Also try a lightly muted noted. The muting is useful anyway to play clean spaces between the notes.
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Any tips on playing the up-beat?
- Thread starter Rich Gags
- Start date
Muting is underestimated. I spent a lot of time learning how to mute. In the end it became second nature and certainly pays off.
This. Excluding 1st beat, (when 1/8th notes are tied together), tap your foot to the beat, play when your foot comes up. That will give you the off-beat.
Afro Cuban music pretty much solidified my ability to hear 8th note syncopation
Put the bass down and tap the rhythm looking at the music
Internalize it. Clap it out at the bus stop or in line at the grocery store: one hand does 4/4 one hand does the rhythm. Or sing the rhythm while clapping the metronome. You need to build awareness of both the 4/4 pulse and the rhythm on top of it, and understand the gaps and alignments in between them intuitively.
When you feel you really understand it , then pick up the bass and worry about pitch
Put the bass down and tap the rhythm looking at the music
Internalize it. Clap it out at the bus stop or in line at the grocery store: one hand does 4/4 one hand does the rhythm. Or sing the rhythm while clapping the metronome. You need to build awareness of both the 4/4 pulse and the rhythm on top of it, and understand the gaps and alignments in between them intuitively.
When you feel you really understand it , then pick up the bass and worry about pitch
- May 30, 2000
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Grab a metronome and pick a speed where you can play the line perfectly, keep increasing the speed until you're at playing tempo.
This was how I learned to feel up beats. Playing along with the bass drum in this tune is a great exercise for this.
This is probably what really needs to happen. Seems like OP understands the theory, they just need learn to feel it.
For the sake of learning to play it, without other musicians around, try counting it in 8 eighth beats instead of 4 quarter beats. So count every 8th beat (so in the example of bar number 5 from your pics, every single note and rest) as though it is an increasing number, from 1 through 8, through each measure.
Let's talk about bar 5 only for now:
so rather than playing ONE AND (2) AND (3) AND (4) AND, you will play on ONE (2) (3) FOUR (5) SIX (7) EIGHT. (you play on each of the capitalized words, the words/numbers in parenthesis are the rests).
Then, once you have that worked out and can play evenly where you are supposed to, change the WORDS from "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8", to "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and". The beat, tempo, everything is exactly the same, but the words you say (or think in your head) are different, but at the same places.
1 becomes 1
2 becomes and
3 becomes 2
4 becomes and
5 becomes 3
6 becomes and
7 becomes 4
8 becomes and
by that time, if you can still play it well, you are now reading it correctly and counting it correctly in a language other musicians (should...) understand.
I hope that helps!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The other critical rule for learning how to play an instrument is to never play it faster than you can play it perfectly.
Play it as slowly as you must to accomplish it perfectly. Then do it 9 more times perfectly.
If you cannot repeat it reliably, slow down more. Trust me.... you are teaching your subconscious brain how to play it perfectly by repeatedly doing it perfectly, and then the next day it'll be a bit easier, and so on, until you can play it faster reliably. Every time you mess it up, even if your higher reasoning lets you solve it and fix it, you have taught your subconscious brain how to play it wrong, not right.
For playing this rhythm, and for playing anything that is complex to any musician the first time, we must slow it down so we can play it flawlessly over and over. It's how all of the greatest players got to be so great.
Let's talk about bar 5 only for now:
so rather than playing ONE AND (2) AND (3) AND (4) AND, you will play on ONE (2) (3) FOUR (5) SIX (7) EIGHT. (you play on each of the capitalized words, the words/numbers in parenthesis are the rests).
Then, once you have that worked out and can play evenly where you are supposed to, change the WORDS from "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8", to "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and". The beat, tempo, everything is exactly the same, but the words you say (or think in your head) are different, but at the same places.
1 becomes 1
2 becomes and
3 becomes 2
4 becomes and
5 becomes 3
6 becomes and
7 becomes 4
8 becomes and
by that time, if you can still play it well, you are now reading it correctly and counting it correctly in a language other musicians (should...) understand.
I hope that helps!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The other critical rule for learning how to play an instrument is to never play it faster than you can play it perfectly.
Play it as slowly as you must to accomplish it perfectly. Then do it 9 more times perfectly.
If you cannot repeat it reliably, slow down more. Trust me.... you are teaching your subconscious brain how to play it perfectly by repeatedly doing it perfectly, and then the next day it'll be a bit easier, and so on, until you can play it faster reliably. Every time you mess it up, even if your higher reasoning lets you solve it and fix it, you have taught your subconscious brain how to play it wrong, not right.
For playing this rhythm, and for playing anything that is complex to any musician the first time, we must slow it down so we can play it flawlessly over and over. It's how all of the greatest players got to be so great.
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Interesting. I'm not a foot-tapper -- it doesn't come naturally to me so trying to do so winds up being a distraction rather than an aid -- but I really enjoy playing with a pick using the Carol Kaye method: I love the physical motion of downstrokes on downbeats and upstrokes on upbeats. I haven't tried, but I suspect that I could play the line in the OP more easily with a pick than without one. (This doesn't really translate to fingerstyle, though: e.g., index finger for downbeats and middle finger for upbeats, or vice-versa.)
Do you ever clap along with a song? Typically you clap on the 2 and the 4. It's a bit like playing on the 2 and 4, although that's not really the way its' written., If you count the beats as "1 and, 2 and, 3 and, 4 and" and just play on the "and" whenever the 1/8th rest is on the beat in front of it you will be fine.
You should find a teacher to study with.
Until then, first play it and count. Make sure you know what beat you’re on. It sounds like you already understand this. You can also write in the beat/counting.
Next, start practicing it with a metronome. You’ll have it down in no time with this method.
Until then, first play it and count. Make sure you know what beat you’re on. It sounds like you already understand this. You can also write in the beat/counting.
Next, start practicing it with a metronome. You’ll have it down in no time with this method.
Reminds me of when I first was exposed to reggae. I thought "what the f***?!?!?". Then I was determined to get a handle on that "one drop" and 3rd beat accent. You can do this! Lots of great tips in this thread. Keep at it!
BBB
BBB
Lots of good advice in this thread already, but I'll just add this:
I started on upright in MS jazz band and learned to play electric bass fingerstyle too but this is one of those things that (IMO) is much easier to learn and internalize if you play with a pick.
it means you have to have pretty good competency with just keeping a steady strum (that itself requires a lot of work, ideally with a metronome) but then it become very easy to just hit notes on the up pick.
Once that's second nature it's much easier (again IMO) to transfer it to playing with your fingers.
I started on upright in MS jazz band and learned to play electric bass fingerstyle too but this is one of those things that (IMO) is much easier to learn and internalize if you play with a pick.
it means you have to have pretty good competency with just keeping a steady strum (that itself requires a lot of work, ideally with a metronome) but then it become very easy to just hit notes on the up pick.
Once that's second nature it's much easier (again IMO) to transfer it to playing with your fingers.
JazznFunk
Supporting Member
Set a metronome to play 8th notes and emphasize the 2nd 8th note if possible in the 'ding' or click. Only play the 2nd 8th note in each beat. (one AND two AND three AND....) Once you get comfortable with that, switch it to just quarter notes and practice playing off the beat, going for that 2nd 8th note. Keep the tempos slower till you can play it without feeling like you're 'hunting' for it, and you're getting a groove.
I jumped into my DAW really quickly and set up a click at 124bpm like the sheet you posted. Hope this helps. (although I just realized I played an F natural instead of an 'E' in bar 7 as notated. Close enough for rhythmic purposes!).
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I jumped into my DAW really quickly and set up a click at 124bpm like the sheet you posted. Hope this helps. (although I just realized I played an F natural instead of an 'E' in bar 7 as notated. Close enough for rhythmic purposes!).
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