All the really good blues players leave lots of space. Even Jason,who's noted for playing lots of notes,leaves space when he plays blues.For me,it's an important factor in playing.
I have to remember to leave spaces. When I'm playing alone silence always feels awkward, and most of the time I'm playing with someone else it's just one person. I always feel like they expect me to play something. Once there is a third person leaving long pauses seems much more natural.
Your soul is the band. It has all the beats and a natural rhythm. Let it play and blow your harp when it tells you to. Those are the right spots where space awaits next. That is how I do it and my music is full of spaces. Most people are clueless to this and force space. That is as bad as no space. Space should occur naturally. That is when it has a big effect. It allows the audience to use their imagination to fill in the gaps and then you come back in and it is magical. This is why I struggle with the current crop of fast, nonstop players. They leave me no space for my imagination to be involved. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
If you're coming more from a rock background where you're primarily phrasing off the 1 and the 3, space is always gonna be a problem because rockers are ALWAYS pushing the groove, which is something you want to AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE and tho you may get away with it a bit on something very uptempo, but on a slow blues tempo, you're gonna sound like the two of you never met, and then you get badly exposed and it sounds very white.
XHarp, those guys you mentioned all had one thing in common, and that they're playing the black music groove, and that the phrasing is primarily off the 2 and the 4 and played BEHIND the beat and they NEVER push the groove at all and let the groove do the pushing. Playing off the 1 and the 3 too often is far too aggressive and often leads into overplaying.
This doesn't just apply to the harmonica, as it also applies to vocals, horns, guitars, you name it. Most of you have NEVER listened carefully to where the phrasing is off of with many of the classic blues players and masters and even among the more modern masters.
98% of the time, I cannot hire a rock drummer because, first of all, they tend to play ahead of the beat, secondly they push the groove too much, and thirdly, and most importanly, on slow blues, the first thing they fail to realize in blues drumming, there is so much space they HAVE to deal with and 98% of them have a difficult time with it because they have to seemingly play something to fill every hole and using restraint is often like having them speak in a foreign language they know nothing about.
The use of space is not just in blues, but in all genres of black music as a general rule and leaving those space is VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!!
To keep trying to fill every hole is basically playing very white. Guys who seemingly have to fill up each and every hole often have an enormous inability to deal with dynamics and when they're trying to do it, they may bring it way down and next verse, all the way up, but someone who has it under control can gradually turn it up and back down with ease, allowing the music to heat a bit, then simmer down, and then gradually build to a crescendo.
When you use dynamics, the use of space becomes even MORE IMPORTANT just on the space alone, and that ain't just for harp either, and listen to other instruments and how they use dynamics and you will quickly see how this all correlates.
It's basically like the old saying, in a nutshell, talk less and say more.
If you're playing off the 1 and 3, it's time you woodshed IMMEDIATELY and learn to play off the 2 and 4 more because playing off the 2 and 4, you will have a much easier time using fewer notes, leave more space, underplay, and also learn how to play behind the beat.
Music does have to breathe, and if you're trying to fill every hole, it ain't breathing and it's like bad musical grammer, more like musical version of a run on sentence, which is flat out bad grammer, plus it also gets boring in a NY minute.
IF you're playing blues or any other black music, you HAVE to have space and LET THE GROOVE DRIVE THE MUSIC, and you NEVER want caught dead pushing the groove (white musician mentality) at all or you're gonna risk having nothing short of a musical trainwreck.
Learning how to feel the groove 24/7 is EXTREMELY important and too many players don't play with an underlying sense of groove so that once everything else gets eliminated, the phrasing no longer makes sense.
An EXTREMELY important habit to get into RIGHT AWAY is learning to keep time with either your feet, snapping your fingers, etc., and a number of newbies and intermediate players often NEVER learn that and keeping the time is VERY important to avoid being known as a grooveless wonder because if your time and groove is off, EVERYTHING is off.
BTW, playing off the 2 and the 4 is playing off the backbeat, and that's where the snare drum usually is hitting, and playing off the 1 and 3 is playing off the front beat, where the bass drum usually hits. Yep, that means it's time to start listening to the music with "bigger ears," meaning not like the way the usual music fan does, which is solos first and everything else dead last. It means listening to EVERYTHING in in infinte DETAIL, something 98% of the average listener NEVER does.
Learning to listen to the music as I've just described is the way pro musicians, recording engineers and music producers listen to music and the things they pick up on immediately, 98% of the average listener won't pick up on, but those are ALL important details.
Learning to have the ability to have a constant underlying sense of groove 24/7/365 cannot be overemphasized. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Last Edited by on Mar 22, 2010 12:58 PM
The answer to the original question is yes, you've gotta be able to feel the groove. You've got to develop your own sense of groove and time. If you are playing Blues, you've gotta leave space. It's extremely important to leave space if you are playing with others.
Additionally, filling up every available nano-second with notes is one way to get oneself labeled a jerk. Nobody likes the players that play non-stop. It doesn't matter much how good/skilled they are.
Think about this, one of the cool things about Little Walter's music was the guitar playing by Louis Myers and Robert Jr Lockwood. Those guy were playing some beautiful stuff on top of a fabulous groove laid down by Dave Myers and Fred Below. Those guys were just as innovative as Little Walter. If Walter have filled up all of the available time, you would have never heard those guys playing some fantastic stuff.
I had the opportunity to see Fred Below, Louis and Dave Myers back up darn near every harp player in Chicago. They made almost every one of those harp players sound great provided they were given some space where they could work their magic.
Same deal with Jimmy Reed. Jimmy Reed left a ton of space and it's a good thing. It gave the listener the opportunity to hear the stellar guitar work of Eddie Taylor. If he was playing all the time, you would have never known how great of a drummer Earl Phillips was.
Here's another reason why it's important to feel the groove. If you don't and you're trying to count in your head, you're screwed. You'll be constantly trying to catch up. Then you'll get mixed up and you'll probably start screwing up.
If you don't have a sense of groove, it's damn near impossible to play solo, i.e. by yourself with any sense of time or beat.
If you can't feel the groove and you want to develop that sensitivity, listen to a lot of Jimmy Reed records. Listen to them over and over and over again until you can feel it.
Even in rock it is about the space, even if you are pushing on the 1 and 3. Our old drummer, who is really a fantastic drummer, could play blues, raggae, jazz, latin, hard rock, anything. He knew how to play behind the beat and totally groove. His favorite drummer is Ringo Starr. It is because he left so much space and played the perfect notes. He is so subtle you probably never even thought about it. I did not till he made that comment. Ringo is certainly playing the 1 and 3, but understood space.
Also BBQ, I think you are being a bit overly dogmatic about pushing the groove. Some of the truly great black and white blues musicians play behind most of the time, but they know when to push it, with restraint, to bring things up a notch. Not every song goes there, and you make an important point about being able to play the 2 and 4 and not push the beat, but being able to control where you are relative to the groove is pretty important in my mind.
Another great rock band, the Grateful Dead understood space, playing behind the beat, and groove. Garcia was a master, and some of their songs like Althea and Sugar Magnolia are good examples of that.
Paul Simon said in his song Ace in the Hole
Some people say music that's their ace in the hole Just your ordinary rhythm and blues Your basic rock and roll You can sit on the top of the beat You can lean on the side of the beat You can hang from the bottom of the beat But you got to admit that the music is sweet
I follow the bass player while he is going through the 12 bar I/VI/V and the drummers fills but mostly the bass player. Playing with real people or in a band was the best medicine for me. It opened up my eyes and ears. I still screw up on a regular basis but I am getting better day by day.
Last Edited by on Mar 23, 2010 2:26 AM
Lately I practice putting emphasis on each part of each beat(of course, I don't mean all at once). Right now I'm putting it on the 'and' of 1, 2, the 'and' of 3, and on 4.
Some days I work on coming in on other parts too, like the 'a' of each beat, moving notes on each 'a' yet eventually hitting right on the beat. Or, if there is a triplet feel, coming in (or moving) on the last note of the triplet. Or the second.
Alternatively, the same can be done with triplet runs. in the duration of 2 beats, you can accent the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes in a way that sounds cool and quirky to me.
Also, I like putting an accent on every 4th note in a 16th note run. Which ends up as accenting on: 1, the 'a' of 1, the 'and' of 2, the 'e' of 3, and on 4 if you were to run all the way through the measure. But, you can start the pattern on any beat, and correspondingly shift those accents.
I also like to copy the phrasing of vocalists. This does not always work. But most times it does. Into Stevie wonder right now. He is all over the place with his phrasing, which keeps it interesting.
Also, lots of music phrasing works this way: two similar short phrases followed by a similar, yet longer and more interesting phrase. This (generally) enforces space. This is also something I put into my playing.
Basically, I want to be able to do everything that is possible AND works.
Oh, and harp is weird cause you don't have to stop to take a breath. But take a breath anyway. People are used to that in music. Even piano players take fake breaths.
Last thing I'm working on (phrase wise) these days is ending the phrases differently, on notes and beats that don't feel natural to me. The function of this is so that I can easily lengthen a phrase when I want to, and to be ambiguous about the direction the music is going.
Great examples of space, and variation of phrase styles.
Notice how he puts emphasis on 1 and 3 for a good chunk of the verse, but then during the lead-in he changes it for a moment with 'believe in things you don't understand...' then goes back to the 1 and 3 groove for the chorus.
All the while the guitar and clavichord are hitting the up beat on every beat. The first time the horn come in, they hit the 'and' of 1 and two, then hit 3 and 4 square on the head in the middle of their runs. Repeat a few times. Then they hit one and three HARD for two measures, then a flurry of notes, followed by the most memorable part: A singing whole note followed by hitting on every beat, right on it, with a fall off on each note.
All while the percussion is hitting 2 and 4 really good.
And the bass player going ' 1, 2, 3 e + 4 +, then 1, 2, a 3 e + 4+ ' in the intro. The rhythm guitar on 'e and a' quite often with its scratchy rhythmness. Later, 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a.
To me, the thing that makes it groove so well is that each part works like part of an engine.
Emphasis is all over the place. But each musician has the ability to put the notes in the place that helps drive the car along.
Not a single phrase (in the vocal part) begins on 1 or 3. But, the piano part does! And as he approaches the end of each section, he sped up the emphasis (in the instrumental part) to punctuate the end of the section. Like when he says "ribbon in the sky" the fisrt few times.
"Also BBQ, I think you are being a bit overly dogmatic about pushing the groove. Some of the truly great black and white blues musicians play behind most of the time, but they know when to push it, with restraint, to bring things up a notch. Not every song goes there, and you make an important point about being able to play the 2 and 4 and not push the beat, but being able to control where you are relative to the groove is pretty important in my mind."
The point I make is when you're playing the black music groove and from being around a lot black pros early, they drilled that into my head and most of you reading this have probably never been around that at all. The idea of pushing is something usually done FAR more frequently with white musicians and white music bands than you'll see in a black music band. The closest to seeing a black musician pushing the groove is when you either see a black lead player playing more on top or dead on top of the beat, but yet he still plays primarily off the 2 and 4 and NEVER overplays, so you may not notice it as much, or with rhythm sections in a tune like Rudy Greene's "Juicy Fruit," where the drums are played far behind the beat and the bass, tho still behind the beat, is much closer to it.
The biggest and almost unavoidable problem with people pushing the groove is that it becomes far too easy to push to the point where you wind up speeding up like hell and totally make the groove a mess and then it makes it horribly undanceable.
At gigs I've played, I've had swing dancers who enjoyed coming to my gigs because they knew that the time, which for dancing of any kind, was always gonna be there and therefore everything they did became easier to do. Well, those who can't/don't/won't dance are usually the ones that have little or no understanding of groove and groove keeps people dancing, and playing groovelessly does NOT (unless you're gonna play to an audience of downs freaks, and by that, I mean the drugs, not downs syndrome, who basically vegitate out in the audence).
BTW, Superstition was clearly more aimed at white audiences when it was made.
Walterharp, I'll take Ringo Starr over many rock drummers like a Keith Moon because the man grooves and Keith was really more popular for his solos. With most white music bands, the way they're often recorded by major labels is to have them spend a minimum of 2 weeks EVERY day for hours doing the rhythm tracks first using a reference vocal and the drummer usually having a click track in his headphones, which is essentially a metronome, so that when it comes to the solo parts, they know for a FACT white musicians are often gonna push the groove really hard, but when they come back to the main part of the groove (where thevocals are gonna be), once recorded and you hear the playback, it usually sounds like crap, and so that's a reminder not to overdo it, just push slightly. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
