00 or so. That recording is an absolute clinic on that double time build.

  17. #41

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    Quote Originally Posted by clovie
    Thanks for all the discussion, and advice. With further listening, and bearing in mind the insight shared, I can follow the beat now from the bar preceding Jim Hall's start.
    Glad to hear :-). For me, the preceding bar is the key, at least its 2,3,4 beats. The more you listen the more you will experience you feel it.

  18. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    I also have a nagging feeling about those who dismiss the timing on this tune this as 'obvious'; I don't think it is.
    Well to me the time on this tune is pretty obvious, I can’t speak for anyone else. That bit you counted in 3 is so obviously in 4:4 to me, I cannot understand why you think it sounds like 3. Most of the time Bill Evans is playing a chord on beat 1 of the bar, that totally contradicts your count in 3s. The way they are playing this is pretty much the standard way of playing slow jazz ballads, I still don’t get why it’s such a big deal. Maybe if there was a drummer on the track, playing brushes and hi-hat, it would be a bit more obvious.

  19. #43

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    Well, like I said before, your ears must be honed to perfection! Obviously it's easier for some than others.

  20. #44

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    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher

    The best example I know of is Jarrett's my foolish heart, not available on YouTube apparently. You can listen on spotify. Beautiful arch. The head starts at 2:00 or so. That recording is an absolute clinic on that double time build.
    Terrific example, Matt. You're right, it's not on YouTube. I just copied it from Spotify and made a video but it's blocked worldwide. I thought it was open house on YT but apparently not.

    But great example and lovely music, thanks.

  21. #45

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    Well, like I said before, your ears must be honed to perfection! Obviously it's easier for some than others.
    Well I think it’s just a case of listening to a lot of slow ballads, and maybe thinking about where the beat is, eventually you just get a feel for it. Maybe most people spend more time listening to faster jazz tunes, but for some reason I was always drawn to ballads just as much.Like I said before, Dexter Gordon is the go-to guy for this, in my book.