Fergie, your illustration is about the best I've seen for communicating the concept. I'm definitely going to get my friend Roland* out and start working on that kind of vocalizing, eventually adding the bass, to see how THAT feels. If you have the time/inclination, I'd love to see a video of you and a metronome that demonstrates where you're putting the "click" in relation to the syllables. I'm 95% sure I'm with you, but there's always that nagging 5%
Thanks and glad you "get" it. never worry about 5% call that the +- factor if you will of what you are allowed to work to.
To practice timing we first have to understand that it is a representation of feel, so as many are posting here about how can bass and drums be "behind the beat" at the same time, that is because it is everyones job to relate the time that plays, bass and drums do not carry the responsibility for time, they just represent it, and drums more so because of the nature of the instrument. In modern bands the job has been handed over to the bass and drums because of the number of members a band may have, some one has to do it and as bass and drums represent feel more than other instruments the job developed in to theirs. Remember in a room you can feel bass even though you may not distinguish what it is playing due to modern amplifcation.
As i said it is the count at the start, the setting up of the time that will be important because that is the reference that everyone relates to in order to displace any individual timing feels.
The BE^AT idea is to show as a visual reference to reinforce the feel. Another one to use when practicing is syncopation. But you hear syn co pa tion and more over you can say syn co pa tion. This represents the four beats of say 4/4
So you put the beat on syn of syncopation every time and you have in effect the first beat played only of every bar, you just play the note as you say the first syllable of syncopation.
This helps you feel where the note is in relation to the four syllable word of syncopation. You can obviously use every syllable to create a straight beat that fills the bar or use anyone of the four to create a pattern. The idea is not to always see timing as numbers but as a feeling.
If i take syncopation as a word as draw out certain syllables i can change the feel of it, like for example the first syllable syc.
If i extend the feel of it to ssssyn, then the copation part is a little more after the beat giving it a "shuffle" feel rather than a straight feel. So it feels as it is said, sssyn copation sssyn copation sssyn copation.
When you work on such ideas any words with syllables will do so long as the repeat in time with the beats you are working on, the idea is to use the syllables to represent the beats and timings. As the words used are the same length with the same syllables, then the timing will always be consistant. Sme times 1-2-3-4 is not always the best way to represent feel within a timing for players learning music. Sometimes it best to learn to feel then count, harness what is natural then work out why it is so.
Any work on timing is ideally done slow because once you have learned it all you do is increase the tempo. You have to work slow to give your brain a chance to internalize what it is doing, then once that has happened the tempo of it does not matter.
I come from the Classical end of music where BPM was not an issue. We use terms like Largo, Adagio, Andante, Allegro to describe music tempo. These put us in a "ball park" area for timing and they also suggest a feeling of how the music should be played. BPM is exacting, it is a target to play to, so the task of playing is become BPM not the feel. Adagio can be anwhere between 60-80 BPM giving the conductor or the piece ( it may be in a tigher field than that, but i am giving this as a reference that adagio is a feeling of time, not a target number to play to). So is you are used to playing in say the lower end of this feeling and then come across a conductor that feels it at the other end, then playing it is not a problem because you can reprsent the time, feel and any time sig change because you have internalized what needs to be done.
When working with a metronome remember to slow it down and work on 4th, 8th or 12th beat of what you play rather than using it to dictate every beat. Like Adagio, give yourself room to feel the tempo as well as play it. BPM is a modern thing in music, which although i understand the need for it, i think it tend to move a players focus of what is important.....the music.
