minor epiphany

[hdiddy]

So I've been trying to get into playing in 5/4 comfortably... mainly for soloing and never losing 1. Easier said than done.

I'm trying to be able to put in skips and jumps and open spaces in the solos without losing my place. As a newb at this stuff, it's easier to just noodle and play lots of notes so I can keep my time in check, but much harder when open spaces, dotted quarters, syncopation are added.

At some point it starts to "feel" like trying to get good intonation. On this forum, many have described the feat of intonation well by "expecting" a certain pitch to be in tune while they played. A Yoda "do or do not, there is no try" kind of thing.

I dont' know how to describe it, but in the same manner of expecting good intonation, it seems like I play much better if "expect" the downbeat. Does that make sense? It's as if I am "anticipating" that I will be correct on the downbeat, for lack of a better term. Does anybody find playing in odd meters this way (or in 4/4 for that matter)?

[neroantico]

Hi, i'm struggling too.. but i think a lot depends also about Harmonic rhythm along with groove.
to be clear: changes on the beat or upbeats?

if you look at Dave Holland " easy did it" you will find in one 7/4 bar chords on upbeats

My teacher suggests thinking in gamala-gamala-gamalataki-gamala to fit the chords

anyway...good for you, i wish i could be at your level. Knowing/feeling your place is starting point to make music instead of counting.

ciao
Giovanni

[fingers]

Puffy. I've been trying to think about how to respond to this since I read it yesterday. I have been playing with a group that does some stuff in less common meters and have been spending some time working on them. For me it needs to get to the point where I can just feel it. I think that is similar to what you are saying. 4 is so intuitive for us. Any other time signature needs to be equally comfortable.

Here's my process at least of late. I will call it the "duple/triple theory"

1) Determine the harmonic rhythm for that particular tune. Every time feel is going to have strong and weak beats so it is a matter of finding where they are in that particular tune. Usually it can be divided into 2 beat and 3 beat phrases.

2) Then walk down the street and think of that time signature as it relates to your walking. Right now your thinking "oh ****, Swami's off his rocker." Hear me out. I read a theory once that the reason we are so comfortable with duple meters is that we are bipedal. Take that theory then and extend it. Put any meter in your body.

3) After you get comfortable with this start thinking about polyrhythms. For me the ones that I focus on first are 2 against 3 and 3 against 2. For example take 5 phrased as 3 and 2 like Take 5. Then take the 3 and think of it as 2 dotted quarter notes and 2 as a quarter note triplet. Take the walking thing and try to have the quarter notes in your feet while you snap the polyrhytms.

4) Next is to think about cross-rhythms... that is the next lesson.

Gotta take my car for a brake job.

[christ andronis]

When I was younger and just starting to play, my brother, cousins and a friend of the family had a Greek band and a pretty successful one at that. The friend, who was the drummer, couldn't play 4/4 to save his life BUT ask him to play one of the Greek songs in 15/8 or 7/4 and he was all over it and I mean playing over bar lines, catching cadences, just absolutely nailing it. This always impressed me because if we played an American pop tune he would just step all over his d***. Why the facility in one genre over another? Probably because that's all he ever played so he was obviously much more comfortable with it than a 4/4 tune. That's when it becomes intuitive. There's no substitute for playing it.....alot!

[Chris Fitzgerald]

All good stuff so far. While I'm far from being an expert in soloing in odd meters, I've gotten to the point where I can accompany pretty well without fear of making a big mess. I believe that rhythmically, most music can be broken down to a game of twos and threes. If you hear the subdivision, eventually you can learn to play against it freely while still hearing the skeleton under the skin. One step at a time is what the process is all about, but the goal (for me, anyway) is to be able to "clothe" the tune/form any way I want while still being aware of the underlying structures. More later!

[Asher S]

Originally Posted by christ andronis

When I was younger and just starting to play, my brother, cousins and a friend of the family had a Greek band and a pretty successful one at that. The friend, who was the drummer, couldn't play 4/4 to save his life BUT ask him to play one of the Greek songs in 15/8 or 7/4 and he was all over it and I mean playing over bar lines, catching cadences, just absolutely nailing it. This always impressed me because if we played an American pop tune he would just step all over his d***. Why the facility in one genre over another? Probably because that's all he ever played so he was obviously much more comfortable with it than a 4/4 tune. That's when it becomes intuitive. There's no substitute for playing it.....alot!

+1

I asked Jimmy Haslip about this, seeing as the Yellowjackets have some great 5/4 tunes (Jacketown comes to mind). He said essentially that: just practice the tune a lot so that it's in your head and your hands, and then you can just feel it.

[hdiddy]

Good responses so far but let me clarify the goal: IMO, just like playing in 4/4, the ultimate goal would be to get to the point where counting would be no longer neccessary. So in that case, subdivision and playing 3 against 2 or 2 against 3 does work but you still have to be conscientious with an advanced form of counting/feel (read: it's still counting to a point). When most of us play 4/4, it's easy. The pulse is easy to find, and when you have the pulse down, it's easy to expect the next location of 1 without much thought. It's easy to subdivide in a way where it crosses the bar. In my head it feels like "one blah blabbety blah one blabberty blah blah one". There's no counting going on. I know one with confidence and authority. For me, if I continue to feel this confidence and authority nobody can really make me lose it - like when the drummer solos some crazy **** that sounds great but I have to ignore cuz I'm still doing the 4/4 dance and trying to not lose my place.

The goal would be to feel this authority in another meter. PISSEDADONIS's Greek family band drummer is proof what I'm talking about. How do we get there so that we don't have to THINK about the time and freely solo across bars while maintaining that authority?

How this came about is that in one of my class, my teach got us to play a 5 shuffle, where all the beats are equally weighted - you don't play a 3/2 feel - it comes out bluesy and in 5. It's pretty cool... and chugs along like this crazy weird machine. So then I try to go into the solo with the same idea, but it's much easier to get lost and have to play within the bar 98% of the time. I feel like the pulse is completely different, but there's sorta no subdivision pulse like in 4/4 or 3/4 (dotted quarter). The closest I've gotten is just to feel the authority and expect that my placement of the next 1 in the manner that I described. Expect it like how you expect a D on the A string to be completely in tune.

[fingers]

Absolutely. My point was thinking of all different ways you could feel the groove then get it in your body and forget about the counting. For me trying to conceive of a time feel in any way possible - groupings, polyrhythms, crossrhythms, etc - helps me put the math part out of my mind in the long run and just feel.

[Mark Perna]

Really, when you've played in 5 as long as you've played in 4, it'll be a snap to feel. When you were learning to play in 4, you went one e and a, two e and a (or whatever) until you felt it. You probably did something very similar with 3.

JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE WITH THIS INSTRUMENT AND THIS MUSIC, there aren't any short cuts to mastery. Practice, practice, practice. It's kind of frustrating really. After playing for decades, it is humbling to realize that the act of learning something new isn't that much different now than it was when you didn't know how to hold the instrument. The only real difference, is now you know how hard it is and how much work is necessary to master it.

Of course, as others have mentioned, if you want to get by while developing the feel without causing a train wreck and looking like an idiot, there are a bunch of tricks (such as subdividing) you can use.

mark

[Will Yager]

I have a much harder time soloing in different time signatures...that bit in Tell Me A Bedtime Story hangs me up almost every time.

[bigthemat]

Originally Posted by christ andronis

When I was younger and just starting to play, my brother, cousins and a friend of the family had a Greek band and a pretty successful one at that. The friend, who was the drummer, couldn't play 4/4 to save his life BUT ask him to play one of the Greek songs in 15/8 or 7/4 and he was all over it and I mean playing over bar lines, catching cadences, just absolutely nailing it. This always impressed me because if we played an American pop tune he would just step all over his d***. Why the facility in one genre over another? Probably because that's all he ever played so he was obviously much more comfortable with it than a 4/4 tune. That's when it becomes intuitive. There's no substitute for playing it.....alot!

Funny how that works. I have been playing in a gamelan ensemble (Balinese percussion group) for a while, and it is so interesting how different the concept of rhythm and meter is. It took me a little while to throw the whole "8 measures of 4/4 is a phrase" kind of thinking.

We had a family from Bali working with us a few months ago, and it was kind of funny how they would count. Because the music is based on gong cycles, gong is on the downbeat, do they would count, "Gong! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7!" The joke was 8=1

[christ andronis]

I think the gist of this thread has been to subdivide into manageable groups and hang on for dear life while you get used to it. Ultimately though, you have to internalize it and really feel how much time goes by before the next downbeat; or at least have such a keen awareness of it that you don't have to count anymore. Again, the practice is the key.

[fingers]

I just ask for a click track

[heatherbird]

I have days when it's soooo easy to play in complex meters, other days when my brain just won't do it. I blame it on being blonde. Practice improves consistency, and that kind of "falling off cliff", just letting yourself feel it. I went to Angola for a couple of years and played with some amazing people. Here in Spain, flamenco uses hugely complex rhythms that, if I thought about them and analysed them while playing, I wouldnt stand a chance. Sometimes just doing it is the way. If it goes wrong then, hey, the world doesnt end. You learn and do it better next time.

I find putting things like Mars from the Planets to 5/4 or words with the syllables you need helps. Starting slow in practice then building up. Putting rests in different parts of the bar, using space is always good if you're improvising away and get a bit lost!


The subdivision thing is really useful though. Think of it in 2/3 then 3/2 1/4 4/1, every combination till they all feel good and the way you phrase things in each mode will be so different.

[chop_1992]

Good tips all around. One that I would add is this:

Practice playing vamp phrases that rhythmically lead into a (the next) downbeat, instead of trying to get the "pattern" that starts on one.

Example: If you want to play in 5/4, play
1, rest, rest, rest 5, 5+,
1, rest, rest, rest 5, 5+,

Then:
1, rest, rest, 1/8th rest, 4+, 5, 5+,
1, rest, rest, 1/8th rest, 4+, 5, 5+,

Then
1, rest, rest, 4, 4+, 5, 5+,
1, rest, rest, 4, 4+, 5, 5+,

Then:
1, rest, 1/8th rest, 3+, 4, 4+, 5, 5+,
1, rest, 1/8th rest, 3+, 4, 4+, 5, 5+,

and so on. I have found it useful to practice playing lines that start in the middle of the bar and lead into the next downbeat.

BTW, I also agree with Fingers tip about walking around in time to odd meters . . . internalize and connect the physical feeling with the rhythm bouncing around in the brain. Good stuff.

[hdiddy]

Ahh... the master speaks of a new method! Shedding time! Thanks John.

[chop_1992]

Originally Posted by hdiddy

Ahh... the master speaks of a new method! Shedding time! Thanks John.

Well, I wouldn't say it's new, or even a method . . . but I think one problem with playing in odd meters is that we find a pattern, which we lock into faithfully—and then if we deviate from the pattern, we lose the time.

I wanted to break away from that "locked into a certain pattern" feeling, so I've tried to get comfortable in odd meters by approaching them like 4/4—learning singable (playable) melodies and phrases in 5/4, 7/4. 9/8, etc, that last 2 measures or longer.

By starting a line in the middle of a measure and playing a phrase that leads into the next downbeat, you can create the feeling of forward motion in the odd meter.

It might be helpful to play (for example) the "Take Five" groove (dotted-quarter, dotted-quarter, quarter,quarter) for two measures, then in measure three, do NOT play the downbeat, instead start an eighth-note line that leads into the downbeat of measure 4.

This might sound complciated, but it's not—just a little nerdy

If you write out the exercise above, it will be easy to conceptualize.

It's also a great one to do when you are walking down the street, alternating quarter-notes with each step. Super nerdy.

[kurt]

I like to Take a tune or progression I know inside out (like a minor blues) program it into band in a box, change the time signature to 5 or 7,swing or straight (you should do both) turn it on and play, walking soloing whatever until I forget it's in 5! I took a masters class with dave holland once and he talked about the gamalan take method quite a bit. He showed all the possible combos, for example, 5 could be gamalan take, or take gamalan. 7 could be take take gamalan, gamalan take take, or take gamalan take and so on. With this method you should be able to figure out any kind of odd time signature.

[YamBass]

I'm most of a subdivider, for instance, If I play in 5/4 I sing to myself: "A.B,C,A,B". For internalize that process, I use my car engine noises, when it starts it goes like " Ah, Tada, Tada, Ta" and I play the role of the metronome and count faster (to reach 7/4) or slower for 5/4.

[hdiddy]

I messed around with just going all the way with dotted quarters and it's close to what you're talking about John.

I started out with just 3 dotted quarters and a half note rest (or accent into the next downbeat). I don't think anyone mentioned trying it like this yet. I followed that with permutating 2 dotted quarters with 2 quarter notes, while avoiding the Take 5 rhythm. I think the thing you're pointing out is trying to figure out how to impart a different feel to the rhythm. Once that feel is repetitive, it's alot easier to lock into the 5 dance. That has always been my problem with subdivisions... it doesn't give a "dance" to the feel. Dotted quarters gives that syncopated dance to the rhythm.

Toss is some triplets and there's even more feel to it. Will have to try to cross the bar once the dance becomes more natural.

Thanks.