Groove improve

[brhodeswickett]

I've been playing for about 10 yrs now, and have a pretty good groove overall, but i notice I still tend to rush certain grooves and parts. I've been practicing all the ways I've read about, but wanted to make sure I'm doing the most productive practices or if anyone has timing tips they can send my way.

My timing/groove regimen consists of playing quarter notes at 40 bpm, recording myself and listening to it. I do this for about 20 min a day. I play songs with a great groove with my met at that speed as well. And I play along with recordings of songs to get the feel and form down.

I work with a metronome a lot, but I'm still pushing the beat. I'd love any and all advice!!!

Thanks!

Ben

[Matthijs]

One thing that helped me is not just practising against a metronome but alternating pushing, being exact in time and dragging and at alternating speeds. You should not concentrate on un-learning psuhing, but focus at getting control over different timings. Also playing different styles of music helps you develop a better ear for timing.

[il luca]

Hi, I have the same little problem on some funky tunes.
The advice of my teacher is that I have to work with this
exercise.
(I try to explain it english isn't my language )

You have to need of: metronome, your voice, bass and a solfegge
book (for the first time and after a bass lines)

Metronome: 60 bpm
First ex. of solfegge book
You have to say TA on the sound of metronome, after a few
warm up with only Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta's voice and metronome you
add a bass line but you must say TA only on the quarters, you don't
sing the bass line with voice, for this there is a Bass!

This is the base exercise, after a week you can use a "true" bass line (ex. Teen town, always at 60/65 bpm)
and you do it with the same method.
remember TA only on the quarters!!
you can start with quarters and after you can use a half time (2 - 4 or 1 - 3), you can play swing bass line ect.
With this exercise I am seeing improvements in my groove!
My advice is work with funky bass lines, because is difficult do it when there are a lot of little pauses

I hope to have it explained well!

[Chrispurchase]

have you tried putting the click in different places ie putting it on the 2 & 4 or on the & of the beat? i found that this helped me a lot as i was often relying on the metronome rather than my own sense of time

[tharv]

I've seen great improvements by setting the metronome to half of the desired tempo, and counting the click as 2 & 4. This seems to help the feel as there's no 1 provided for you....

[cnltb]

I think the metronome can really help.
Record yourself whilst playing.

More importantly though and easy to forget...breathe normaly whilst playing.

[BassChuck]

Originally Posted by Chrispurchase

have you tried putting the click in different places ie putting it on the 2 & 4 or on the & of the beat? i found that this helped me a lot as i was often relying on the metronome rather than my own sense of time

This is a great idea and really helped me a lot. Try not to use the metromone as a crutch but as a reference. There is a Victor Wooten vid on this somewhere and he has a student play a groove to the metromone (or drum machine, I think). He has the student continue to play while he cuts off the machine and then turns it back on a measure or two later. This is and many variations of this kind of thing really work. BUT, it takes a while to build that 'inner clock'. Keep working and be as patient with yourself as you would be with a loved one.

[mambo4]

Can you read rhythm?

sometimes rushing comes from not really understanding the exact rhythmic breakdown of the figure you are playing :
Am I anticipating the next downbeat by an eight note? a sixteenth note? Or am I just winging it?

My experience has been that the sloppiness that results form "just winging it"
can be efficiently cleaned up by scrutinizing the notation, even tho I am by no means a fluent reader.
There's really no substitute for knowing exactly where each note falls in relation to the beat.