Thoughts on tempo/rhythm/beat

Gary C. Dygert · From: Frankfort, NY, USA

I've been mulling this over, and it probably has been discussed before, but here goes: Playing with a metronome or drum machine produces perfect rhythm. Playing with real humans can involve minute variations in timing, even when the overall sound is tight. I think part of the problem with modern, mechanically precise music is that we're not hearing those tiny fluctuations in timing (that are quickly resolved), and the robotlike sound, lacking soul, leaves us cold. Comments?

------------------
No-name lap steel and reso in E6 and E7

Michael Holland · From: Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Yeah, I agree. The drum machine gets old after about three or four bars. There's nothing like the groove and dynamics of a pro drummer, but there are ways to get funkier drum tracks than the ones in your Rhythm King.

I recently bought the Drums On Demand loops package and it's $50 well spent. If you have a good, modern sequencer that uses Acidized or REX loops (and don't mind spending the time to arrange and loop the patterns), it's by far the best 'groove for the buck' to be had. CLICK HERE for info on Drums On Demand.

Groove quantizing is also a way to get more natural sequenced drum tracks. Most sequencers have a 'swing' factor along with randomize and template functions that will give sequenced tracks a more human feel. Here's a good overview of Killer Drum Grooves from Electronic Musician magazine.

------------------

Ken Lang · From: Simi Valley, Ca

If it's only the drum machine, I don't think it's a problem. The other live musicians playing around it will vary enough to keep the music interesting.

If all instruments are digital and quantized, then it becomes more mechanical.

Still I remember a drummer we had years ago who would occasionally put 5 beats in the turn around instead of 4. We had to wait one beat to come back in. Oddly enough, after a time we could feel when he was going to do it, and compensate for it.

If there had been a quantize button on his head, I would have happily pushed it.

Andy Greatrix · From: Edmonton Alberta

I've always said synthesized drum programming doesn't replace the good drummers, but it sure replaces the bad ones who think time is a magazine.
It also depends on who does the programming, which brings the human element back into the equation.

[This message was edited by Andy Greatrix on 05 December 2003 at 10:08 PM.]

[This message was edited by Andy Greatrix on 05 December 2003 at 10:09 PM.]

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

If a drummer can't keep rythym as good as your average drum machine then he has no business behind a drum set.

I've heard too many top name AND bush league bands that DID keep perfect time. I've only played with sadly a couple of them for any length of time.

In more than a hundred bands in a score of years I've played with but three or four. Locally, Dave Dixon, Marty Henninger ( on a good night), Kenny Sawyer, and Dennis Wall. Most of the rest of them needed a ride off a cliff. Bass players similarly. Jason Held, Jerry Welch, Dave Chandler, and Jimmy Thompson. Joe Dale Cleghorn too.

I've heard every excuse why a group of live people shouldn't be expected to play "perfect rythym" together. The latest one given to me by a local lamer was the "phase of the moon"..

I have played with midi drum tracks that drove me up the wall from boredom,though they were better than most of the rushing/dragging bozos that I've played with. I would think that totally recorded and well speakered Drums would be a total joy, though they;d have to include proper pushes, breaks, and accents for different parts of the song.

In order to have it "come across well" with a live situation, I've opined that you could have a session 500 in place of a drum stool behind a 7 or 9 piece set, with a scarecrow on it and the band would feel nothing but better. Nobody in the "crowd" would notice either if the "Show" was seamless.

If someone thinks "natural rushing" or dragging is "desireable" to "relieve the boredom", they need their heads examined..

So shoot me..

EJL

[This message was edited by Eric West on 06 December 2003 at 01:24 PM.]

Gene Jones · From: Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)

I've appreciated drums ever since I first heard Gene Krupa and his orchestra "blow away" the audience at the Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, service club. To this day I've never heard anything as impressive as his unbelievable 10-15 minute set under two spotlights with the band away from the bandstand!

He kept a tempo pretty good!

www.genejones.com

Larry Miller · From: Dothan AL,USA

I've done a showcase where the drummer wore headphones listening to a click track.

C Dixon · From: Duluth, GA USA

Interesting.

I have experienced the following. A drummer taps the beginning count down and after the song gets going it becomes faster. Still later a bit faster. Until at the end the song is being played much faster than it began.

Not sure what causes this. It would be wrong of me to blame anyone in particular. But I have seen and heard it many times. Thought about it a lot. I have some theories but not sure why this should be.

It would be interesting to see the results of a secret test made with a metronome beginning a song, then silenced, then brought back in at the end to see just how far a band had deviated from the original beat.

carl

[This message was edited by C Dixon on 06 December 2003 at 08:37 AM.]

Charles French · From: Ms.

"A drummer taps the beginning count down and after the song gets going it becomes faster. Still later a bit faster."

That's a lot better than getting slower!

cf

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

Mr D. Here's who you blame: The Drummer.

It is part of a syndrome called "The Band is Stupid so I will be too".

You stop him right there and ask him what it is about the tempo you or whomever just tapped. Then you ask him why he started it off differently. When he says " Well the band always speeds up." You say that maybe "the whole band needs to go home." There's no excuse for this not being solved. Let go, there's finally NO reason to "click anything off at ANY tempo".

Often these two things happen that start "syndromes" One is that a bass or guitar player thinks that a song is "too slow" and spends every ounce of energy "pushing it". After that nobody seems to collectively know "for sure" and they deserve to be a crappy band.

The worst failing I've seen in bass players is that they will not rest unless the song, no matter what it is, and at what tempo it starts out at is at a different tempo at the end. Faster or slower, it's a tossup.

Another is when it's "solo time" the drummer will "pick it up" "because the guitar player "always rushes". Then YOU, a player that NEVER rushes, must "rush" to "keep up".

Then when you let it be known that you DON'T RUSH, you'll find the drummer actually "dragging" whenever you play. They do this to "teach you a lesson". You'll find it out especially the first time you try to play Sleepwalk, and the whole band gets in on it and drags you back to the stone age. That's about the time you take them into the back romm and tell them in a very loud tone that they're pulling "BS" on you that you're not going to take if they EVER want to hear you do another instrumental. You'll find that if you tell them forcefully enough, that things will straigten out "magically". Do it enough times and you'll get fired... but only from bands that you'e better off without.

The majority of drummers I have worked with started out "knowing what tempo is" but have played with so many hack band that they gave up, and FINALLY they REALLY don't know themselves.

Bass players succumb to the myriad bugaboos and end up saying that they can't "feel the groove".THese chronic "listeners" are expecially iritating because instead of "feeling their own note" they most bend it imperceptably on a regular basis to "move it off of yours" so they "make sure" they are "playing along".

A "Listening Bass Player" is tormenting because he must often actualy play "ahead" of his note to have it blossom at the correct time", and since he's a "listening bass player" he'll always be "dragging". THEN on FAST STUFF you'l find he;ll just "rush" because he knows that he usually drags..

( confused yet?). They mistake "confusion" for "it not being their fault" when the band is adequately confused. Then they just try to "listen harder", or get an "in ear" monitor.

THEN there are those that are "good followers". Typically they have weak handshakes, have many "ex wives" and paid hundred s of thousands of bucks in child support for kids they were not "committal" enough to raise.. ( or they never even tried or paid..). Some of them are pretty sharp.

They make sure they have LOUD monitors, and sometimes play along REAL GOOD. Especially at Concerts. Sometimes not so well..

Either way, these "good followers" will latch on to a lead player with a good rythym sense, and bleed him/her to death. Oh it will "sound good" but they're musical (and spiritual) parisites.

They remind me of fiddle players that "follow vocals" and end up playing EVERYTHING in the "closed position" and are ALWAYS out of tune with the keyboard and a "good steel player".

Best case?

A drummer with better rythym sense than any one in the band. With a band of people that are willing to "communicate" and SUPPORT TRUE TEMPO.

Bands like that ARE out here. Very few "top name" bands allow themselves to degenerate. There are even critter club bands that are that way. Happy. Secure. Mature. Playing with them at ANY volume is a non tiring, elating, experience.

THere's NO excuse for a band changing tempo.

None.

I recently told a young Filipino man I worked with who is a genius at picking things up, after asking him if HE heard the tempo changes in all the songs, and he answered affirmatively, " No Matter what "they" tell you, it's BS. If it doesn't sound right, then it AIN'T. NEVER forget that."

When you as a "sideman" start believing their excuses, you're a worse hack than they are. I hope the kid follows my advice. (Especially what I told him about basing your foundation on a "day job".)

The TEST is to take a young person, even one that's 8-10 years old, play him a recording of a band, and ask him or her whether a song is going faster or slower.

Nine times out of Ten, or better, they'll give you the correct answer. Even is they don't play an onstrument themselves.

Childlike Simplicity: Destroyer of Decadent Empires.

Try it.

All the "excuses" and "reasons" for crappy rythym will melt away.

"Fluxes in the Earth's magnetic field", or "'speed parallax' from the earth's rotation during night time hours", and "gravitational flux at equinoxes" are among the most interesting one's I've heard lately.

They seem only to work though, in the adult mind. Maybe that's why I'm not as susceptable.....

It's only "confusing" when you accept excuses for what you know is not right.

EJL

[This message was edited by Eric West on 06 December 2003 at 03:31 PM.]

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

Eric, are you being paid by the word?

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

No, your faithful and painstaking readership is what makes it all worthwhile. I wouldn't take a dime for it. I would consider a hefty subsidy or "depletion allowance".

(No comments from the peanut gallery heeheheee...)

( That's 1,984,380.25 )

Not including the b0b/Sierra vs Mean Old Eric trial.....

Nap, gig, etc. ad inf.

EJL

PS. Just cause I write it, doesn't mean that I read it..

Roger Rettig · From: Naples, FL

I find it almost beyond comprehension that someone with little or no sense of time would think of taking up drums - yet it happens all too frequently. If these people absolutely MUST play an instrument, then they should choose one that doesn't inflict so much chaos....

In my old band (Hogan's Heroes), I recall our drummer, Peter Baron, voicing an opinion about a chord-change we were all discussing - he was summarily silenced when our bass-player told him, 'You just keep digging that hole, and leave the brain-surgery to us!'

This anecdote is really just to illustrate the fact that, in my old musical community (the UK), it's the drummer who's the butt of all the 'banjo-type' gibes that I hear of on this Forum; this case was actually quite unfair - Peter Baron (as I'm sure that Buddy Emmons, Russ Hicks and Herby Wallace will attest) is that rare contradiction-in-terms, a 'musical' drummer; it's a testament to his ability that we'd poke gentle fun at him.....

I still say that there are more bad drummers than any other instrumentalists - or does it just seem like that because they wreak such havoc?

RR

PS: Edited for serious comment

.....

Gary C. Dygert · From: Frankfort, NY, USA

I once played with a drummer that couldn't play a slow song. I've also played with a drummer that could pull an out-of-step musician back on beat without that musician knowing it. And then there are those drummers who think the drum is a lead instrument.

------------------
No-name lap steel and reso in E6 and E7

Tom Olson · From: Spokane, WA

Rhythmic Hand Clapping -- this seems to sound best when you actually use a bunch of people clapping their hands (as opposed to one of those wooden "clappers" or some type of machine-generated clapping).

I think it's because natural clapping has a slight irregular variance to it that makes it sound good. That is, with a group of people not everyone is going to clap precisely on beat every time.

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

Some people clap "out of time"?..

Yup there are potential "drummers" in every crowd......

EJL

Tom Olson · From: Spokane, WA

Yep -- I'll bet anything you can't even clap precisely on beat in time. Are you a potential drummer?

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

How do you know a drummer is knocking on your door?
It keeps getting faster.

Many drummers try to keep time based on excitment level. This not correct, a great drummer can double or even triple up the time to create excitment, and yet the tempo remains constant.

There ARE times when a floating meter is cool,
but they are not typical in pop and rock music.

Good time keeping is important for the bass player, because he can then put expression and dynamics and a certain "lilt" into the music with relative freedom. A good drummer should be able to join him in this yet the time is still smooth. IMHO.

My prefered drummer here can say ANYTHING he wants about chords or arranging ideas, I encourge him to do so.
Why? because he can sight read Coltrain while singing it in sulfege and put the groove in it 1st read through, He plays 5 other instruments in 20+ styles spanning 500 years of music,
and has never had a bad idea since I met him.

He is a rare exception ; Jean-Luc Imbert.

I have played a few gigs with the late great Alan Dawson, former head and creator of Berklee's percusion dept.
Another man who could keep the groove stone cold straight, yet change time signatures or play multiple time signatures on top of it at will, and with exceptional taste.
Again, oh so rare. Nice gentleman too.

If you ain't got a solid drummer the band will go nowhere, because it will never be tight.

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

Tom. Actually you are right, as I've tested myself on Cuebase a few times.. Best I can do is a couple .01s on a regular basis. I can keep it with one beat per minute at around 150bpm consistently. Rarely am I not able to remember the specific "record" tempo of any given song that I'm familiar with. ALso I haver a particularly good facility for some reason to remember "the tempo" the last time a band played a song at within a month or so. Why? I dunno. I've only got "acquired" pitch capability. Some people can't remember what they did yesterday but can memorize phone books.

As many of them as I've run off I'd like to try drumming and if I couldn't "keep a beat" better than a hundred of them that come to my mind I'd shoot myself.... I do play bass quite well in a pinch and have many times with no complaints.

A local Bandleader, Monty Moss and I would joke about which one of us was going to be "the drums" and which one was going to be "the bass" in configurations where the rythym section couldn't "do it".

Thing is, like any other successful group effort, some groups tend to support each other, and add their support to a drummer that has the BEST rythym sense. Some just tend to "give up" and all get drunk enough that they just don't care.

I find that being in a hundred or more bands and after being fired from ONE, ( for my attitude) has been a good opportunity to observe group dynamics relative to a number of things inluding "group rythym".

Some people, including bandleaders, have only been in a couple, and seem to think that "they're all 'that way'".

One drummer that I mentioned, Kenny Sawyer, a local top rate one is a master of subtle persuasion. He reminds me of a drummer Roger Miller used to have in the 80s whose name I forget. Playing with his rythym was like laying on a nice firm but soft matress. He didn't play loud, but he didn't move because of "what he thought he was hearing". It's a lot like being a "hypnotist" I think, (and it works better on people that aren't hammered.)

If what you're getting at is that "NOBODY has a perfect rythym sense", and therefore NOBODY has a "right" to object to a particular rythym section' lack of ability to maintain credible tempo..

You've got lots of company.

Notably missing will be people in good bands.

Your results like your experiences may indeed vary.

If you are expressing your disagreement, you are in good company. Not to worry

b0b himself rarely agrees with me, so there you have it

EJL

[This message was edited by Eric West on 07 December 2003 at 03:28 PM.]

Roger Rettig · From: Naples, FL

David L.

I hope it's apparent that my tale about Pete Baron was meant light-heartedly - it DID happen, but was not meant as a serious 'put down'.

Peter is one of the best musicians I know, and constantly explores harmonic theory on his piano at home. We had a pretty good band for a while....

RR

Bengt Erlandsen · From: Brekstad, NORWAY

One thing that applies to playing rythm on a regular 6 string is moving the right hand in a circle with the center of the circle being mid between 3rd & 4th string. This will produce straight 8thnotes of rythm. Moving the center of the circle down towards the 1st string (still keeping the same speed circling) will start to "swing" the 8th notes until you reach dotted 8th notes. Moving the center of the circle even further down will evwntually give two 16th notes followed by a quarter note rest.

Also I have noticed if one hasnt a inner sense of where the 1 is either by tapping the foot or something else that give you a sense of where the 1 is. It will be very hard to play backbeat beacause it will start to find its way to where the 1 is by itself. It is also much harder to know/control if you are playing a little ahead or behind the beat which is sometimes required to make a song really groove.

Bengt Erlandsen

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

In most of the bands that I've played in, if I kick the song, I do the count and set the tempo! I think letting the drummer "click-start" every song leads to a lot of problems (especially if he ain't a great drummer).

Tom Olson · From: Spokane, WA

Actually, I think Gary in his original post is really on to something. Since I read it, I've really been trying to listen to different songs in regard to detecting rythmic "variations" or whatever you want to call them.

For example, I listened to two different versions of Merle Haggard doing "Mama Tried" The later one was recorded in the 90's and I listened to that one first. It sounded pretty good. The band was absolutely right on -- as tight as could be. Those guys were absolute professionals to the core. Still, the song seemed to lack some kind of "spark" or something that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Then I listened to the early verson of the same song which I think was recorded in 1966 or thereabouts. I actually noticed something right off -- The bass and guitar were actually off from each other and from the drums as far as timing. Not much, mind you, but enough to tell.

But the real funny thing is how the early version absolutely kicks the later version squarely in the pants as far as having that "something" that makes you want to yell "go get 'em Merle!!" I don't know if the "timing variation" or whatever you call it is the reason, but it could be.

Then, I happened to turn on the local "oldies" radio station and they started playing an old Beatles recording from the mid -60's (I can't for the life of me remember which one it was, but it was one of my favorites). I remember thinking, "DANG that sounds good!!" then I started listening to the "beat." Sure enough, the bass, guitar, and drums were slightly "off-beat." Sure sounded good though.

Orville Johnson · From: Seattle, Washington, USA

bitch, bitch, bitch! gentlemen, keeping good time in a band is everyone's job, not just the drummer. and i'll bet the percentage of lame steel playing in the world is every bit the equal of lame drumming out there.

metronomic time is a good thing. all players should strive for good time. i'm a fanatic about playing good time but i'm even more fanatic about the music having some life and vibe. the fact is that, in a musical sense, there are times when tempo fluctuations, like a bit of rushing toward the end of a rockin' number can add some excitement to a tune. listen to some old rolling stones records. playing music is not the same thing as playing like a metronome.

so why not start a thread called "bitching about crummy musicians i've chosen to play with" instead of hijacking a thread that started with a legitimate question?

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

When the band has two drummers and the tempo slows down, how can you tell who's to blame? It's confusing! Since we added a second drummer, I don't know who to yell at...

------------------

Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (Emaj9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (C6add9),
Sierra Laptop 8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6),
Roland Handsonic, Line 6 Variax

[This message was edited by Bobby Lee on 10 December 2003 at 04:17 PM.]

Forum Index > Music	Goto page 1, 2 Next	Next oldest topic :: Next newest topic