Really slow tempos

[Ed Fuqua]

Originally Posted by Mike Arnopol

There are many guys (probably like yourself) that had more natural gifts...

If only! I should send you some recordings of me when I was younger, somebody should have nailed a metronome to my forehead.

[Steve Killingsworth]

Well, I've practiced with the kiddies several times and it has been an experience! I now understand the concept of a rushing drummer! Still, all in all it has been a fun experience.

I appreciate all the comments and advice. I took Ed's advice about focusing on the melody and suddenly everything fell into place. The timing took care of itself and I found it was much easier to add a few harmonic fills. My walking on the fast tunes seems more relaxed as well.

This just reminded me how important it is for me to stretch outside my comfort zone.

[bofferman]

Several years ago I was playing a regular Sat night trio gig with a pianist (who had studied w/Lennie Tristano), and swung like a wrecking ball. Including dead slow ballads - where he teased the beat before/after/sideways...

One night I got so much into listening to him, that I lost my clock and suddenly realized that I'd begun accelerating. I looked at the drummer (best I've ever worked with), and he said... "The F word Bob, the F word".

"What do you mean", I asked.

"Focus", he replied.

We've mouthed those words to each other many times in subsequent situations, and still get a charge out of it.

And it helps...

[Mike Arnopol]

OK, I should listen to my own spiel. I was playing a gig with Patricia Barber as a duo this week. She was calling a lot of tunes arranged for quartet and it was fun and challenging. For an encore she called Light My Fire which we do as a quartet a lot but never as a duo. The metronome marking on the sucker is a negative number, I think. (really slow) Kindof took me by surprise.and boy did I suck. I finally said to myself "dummy, subdivisions " started feeling the 16ths and life was good. As was talked about earlier, this process gets internalized as it usually is for me, but sometime you need to pull it out when your own s%&t gets rocky.

[ThomsonKneeland]

Originally Posted by Mike Arnopol

Yeah, you can't concentrate on counting when you're performing. but for practicing it's a good idea. Slow tempos are often much more difficult that fast tempos because in fast tempos the tempo aligns easily with your internal clock. There's no way you're going to feel 1 2 3 4 at 55bpm. You have to feel the subdivisions. The slower the tempo, the smaller subdivisions. It might help initially to have your metronome set at the 16th notes. You'll find it much easier to line up consistantly with the 16ths. When you're comfortable with the 16ths, set the metronome for 8th notes. Try to hear the 16th note subdivisions underneath. This is all totally unnatural and unmusical at first. When you have the 16th notes comfortably internalized with the metronome on 8th notes, change it to quarter notes. At the same time still feeling the 16th note subdivisions. Once you've got that down, if your metronome goes slow enough set it to half notes. Once you have the subdivisions internalized this will all become natural and you won't have to think about it.

but at certain slow ballad tempos, the overall subdivision can become 16th notes. All depends on who you're playing with. Check out some of Brad Mehldau's torturously slow ballads like "Blame it on my Youth"...regardless of what you think aesthetically, the group revolves around a 16th note subdivision and is quite tight about the whole affair.

[ClassicRock55]

First, I want to say that as a very novice player, this thread is a pure goldmine. I've always greatly enjoyed reading all of your input. As soon as I am done writing this, I am going to get on my bass and practice. One of the hardest things for me at this point is where I am envisioning a song at a slow tempo or a certain feel and someone up on the stand with me calls out something different. For example, my pianist called out Summertime and wanted to do it with a light funk feel. I just wasn't getting the feel down well. "My One and Only Love" is one of my favorite ballads, and I like to take it really slow, which we usually do. At a gig last weekend, the drummer counted it off faster than usual (maybe about 20 or 25 BPM faster) to see how the different feel jived. I just wasn't providing the support the band needs because of the different feel. I am trying to learn how to be less rigid and more open with tunes so when someone calls a familiar tune out but wants to do it in a different style than what I usually play it in I can hold down my end of the stick. I just think it boils down to my own rigidness and lack of vision, which is critical to being a succesful musician. Earlier in this thread, I believe Mike Arnopol said that musicians expecting metronomic time shouldn't plan on having a career for long. I'm trying hard to get away from being that type of a musician.

[Ed Fuqua]

I would suggest that you stop thinking in terms like "metronomic" and "non-metronomic" and start listening to the music that you are playing and the people you are playing it with.

We all have the experience of hearing stuff differently from other cats, but being on the stand and in the moment, you have to STOP trying to play to a model in your head and actually try to interact with what is happening around you.

As someone so eloquently put it "don't let your desire to make something happen interfere with what is ACTUALLY HAPPENING..."

[ZonGuy]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

I would suggest that you stop thinking in terms like "metronomic" and "non-metronomic" and start listening to the music that you are playing and the people you are playing it with.

We all have the experience of hearing stuff differently from other cats, but being on the stand and in the moment, you have to STOP trying to play to a model in your head and actually try to interact with what is happening around you.

As someone so eloquently put it "don't let your desire to make something happen interfere with what is ACTUALLY HAPPENING..."

Before you do anything else, master the metronome and internal counting first at qtr notes, then 16ths.

1 e & ah, 2 e & ah, 3 e & ah, 4 e & ah

Once you have that under your belt (and it may take years to really get there and groove on 16ths), you are competent to go off the metronome.

May I suggest transciptions of electric player James Jamerson and Jaco as the best source for learning the 16th goove, Unfortunately, they are both slab players. I have always suspected Dave Holland as a syncopated 16th thinker although he parses the notes.

[Mike Arnopol]

Good points, Ed. Metronomes are for practicing. As I tell students, time is an agreement between players. It's a living,breathing thing. Metronomes are like lifting weights for a fighter. They are for solidifying and strengthening your inner time. Weights strengthen the fighter's muscles. Once the fighter enters the ring, all of the training tools are meaningless. Trying to impose a metronomic sensibility on the bandstand means that you're not part of the group agreement (time). If your time and feel are not based on listening and responding to everyone in the group the groove is gone. When your on the bandstand, feel trumps time any day of the week.