How to theoretically explain good time feel?

[Jimmy Smith]

I've been wondering about this and I think I get it instinctually but want to try to break it down. Also whenever I try to explain something to my teacher he freaks out lol. I know the jazz forum has no shortage of discussion.

To have expressive time feel it seems that some rhythms and phrasing have to be strict to the time to establish an even tempo, and some rhythms have to be off of the time to add expression. It seems if you do either all the rhythms off the time it sounds bad, or all tied to the tempo it sounds lame.

Also a thing I've been wondering about. Say you have a line that is off of the time for effect, say it's ahead. How do you visualize how to accomplish this for good feel? Say there's a starting point, an ending point, and also variations within the wave of notes - those have to be regimented too. A player who I think does this masterfully is Joey Defrancesco with his right hand. It's like a wave of notes that is off of the time but still strictly related to it.

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?

[ragman1]

All I know is that if you try to make it happen, it won't. Or it'll sound false. When it happens it's a combination of natural feel and lots of playing. Nature and nurture.

That includes all the tricks too. You can't produce through deliberation what always happens without deliberation. The motive, whether by analysis or practice, is to achieve and possess what can't be possessed.

Or, to be hip about it, you gotta be in the zone, man. If you is, you is, and if you ain't, you ain't.

But you won't accept that, you'll say 'There must be something I can do!'. There is - love the music. If you love the music it'll happen that way all the time. But when the greedy mind steps in then it'll never happen.

I have spoken, grasshopper

[PatrickWD]

I came over this video a few weeks ago on youtube. I think it's an interesting take on explaining time and feel.

[pamosmusic]

I think you can practice it, by listening and copying, by practicing articulations and accent patterns, by using the metronome creatively. And there are some things that are pretty common and idiomatic to jazz, like the rhythmic placement of slurs and the use of accent patterns to imply more complex time. That kind of thing can be practiced, but in terms of which combinations of those things make for “good time” or for a good jazz time feel, I’m not sure there’s a cut and dry answer. You know it when you hear it, you copy it, and if you have the technique together, it becomes part of your own playing.

If you figure out an answer to this one otherwise, let me know because I want it.

[Christian Miller]

The clues in the word ‘feel’

That said i would start by being able to execute rhythms accurately - especially swing upbeats and eighth, quarter and half triplets. Be anal about this stuff.

swing feel is about consistent and accurate placing of *accents* ‘putting the notes in the right place’ as Louis said. If you can accurately and consistently play swing upbeats and down beats right in the middle of the beat in your bop heads and so on that’s a good start.

Beyond that sounds loose in a good way is actually very specific and consistent placement of notes off the beat. Lagging or pushing the beat generally has to be consistent to create in the first instance a nice pocket without feeling boneless, draggy and unconfident, or a feeling of energy and momentum without feeling like it’s rushing in the second.

most of this is registered on the ‘feel’ level. It’s microrhythmic stuff. It’s not something we really hear in the same way as a triplet or a clave. At least I don’t. But we perceive it strongly.

In basic terms, if you place an upbeat accent for example it should have a consistent placement each time within the beat. The downbeats are also important but the upbeats are what we mostly struggle with…

Even though I can semi define the outcome, I’m not sure if this is something you can think yourself into. practicing singing along with records with a critical ear for timing can help you learn this on a basic level. (It’s a shame we don’t do more playing in sections like horns.) Also singing triplets and triplet upbeats at different tempos help. Learning drum patterns and so on. Big band horn stabs… that type of stuff… in eight notes learning where the pocket can be from great soloists.

good luck!

[Christian Miller]

I came over this video a few weeks ago on youtube. I think it's an interesting take on explaining time and feel.

I haven’t had time to watch this all the way through, but these are not unlike the sorts of things I work on fwiw.

I think sometimes people think rhythm feel should be ‘sloppy’. There is a space for this but very often what we think of as grease comes from very consistent and accurate accent placement. George Benson comes to mind. Or think of a great session pocket drummer getting the backbeat in juuust the right place fractionally behind the click. Nothing sloppy about that…..

Paying attention to where you are placing the notes in the bar and so on is very helpful and the DAW can be a good visual guide. I don’t think the aim is play like a machine but I find these tools very useful for seeing where I tend to put things and developing my sense for these things.

(just make sure you don’t have latency issues with your sound interface if you do this haha.)

The when you do it with other humans you’ll have some reference points! And then the education can really begin…

also - don’t forget to record yourself without a click sometimes and listen back (after a break.)

[James W]

To answer the title question, you can't because 'good' is subjective and thus I would think outside and beyond theory. As Christian said, you can analyse microrhythm, which people have done for jazz music, but that won't explain why it's good.

[Christian Miller]

actually I disagree a bit.

There’s a creative and artistic aspect to rhythm, but there is such a thing as bad time and rhythm (within an African diaspora music context) and I think pro musicians would identify it consistently, which would make it quite objective.

they might not be able to break it down or teach it, but they’d all agree when it wasn’t right.

The main thing that jumps out when I listen critically to students or myself, as opposed to, say Grant green or Wes, is lapses of consistency. One phrase is in the pocket, another is a little rushed. A phrase starts a little early. A phrase starts off nicely in time but rushes as it goes on. That type of stuff.

In my experience this maps to an interior mental state, but I think you have to uncover this for yourself. If I lapse less in this way than I used to, it’s because I’m finding and practicing getting into the feeling of playing in time. ‘In the pocket.’ It is most reliable for things I know on a molecular level, and less reliable for anything unfamiliar, sight read, not quite under my fingers etc

it’s the sort of thing that makes you useful to a band. If you aren’t holding your end up rhythmically people won’t enjoy playing with you so much.

[James W]

actually I disagree a bit.

There’s a creative and artistic aspect to rhythm, but there is such a thing as bad time and rhythm (within an African diaspora music context) and I think pro musicians would identify it consistently, which would make it quite objective.

they might not be able to break it down or teach it, but they’d all agree when it wasn’t right.

The main thing that jumps out when I listen to myself and students is lack of consistency. One phrase is in the pocket, another is a little rushed. A phrase starts a little early. A phrase starts off nicely in time but rushes as it goes on. That type of stuff. In my experience this maps to an interior mental state, but I think you have to uncover this for yourself.

True, but I think, even though people can agree on things, judgement is still exercised of a nature that isn't 'theory' (but I can see how this might be opening a can of worms already done to death). There isn't an objective measure for good rhythm, even though trained musicians can identify it.

[Litterick]

If you get it instinctually, you don't need to break it down. I feel your teacher's pain.

[Christian Miller]

True, but I think, even though people can agree on things, judgement is still exercised of a nature that isn't 'theory' (but I can see how this might be opening a can of worms already done to death). There isn't an objective measure for good rhythm, even though trained musicians can identify it.

Professional opinion and the judgment of the community is central to music. The goalposts DO vary from tradition to tradition. We don’t do rubato in the same way as classical musicians for example (that’s another can of worms.)

In terms of objective and measurable reality, I transcribe Parker etc and always I’m very struck by how accurate the subdivision is. There is a mathematical, machine-like aspect to this, as much as it’s not the be all and all.

So, good time has a mathematical element to it.

On a sociological level, most of us will be wanting to play with other musicians. They need to be able to understand and feel where your time is coming from.

So one shouldn’t use a romantic sense of ‘feel’ as an excuse to not get super picky and specific about rhythm is what I’m saying.

You don’t have to do it via nerding out at waveforms on a DAW, or even working with a metronome (tho I would recommend like most), but you do need to know exactly what rhythm you are going to play and hear and feel it on a physical level, and be very self critical about one’s execution of those rhythms.

If you can’t hear when it’s right and wrong (as I once did) then you need to learn to perceive the differences.

[James W]

Well from an epistemological point of view I would say that I can’t think of another way to establish objectivity without an appeal to metaphysics. The scientific method is the most developed and rigorous mechanism of agreement we have come up with, for example….

In a less philosophical sense, I transcribe benson and I’m very struck by how accurate his subdivision is. There is a mathematical, machine-like aspect to this, as much as it’s not the be all and all.

On a sociological level, most of us will be wanting to play with other musicians. They need to be able to understand and feel where your time is coming from.

Don’t use a romantic sense of ‘feel’ as an excuse to not get super picky and specific about rhythm is what I’m saying. You don’t have to do it via needing out at waveforms on a DAW, or even working with a metronome (tho I would recommend like most), but you do need to know exactly what rhythm you are going to play and hear and feel it on a physical level, and be very self critical on one’s execution of those rhythms.

I don't really understand the first paragraph. The second paragraph - ok, but software like Sibelius can produce exact rhythms, but I don't think it would or could really reproduce how a jazz musician swings, and of course how a human jazz musician swings will differ slightly from phrase to phrase. I see nothing to contradict in the rest of your post, other than to point out that I am not guilty of not being specific or picky about my rhythms - as you know, I will admit if I've failed to stay in the pocket.

[Christian Miller]

I don't really understand the first paragraph.

yeah I deleted it because I decided it wasn’t true haha

The second paragraph - ok, but software like Sibelius can produce exact rhythms, but I don't think it would or could really reproduce how a jazz musician swings, and of course how a human jazz musician swings will differ slightly from phrase to phrase.

that’s completely true. However in the case of intermediate level students, just getting rhythms accurate to the basics needs to be worked on. It’s easy to underestimate how good the great jazz players are at this - especially as we spend the lions share of time talking about harmony and note choice. At the level of the average JGO member there’s a lot of work that can go into this basic level of rhythm accuracy and result in an improvement of their playing overall.

Theres also players who have a nice swing feel but can’t reliably track the number of beats in a bar. And players who go in and out of it, and so on.

This is the sort of thing I listen critically for in my own playing.

I also think if you programmed a computer with a more developed model of swing eighths it would sound more convincing (it does the inequality thing). I could go into detail as to why Sibelius doesn’t swing, but I don’t think that’s really relevant.

Otoh obviously it wouldn’t be a Parker or Louis or Oscar Peterson. I think now people would lean towards using machine learning.

I see nothing to contradict in the rest of your post, other than to point out that I am not guilty of not being specific or picky about my rhythms - as you know, I will admit if I've failed to stay in the pocket.

Thats great. If you can hear it that’s the essential step on the route to better time.

as a great Brazilian percussionist and teacher once told me ‘there are two types of musicians - those that work on their time and those that don’t, and I know who I’d rather play with.’ His time feel is needless to say, sublime.

The other is being able to make a link between how you feel when it’s right.

If it’s not a technical issue, or a problem of not quite hearing or feeling what you are intending to play, it’s usually a psychological thing.

(I think Kurt said this in a masterclass one time, I have found it to be true and a useful observation
for myself.)

Again as with technique it’s important not to underestimate how much the ear drives all of this. So much of feel and groove is intuitive. But you obviously need to play triplets in time, etc.

If in doubt talk to a good drummer. Guitarists are largely useless haha.

[Bop Head]

The most important thing IMO is being able to feel the pulse. Dancing to the music might help, no kidding.

Then the understanding of polyrhythms is helpful -- divisions of three against two and groupings of five and seven in different permutations of all the subdivisions (five and seven are combinations of two and three of the same subdivision, e.g. 2 16ths + 3 16ths = 5 16ths).

(A lightbulb moment, for example, for me was that when you play triplet eights against normal eights the second normal eigth divides the second triplet eighth in two. That's what I mean by "understanding".)

[Christian Miller]

Obv this was widened out a little into a general discussion of time… which of course isn’t quite the same thing as feel. But I don’t expect I’ll ever stop working on time…

[Christian Miller]

The most important thing IMO is being able to feel the pulse. Dancing to the music might help, no kidding.

Then the understanding of polyrhythms is helpful -- divisions of three against two and groupings of five and seven in different permutations of all the subdivisions (five and seven are combinations of two and three of the same subdivision, e.g. 2 16ths + 3 16ths = 5 16ths).

(A lightbulb moment, for example, for me was that when you play triplet eights against normal eights the second normal eigth divides the second triplet eighth in two. That's what I mean by "understanding".)

Yes, also do the same for half note and quarter note triplets. Also the displaced quarter triplet, where the first note of the triplet coincides with 2 and 4.

The Bembe 6/8 clave against 4/4 is useful for developing medium swing feel. Sing it against Wes on willow weep!

Bembe includes both a normal and displaced quarter triplet.

[emanresu]

Could split "time feel" into those same two components.

So, time are these theoretically perfect chunks of musical movements but feel is the imperfect one, governed by taste and style.

When playing in young student's band, I always have to count 8ths in the head forcefully because the band itself tries to rip the time apart in different directions. But can't consider this a "feel" at all.

When aiming for perfect time and good groovy pocket feel at home, eventually the thing in practice will become naturally... pulsating or.. effortlessly sharp without needing to count at all. But the pulse feeling is somewhere in the background and wont even remind of itself unless screwed up somewhere.

[Christian Miller]

As with a lot of things, the first stage learning the thing somewhat mechanically and then relaxing into it when you’ve got it down. That’s when all the feel, grease and good stuff has a chance of kicking in. *Provided* the first step has been done well ….

it’s not the rocket science I’ve probably made it out to be… but does take work and dedication.

[James W]

yeah I deleted it because I decided it wasn’t true haha



that’s completely true. However in the case of intermediate level students, just getting rhythms accurate to the basics needs to be worked on. It’s easy to underestimate how good the great jazz players are at this - especially as we spend the lions share of time talking about harmony and note choice. At the level of the average JGO member there’s a lot of work that can go into this basic level of rhythm accuracy and result in an improvement of their playing overall.

Theres also players who have a nice swing feel but can’t reliably track the number of beats in a bar. And players who go in and out of it, and so on.

This is the sort of thing I listen critically for in my own playing.

I also think if you programmed a computer with a more developed model of swing eighths it would sound more convincing (it does the inequality thing). I could go into detail as to why Sibelius doesn’t swing, but I don’t think that’s really relevant.

Otoh obviously it wouldn’t be a Parker or Louis or Oscar Peterson. I think now people would lean towards using machine learning.



Thats great. If you can hear it that’s the essential step on the route to better time.

as a great Brazilian percussionist and teacher once told me ‘there are two types of musicians - those that work on their time and those that don’t, and I know who I’d rather play with.’ His time feel is needless to say, sublime.

The other is being able to make a link between how you feel when it’s right.

If it’s not a technical issue, or a problem of not quite hearing or feeling what you are intending to play, it’s usually a psychological thing.

(I think Kurt said this in a masterclass one time, I have found it to be true and a useful observation
for myself.)

Again as with technique it’s important not to underestimate how much the ear drives all of this. So much of feel and groove is intuitive. But you obviously need to play triplets in time, etc.

If in doubt talk to a good drummer. Guitarists are largely useless haha.

Agree with this. But I still don't think good time feel can be explained theoretically.
And I certainly do not underestimate how great at rhythm great jazz musicians are.

[pamosmusic]

If it’s not a technical issue, or a problem of not quite hearing or feeling what you are intending to play, it’s usually a psychological thing.

(I think Kurt said this in a masterclass one time, I have found it to be true and a useful observation
for myself.)

Again as with technique it’s important not to underestimate how much the ear drives all of this. So much of feel and groove is intuitive. But you obviously need to play triplets in time, etc.

If in doubt talk to a good drummer. Guitarists are largely useless haha.

Yeah this is super true. Teaching younger students things like triplets and whatever, I always make them take the time to put it in their ear, in their voice, then on their instrument. Like audiate it silently, say it around (or tap it or clap it for the shy ones, but voice is better), in then play it on one string or something.

Its amazing how often that fixes the problem, and how quickly it falls apart again when they rush through the first two steps.

And yeah … saying something isn’t precisely quantifiable isn’t the same thing as saying it’s purely subjective. There’s right and wrong even if we can’t put our finger on why.

Ask a saxophone player about Dexter Gordon Syndrome.

(or alternatively listen to me play Monk, which inevitably drags miserably.)

[Christian Miller]

Agree with this. But I still don't think good time feel can be explained theoretically.

I think it can actually, but I don’t think it’s all that helpful! There’s a difference between knowing the path and waking the path.

let’s take an example from another music - samba swing. Samba swing can be understood theoretically as a sort of mid point between a triplet and a strict quantised 16th 8th 16th rhythm. Or you could talk about how the second and last 16th is early or whatever.

However, I don’t know if that’s a good way to learn it. Most samba teachers I’ve had contact with focus on the shaker first and the physical movement you make to get the rhythm (I think Jacob collier demonstrates it in a video somewhere) - or on the Caixa (snare drum) with the bouncing of the sticks and so on.

So you can have a theoretical understanding of a microrhythmic feel, but it may not actually be the best way to learn it. Not that my samba swing is very good haha.

Or Gnawa… a microrhythmic lilt on a basic 6/8…

I feel we have a good theoretical understanding of swing eights for example. The Germans have been hard at work haha. But I wouldn’t teach the way that theory discusses it. There are perfectly good traditional ways to develop swing feel. It can helpful to know what it looks like on a DAW timeline I suppose.

[James W]

Christian, I don't doubt it's possible to teach or learn good time feel, just not have it explained theoretically - because the 'why' of it I think is of necessity a mysterious thing. Is it possible to use theory to explain why Bitches Brew sounds so good?

[Christian Miller]

Christian, I don't doubt it's possible to teach or learn good time feel, just not have it explained theoretically - because the 'why' of it I think is of necessity a mysterious thing. Is it possible to use theory to explain why Bitches Brew sounds so good?

Sorry maybe I wasn’t clear

You can understand (at least the basic features of) a micro-rhythmic feel theoretically (like samba or jazz swing) but you probably don’t want to be teaching it that way. So I tend to think ‘that’s nice, dear’ when someone brings up some new paper on swing feel or whatever. It’s momentarily interesting, but maybe not of much practical use.

There will always be human nuances that are beyond quantification… but science does have a tendency to infringe on the previously unquantifiable in the arts…

[Jimmy Smith]

I would start by being able to execute rhythms accurately - especially swing upbeats and eighth, quarter and half triplets. Be anal about this stuff.

swing feel is about consistent and accurate placing of *accents* ‘putting the notes in the right place’ as Louis said. If you can accurately and consistently play swing upbeats and down beats right in the middle of the beat in your bop heads and so on that’s a good start.

Beyond that sounds loose in a good way is actually very specific and consistent placement of notes off the beat. Lagging or pushing the beat generally has to be consistent to create in the first instance a nice pocket without feeling boneless, draggy and unconfident, or a feeling of energy and momentum without feeling like it’s rushing in the second.

most of this is registered on the ‘feel’ level. It’s microrhythmic stuff. It’s not something we really hear in the same way as a triplet or a clave. At least I don’t. But we perceive it strongly.

In basic terms, if you place an upbeat accent for example it should have a consistent placement each time within the beat. The downbeats are also important but the upbeats are what we mostly struggle with…

Even though I can semi define the outcome, I’m not sure if this is something you can think yourself into. practicing singing along with records with a critical ear for timing can help you learn this on a basic level. (It’s a shame we don’t do more playing in sections like horns.) Also singing triplets and triplet upbeats at different tempos help. Learning drum patterns and so on. Big band horn stabs… that type of stuff… in eight notes learning where the pocket can be from great soloists.

good luck!

As with a lot of things, the first stage learning the thing somewhat mechanically and then relaxing into it when you’ve got it down. That’s when all the feel, grease and good stuff has a chance of kicking in. *Provided* the first step has been done well ….

it’s not the rocket science I’ve probably made it out to be… but does take work and dedication.

I agree. I thought you'd have some good insight.

[Jimmy Smith]

All I know is that if you try to make it happen, it won't. Or it'll sound false. When it happens it's a combination of natural feel and lots of playing. Nature and nurture.

That includes all the tricks too. You can't produce through deliberation what always happens without deliberation. The motive, whether by analysis or practice, is to achieve and possess what can't be possessed.

Or, to be hip about it, you gotta be in the zone, man. If you is, you is, and if you ain't, you ain't.

But you won't accept that, you'll say 'There must be something I can do!'. There is - love the music. If you love the music it'll happen that way all the time. But when the greedy mind steps in then it'll never happen.

I have spoken, grasshopper

No rag. No, no, no! :P You can quantify it and practice it.