Milsson
139 posts
Aug 19, 2014
11:14 PM
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Adam rafferty has a different aproach to practice timing with african music. I've always found a Metronome a pain to work with and this approach seems logical to me.
Adam raferty on groove
Last Edited by Milsson on Aug 19, 2014 11:18 PM
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wolfkristiansen
315 posts
Aug 20, 2014
7:51 AM
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I read Adam Rafferty's article, "Don't Use a Metronome", and it perfectly said what I've always thought about how to play in the groove. I urge everyone to read it.
Thanks, Milsson.
Cheers,
wolf kristiansen
Last Edited by wolfkristiansen on Aug 20, 2014 7:51 AM
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barbequebob
2684 posts
Aug 20, 2014
10:06 AM
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Good reading. It also is a very important concept to listen to and learn from in addition to working with a metronome and learning to "feel the groove," is also something I had to learn as well, basically learning to have that "body clock" happening. This stuff is something you'll NEVER learn in an open jam unless you have actual REAL pros as jammers with you on the bandstand and the vast majority of the time, unfortunately, that almost never happens.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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mr_so&so
855 posts
Aug 20, 2014
10:23 AM
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Groove is something I've been working on and trying to wrap my head around. Rafferty's article doesn't help me understand groove intellectually, and maybe that is his point. It's a feel thing. You have to learn from someone who gets it.
As I progress in my learning, I am starting to trust my ears and intuitions more. I am also listening to music with "bigger ears". Rafferty's point about listening to your body and letting it move is another aspect of this. I heard somewhere that in many African languages, the same word covers singing and dancing. We would probably do well not to forget to move.
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barbequebob
2687 posts
Aug 20, 2014
10:26 AM
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Part of learning groove is to NOT listen to the music like a jam hack, meaning don't just listen to the damned solos and nothing else, but what "bigger ears" actually means, which is pay attention to every little detail of what's happening regardless of how small or unimportant you may think it may be at first because the things you ignore tend to be what hurts you the most and 80% of players in open jams NEVER learn this at all.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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Milsson
140 posts
Aug 20, 2014
11:18 AM
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I can´t find the video but joe filisko talks about the same thing. He basicly say that it isn´t enough to tap your foot you have to move your hips and rock your body to. Maybe thats why Dennis Gruenling moves in all directions on stage?
I´m not realy that good at this but when i play fingerstyle guitar i think of it like i had a rubber band between the thumb(bass) and the fingers(melody). Some times i can feel the tension that builds up when im behind the beat with the melody, my forearm starts to hurt when the muscles are fighting to stay on time.
The rubber band anology comes in handy playing harmonica to but it´s more in the head.
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nacoran
7953 posts
Aug 20, 2014
9:40 PM
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Conductors wave their arms and you can see, before the beat, that they are speeding up or slowing down. It's not quite a matter of the speed of sound vs. the speed of light, but if someone decides to pause a song to give it a bit of a syncopation everyone better be on the same page; by the time the guitar player hears the singer is pausing, he better be pausing too.
It's interesting, when I'm looking at recorded tracks as they are playing back I get the same sense as watching a conductor- you see the waveforms crashing where the beat is going to be and the more you practice the better you can get at visually timing things (latency, of course, is the mindkiller). I think that's similar to the difference between the beat and a pulse. A beat is just a point in the flow of a pulse. It's the top of the wave or the bottom of the wave or whatever point you choose, but it's just a finite point in a bigger flow.
A metronome, of course, will give you very honest feedback about how well you keep time, and perhaps more diplomatically than your bandmates will. I like songs having a little bit of organic rhythm, but I think to be able to do that in a band setting you have to be able to keep a good beat to start with. I often have a hard time when I write a lyric and sing it too many times before we actually try playing it. I develop too many idiosyncratic interpretations and it makes it a mess to sing over a more metered beat. Sounds fine when I'm signing it though. :)
Of course, if you can get the band to function as one bobber on the ocean, that's even better.
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Nate
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First Post- May 8, 2009
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Harp2swing
149 posts
Aug 20, 2014
10:46 PM
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There's a groove going on here...
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