It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
ISBN Located:
Only £50 from Amazon.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
First of all, I have to say that I don't think there's any real substitute for working with a metronome (or a click of some kind) - the unforgiving nature is very revealing of all your flaws and rhythmic quirks - and, although I rarely use my metronome now, I did spend many hours practice with that infuriating click click click back-in-the -day.
Developing a good sense of rhythm is about internalising a strong sense of metronomic pulse. Our perception of time subjectively changes due to various factors (adrenaline, mood, frustration, etc.) - we need some kind of objective external reference in order to become aware of this, either a mechanical (or, nowadays, electronic) device or by, for example, playing along with a more experienced teacher - we have a natural facility to entrain rhythmically with others. This is how traditional african drumming rhythms are taught.
But, and this is especially true with guitarists I feel, it's easy to slip into a mode of playing where you are just tagging along with a strongly expressed rhythm (the drummer - this is why they have to learn to play in time. Sadly, they rarely do!). Developing good timing (and, by extension, good phrasing) requires you to develop a feel for where the pulse is and also where the notes you play lie in relation to that pulse. It's not actually desirable to play absolutely metronomically - that just sounds like a machine - but it is desirable to have a strong sense of that metronomic pulse and, importantly, share and communicate that sense of metronomic pulse with the other musicians you're playing with. In other words, the beat becomes something collectively established by the group rather than something established by the player with the biggest, loudest, most percussively dominant instrument (yes, drummers, that's you) and slavishly followed (or chased) by everybody else.
So, metronomes and loopers.
With a metronome, it's still incumbent upon the player to develop an awareness of where, relative to the pulse, you are pushing and pulling the beat. Not to simply 'tag along' unconsciously but to become consciously aware of where the pulse is (the click of the metronome) and where the note is (that you're playing on the guitar). That takes a certain amount of objectivity that can be at odds with the immersive subjectivity that often accompanies playing the guitar. Maybe this has something to do with why playing to a metronome can be so annoying?
Playing with a looper (and also with a rhythmic delay, á la Steve Hillage) gives you an immediate feedback of your timing. It's a really common experience when learning to use a looper that the looper switching is malfunctioning in some way - that there's some kind of latency or error in the switching. (I've just started a new ambient project with three synchronised loopers. Both of the other guys are new to looping - both have problems timing the loop accurately, both have experienced the 'but I'm sure I got it right that time' moment over and over again). It is very common to discover that where we think we are playing a note (or operating a pedal switch) and where we actually are playing that note, are not the same. Loopers are utterly unforgiving in this.
Another advantage with loopers is that it can give you immediate feedback on your phrasing timing. As you overlay layers on a loop, if your timing is poor your funky groove will quickly turn into a leaden plod. As that man Steve Hillage once pointed out, groove is all a matter of micro-timings ahead of or behind the beat. It is very difficult to address these factors analytically - using a looper allows you to develop a feel for how to play one part relative to another in order to establish a groove.
It soon becomes apparent that a killer groove is not about everybody playing everything at exactly the same time, bang on some metronomically accurate rhythm. It's about everybody playing in and around the beat, subtly pushing and pulling while, at the same time, sharing and communicating a sense of that metronomically accurate pulse between themselves.
Or so I reckon. I should shut up now, I think.
Yes, DAWs can be intimidating and complex, but if you're just looking to start, adding a drum groove onto a track is very simple.
My music:- https://soundcloud.com/hubobulous
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
Timing of a whole band is about feel, sometimes it slows up a bit sometimes it speeds up a bit, is that a crime? Well apart from Hendrix