Metronomes click ONLY on top of the beat/right on the beat and cannot be reset to click ahead or behind the beat, which is why you set them up to click on the 2 and the 4 and then you pay VERY CLOSE attention to where the snare drum hits every single time and when the snare is hitting the exact same spot just after the click, that's behind the beat and if it's just before, then it's ahead of the beat and you cannot hear it when metronmes are set to click on all 4 beats. It means you got to be really anal in paying very close attention to details and the small details have a huge input as to how things play out every single time. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Last Edited by on Dec 01, 2012 8:26 AM
"Metronomes click ONLY on top of the beat/right on the beat and cannot be reset to click ahead or behind the beat, which is why you set them up to click on the 2 and the 4 and then you pay VERY CLOSE attention to where the snare drum hits every single time and when the snare is hitting the exact same spot just after the click, that's behind the beat and if it's just before, then it's ahead of the beat and you cannot hear it when metronmes are set to click on all 4 beats."
I get all that, Bob. What I don't know is how to take my metronome and sync it up to a recording with enough precision that I can tell which parts of the groove are behind the beat.
Last Edited by on Dec 01, 2012 10:45 AM
“Practice theory” > ex:… theorize about music trying to consciously understand and analyze it …
BUT
“Perform playing” > ex:… play music but don’t consciously theorize about what is going on …
I can view theory in my mind “see notes” (without analyzing them) while actually playing good, strong music, but it’s not nearly as good or strong as when I consciously decide to just let my musical instincts take over and perform what naturally wants to present itself both rhythmically and note choice wise..
Last Edited by on Dec 01, 2012 10:39 AM
No tune is EVER going to be, as far as the groove is concerned, one part on top, ahead or behind. What you want to do is keep listening to the tune as you hear it and totally ignore ANY soloing and listen to where the snare drum hits, which in most cases, it's going to be on the 2 and the 4 (remember, 4 beats to a measure), and that's the back beat and set it up as close as possible, and once you're there, and when you pay EXTREMELY CLOSE ATTENTION, and you hear the snare hitting just after the click, then you're behind the beat.
If you're listening to a drummer and one moment he's ahead and another behind the beat, that says the drummer's time just flat out SUCKS because playing behind, on top or ahead has to be the CONSTANTLY and CONSISTENTLY and must NEVER sway at all and with pros, a drummer who does that will get fired immediately.
There are many different degrees of how far ahead or behind as well. Some country, lots of rock, rockabilly and heavy metal are often ahead of the beat in varying degrees and most black music, including blues, soul, lots of hiphop (based on what was being sampled as part of the tune), and reggae tend to be behind the beat, with old school reggae like Bob Marley, Toots And The Maytals, and Jimmy Cliff being the FARTHEST behind the beat (and when pushed further, it would be ahead of the next beat), followed by early 50's Chicago blues like Muddy, LW, SBWII, Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Rogers, Robert Nighthawk, etc.
What Frank says about counting is something VERY important to learn and it's another thing harp players are often too lazy to learn.
Learning theory won't necessarily make you a bedtter harp player, but it will help make you a much better musician overall, especially once you've learned it to the point where it becomes part of your muscle memory.
Too many players often can't tell where the 2 and the 3 is because too often they're paying too much attention to the soloing and almost next to nothing about the groove.
I usually can tell if a groove is on top, ahead, or behind the beat by listening, as the old black musicians I've met over the years used to tell me, is by listening to where the drummer's 2 is, which is the snare drum being hit, and then from there I've taken on the thing many black musicians do and that's snap their fingers, tap their feet, clap their hands on the 2 & the 4 (and often times whites will do that either on the 1 & the 3 or on all 4 beats.) ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
It seems I haven't been very clear in my questions. I'll try once more.
In order for your metronome test to work you need three things:
1) You have to start the metronome exactly on the "one" of the track you're testing. If you're 1/10 of second out on the start, it isn't going to work.
2) You have to know exactly what the BPM of the track is. If you set the metronome to 120 but the track is 121, it isn't going to work.
3) The tempo of the track has to be rock solid all the way through. If it rushes or drags, even by one or two BPM, it isn't going to work.
So my question is, how do you do this in the real world? How do I take my recording of "Juke" and my metronome and get them running close enough together so I know for sure that Elga Edmunds' snare is behind the beat?
Last Edited by on Dec 03, 2012 9:45 AM
If you're setting it one the 1, then you have the metronome clicking on all 4 beats, rather than on the 2 and the 4, which makes it very difficult to hear whether the groove is on top, ahead or behind the beat properly, so what you're doing is setting it up whee snare drums hit (2 & 4), and bass drum is on the 1 & 3, which is what you do NOT want to do when the metronome is set to click 2 % 4.
You have to set based on where the drummer is, NOT the solos. Forget doing it live unless you're doing it at home with a few people and set up the actual tempo first with the BPM's.
On any recording of Elgin Edmunds on drums there, yoyu have to listen to the snare drum, which is 2 & 4, and avoid the bass drum, but the metronome has to be set to click on 2 & 4, NOT on all 4 beats, which is what people do almost automatically. Get the BPM's as close as humanly possible to where the snare drum is, and if the click seems to be faster than what you hear the spot of the snare hit and is as close to where the snare is hitting, then the groove is being played behind the beat, which means you now the illusion of the groove being played slower than it really is, and with ahead of the beat, it's the exact opposite of that.
So again, where you're saying you have to start it on the 1, this tells me you're setting the metronome on its default setting, which is to click on all 4 beats, so you have to switch it to click on the 2 & the 4, so again, if you have it click on the defaullt setting, it's impossible to clearly hear it all. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
But if I set the metronome to be perfectly in sync with a behind-the-beat backbeat on the snare, then the metronome will also be behind the beat, right? So the metronome will continue to click right on top of the snare. How does that tell me how far behind the beat the snare is?
Looking to technical equipment to educate you about "behind the beat" is a bit frustrating..."behind the beat" is more of a feel with the result that, in a laboratory setting, you can show how the snare is popping a little after the clinical 2 and 4.
The "feel" is a little like listening to that back porch blues music, joining in on harmonica, but sitting in a chair that is tipped back and leaning on the side of the house.
It's hard to rush the beat when leaning back like this.
Turn off the analytic brain and imagine how this feels emotionally. ---------- The Iceman
@Iceman: I already know what behind the beat feels like, but BBQBob wrote, "By setting it up this way, you can hear where things are much more clearly and when you put it up against a recording while listening to where the drummer is, if you hear the drummer hitting just split seconds after the click of the metronome at the exact SAME place every time, then the groove is being played behind the beat."
I'm just trying to figure out how to "put it up against a recording while listening to where the drummer is".
It's possible that I took a figurative statement literally; if so, sorry for wasting everyone's time.
Last Edited by on Dec 03, 2012 11:13 AM
Timesight, you're used to the default setup where the metronome clicks on all 4 beats, and on that setting, the correct way to set it up is on the one. However, every single time I've said to change the setting so that the metronome clicks ONLY on the 2 and the 4, which every metronome ever made can do, which makes it easier to hear. If you set it up on the 1, it will NOT be on the back beat, which is what you need to hear. Behind the beat means the click pf the metronome is just BEFORE the snare hits and ahead of the beat is the exact opposite. If you use the default setting of having the click on all 4 beats, it makes it much more difficult to hear.
If you use the default setting, it ain't gonna happen and that's a big point that you're missing, and doing it with the default setting and setting it up against the 1 is the wrong thing to do here. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Well, this is the last straw. Y'all have shamed me into becoming a multi-instrumentalist. I'm asking Santa Claus to bring me a kazoo and a jews harp. Wait, does Santa Claus do jews harps?
@KillerJoe -- Thank you for hitting the nail on the head. Most people think of the metronome just to find the tempo only, but what I'm saying here is another use besides that. Switching from hitting all 4 beats to just hitting the 2 and the 4, thus eliminating the 1 and the 3 (where the bass drum usually hits) is what you need to hear ahead, on top, or behind the beat clearly and so now the metronome click, which will ALWAYS click on top of the beat can now be used as a comparison sample and playing behind or ahead is essentially playing in parellel time.
One thing to remember, you will now have to listen FAR more closely than you would when you were trying to learn how to play a solo, because solos tend to be more obvious to the point of being in your face, and learning what behind or ahead of the beat requires much more concentrated listening AKA listening with bigger ears because much of this tends to be the subtle stuff that most people won't pay attention to, with the mistaken thought of it being too small, too boring and too unimportant to be bothered with, but these subtleties tend to make a HUGE difference in how a groove plays out.
Will this stuff be something you learn easily in 5 minutes? From personal experience, to put it mildly, I'm gonna say this in all caps, and that's HELL NO!!! You got to constantly work at it (which also means you better get your time straight ASAP and kill the dumb way of thinking that time is only the drummer's job or you'll never have any hope of learning these things), and don't be surprised if it takes months or even years because it takes so much careful listening and constant practice in order for it to become part of your muscle memory. I know for me personally, it took a good year for me to be fully comfortable with it and it forced me to hear music quite differently than people tend to do as a fan or someone participating in most open jams.
I was lucky to be around musicians who played this way so it made things so much easier to learn. Unfortunately, if you expect to learn this from trolling the open jams, you're gonna be hit with huge let down because at least 80% of the people playing in these open jams have absolutely no clue about this stuff.
This is not the kind of stuff you're gonna find taught in most music schools.
BTW, there was a thread about this over about a year ago called The Beat where this was heavily discussed, and if anyone finds it, please post a link to the thread.
Once you've learned this stuff, you will start to feel it more and when that happens, this is now becoming second nature.
With behind the beat, when you sync on the 1, if the drums are dead on perfectly in sync with the click on every beat, the groove is being played right on top/right on the beat, but it's when you switch to click on the 2 and the 4, hearing it becomes much clearer. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Can't resist elaborating on Tuckster's question. If EVERYONE played exactly the same microseconds behind the beat, everyone would be ON the beat again, right? They'd be in sync. The feel, or groove, if you will, must come from the tension created by some players playing on the beat, and some playing behind or in front of the beat.
Aside-- I got to play "Off the Wall" with James Cotton's working band in 1980 (as James watched off stage), and although it was at a fast tempo, it had a beautiful relaxed feel to it. I attribute that to the musicians knowing how to play behind the beat).
Tuckers, if the drummer plays right on top of the beat, and you're playing behind it, it works when you play VERY slightly behind the beat, and the same thing tends to be true if it was the other way around.
MAny people seem to think behind the beat happens only in slow tempos, but Wolfkrstiansen has this absolutely nailed here because behind the beat happens at all tempos.
In another thread talking about samples of playing behind the beat, I had a link to a drumming book that had an accompanying CD with it written by Fred Dinkins called It's About Time, and it has 10 tunes on it (tho none of these tunes are blues, you can still learn a lot about this stuff), where he has each tune done in 3 different tempos along with the BPM setting, and then he has the done on top of the beat/right on the beat (he refers to it as being in the middle of the beat, which is what I've often heard it referred to as well), one done ahead of the beat (which he's referring to as being on top of the beat, which also something I've commonly heard as well), and behind the beat (referred to as in back of the beat) and below is a link to it at Amazon.com:
You can hear the differences pretty clearly here and is worth buying. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
When you're playing behind the beat, that means not onloy the 2 and the 4 is behind the beat, but the 1 and the 3 are also as well. The only tune that comes to mind where 1 & 3 are on top of the beat whiole 2 &4 is behind the beat is the Wilson Pickett tune In The Midnight Hour and very few drummers can pull that off without screwing up the time. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Thanks Bob- I'm going to get that book for both me and our drummer. He comes from a rock background and is trying hard to learn blues. He is very open to any advice.
I'm starting to think this beat thing is like some time travel paradox. If the drummer plays behind the beat,who's playing on the beat? Or is everybody behind the beat? Who controls the beat? Is the beat an internal thing,where you know where right on the beat is,but the band plays behind/ahead of this beat?
Last Edited by on Dec 06, 2012 11:15 AM
Ideally EVERYONE should be behind the beat, but remember, there are many different degrees as to how far behind just as much as there are many different degrees of how far ahead of the beat as well.
The rhythm section HAS to be fully locked in, no excuses, and this is NOT going to be easy to learn if you have no experience or never paid attention to this at all.
There are some blues where the drums are far behind the beat but the bass is just slightly behind the beat, but to make that work, BOTH OF THEM must not overplay or get too busy and their time HAS to be dead on the money or it's gonna flop on it face. Juicy Fruit, a jump blues by Rudy Greene has this thing in spades, and the T-Birds when the rhythm section was Mike Buck and Keith Ferguson played this way as well, and this gave the T-Birds a somewhat more rock like edge to their sound.
Tuckster, you have to remember to lose the white man's idea of the drummer being the beat because from what many of those old black musicians taught me was that the drummer merely dresses it up and is NEVER the beat by himself.
That book, tho there are no blues, you can hear how such subtle differences that most people often don't pay attention to makes a HUGE difference, and you may suddenly find out how often these things are done outside of blues. also remember, there are grooves played that are ever farther ahead or behind the beat than any of those examples in there. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
On Juicy Fruit, I don't hear the drummer hitting behind the beat. I hear him hitting right on 2 and 4, like in Rock Around the Clock. I also hear the singer sometimes pushing slightly AHEAD of the beat, a not-uncommon thing--although in the 9 and 10 bars of the first chorus, the singer lags behind the drums by stretching out his phrases slightly......
But I'll say this: the cut swings like hell. So if I was in a bluesband with a drummer who was rushing the beat, I'd push this song at him and tell him "Put on some headphones and drum along with this cut. Get into the groove and do NOT push ahead of the beat."
Last Edited by on Dec 06, 2012 2:15 PM
What an amazing coincidence! Our guitarist wants to add this song to our setlist. He mentioned it Tuesday. Must be karma. I'll keep you posted on how we're doing.
In jump blues, the groove is just very slightly behind the beat, which is WAY different than what you hear with the Chicago blues sound from the 50's, which is FAR behind the beat, so again, there are many different degrees of just how far behind or ahead of the beat there are. This stuff is not like a flashy solo, where everything is so obvious that it's a big "duh," and the stuff I'm talking about is very subtle, but has a HUGE influence on how things play out, and the more subtle things are, the harder it is for the average listener to hear, plus it makes much harder to truly master than how a flashy solo is because you have to learn to really listen to things much more carefully and many people really don't and that's the big difference between how most professional musicians, recording engineers and record producers hear the music vs. everyone else. It doesn't take having perfect pitch hearing at all, but getting yourself the ability to pay much more attention to details no matter how small or unimportant or boring you make think they are.
The bass is slightly ahead of the drums pushing the groove a bit, but the time of both the drummer and the bass player is dead on and there's no overplaying here at all. Many rhythm sections not used to doing these things will have to work like a m****r f****r to get this right without risking possibly screwing up this groove in a major way.
As far as pushing the beat or the groove, that sort of thing is unfortunately, quite typical of the majority of white rock drummers I've met over the years, ESPECIALLY during the solos and if they ever did this stuff in most black music bands, they'd get a non stop ration of s**t for doing this, and deservedly so, and part of the problem with this is because the way many white musicians tend to do is automatically follow the guitar no matter what, even if he's screwing up the time and the groove (until they get into a recording studio and pros get a hold of them and put in a click track, which is essentially a metronome, in their headphone mix so that they don't over do it in the solos, and just do it ever so slightly). ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
