Now when you say scientific, just how much scientific do you want?
Are we going to work to the level you call scientific, or are we going to be properly scientific.....and if so count me in.
For starters.....sorry but if rhythm is part of it then rhythm is groove. You are playing semantics with words. If someone is called a "swinging player" or used, the term " he swings" is used for them, it means they have rhythm, or as you would have it, groove.
Maybe the reason some people cannot groove is because they do not listen to a wide and various types of music in order to pick out nuances from each that allows them to groove?
I find that when ever I work with a player with timing issues it is because they do not have a wide enough reference points is what they have learned. Rather than physically practice they need to listen and listen to wide, various different types of music. They need to internalise and find empathy with the music, if they get this, they start to feel and when they start to feel they relate to the overhaul sound they hear. Then they can pick movement out from within that sound, they hear bass instruments moving at a different sub division of the tempo, they realise within the sound there is a sound and within those sounds are different feels.....even different harmonies and may be melodies.
But you have to be taught to listen, and I order to teach it you have to be able to explain it, so that means understand it.
So can listening to Latin music improve the timing of a thrash death mental player?
Answer...yes of course it can and the reason it can is because it becomes part of what they already know, and because their timing is better, the hold the rhythm better, so define the beat better, so the play better, they can move their relationship to the beat better and stay in time, in other words they groove.
Can great jazz player who's note values and tone are great, but their time wanders find any value in listening to strict tempo music?
Answer... Yes of course it can, listening to Marching music or music made to a click with help them tighten up their playing?...but how much is needed to be listened to and how much is needed to be used is a different situation.
If you watch and study a player you learn very little, if you listen and learn their music you learn very little unless you have good reference points to relate it to.
All you can do is an impression of them, a shallow version of what are, a clone if you will. You have not learned how they thought, how they created what you have been listening to, how the idea to use and play the notes they choose, with that tone in that style.
You never see the ingredients....you have as much chance of being able to reproduce the flavours, feel, textures etc of your favourite cake by watching it.
Even if you taste it, can you cannot identify the ingredients, there quantities, the order they were use in etc to create the cake you love?
If you have never tasted ginger how can you identify it if used in the cake?
If it is a blend of ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg, to give just a hint of that combination then you will miss out adding the ginger, if you have never tasted ginger you cannot identify it.
Music is the same but even more subtle, one person playing a guitar can imply many different things in the performance of that song. Various people depending on the musical experiences they can draw on will here different things, they do not need to be heard in black and white, or defined, they can be implied, they can let the listener fill in the blanks if need be.
Any player that can do that, in any genre, with any instrument, can create a groove, can be taught to groove or taught to groove better, but the teacher has to be able to identify the problem and put it right.
To simply say someone cannot groove is mis-understanding what makes groove, so what part do you work on, their timing, their feel, their counting skills, their reading skills, their auditory skills, the technique? But what within the technique is the problem the left hand or the right hand, is it all the fingers or just one, is it the instrument, is it their tone etc?
So if anyone believes someone cannot be taught how to groove, it may be because the teacher does not understand how to approach the problem, not the students ability to learn.
So to be semantic with words, yes groove cannot be taught, but it can be learned...but to what level of playing does playing in time finish and groove start?
I don't know about that. Rap music is made with drum samples and synth basses, and I find that some of that music sounds as groovy as the best of them.
