• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

How to feel the groove/beats?

B

biscuitz

Dec 26, 2013
16
4
#1
Hi TBers!

I have played bass for 2 years and still feel like knowing nothing about bass playing, in particular, not knowing how to groove. My goal, or my attitude as a bass player, is to make everybody in the band sound better with my playing. I don't plan to be a professional musician, but I want to be a competent bass player.

I took time practice scales/arpeggios/time keeping/rhythm/transcription/read...etc. Before a gig, I will listen to the tunes I'm going to play, and mimick the original bassline, at best effort. However, if it's just a free jam, or songs that I've never heard, I'm doomed and don't know what to play with the band. I saw experienced players can groove with the band even they didn't heard the tune before or in a free jam. I asked them how to achieve that and the answer I got is to listen and feel the beat/groove! And they can't further explain it. I knew an intermediate guitar player that strum guitar without memorizing strumming patterns. He just worked hard to nail 16th beat subdivisions down and then accent/miss out certain beats. I found his playing is very groovy. So I asked how does he decide which beat to accent/miss out, I got the same answer: to listen and feel the beat/groove.

What exactly does it mean by "feel the groove"? How can I develop such ability? I feel like I've missed something important in my current learning approach.
 
#3
biscuitz said:
Hi TBers!....... What exactly does it mean by "feel the groove"? How can I develop such ability? I feel like I've missed something important in my current learning approach.
Click to expand...
Know where you are coming from; way back when the old guys answered this question with feel it. If I could feel it I would not be asking the question. So here is my two cents.

In a nut shell when you feel the groove your head starts moving. Some part of your body starts keeping time with the groove. OK how does that happen? The groove - to me - is the beat of the drummer's kick drum. Right at first I had trouble finding that beat in the mix of ever thing else going on in the song. When I do lock in with the drummer's kick drum and my bass line matches his beat pattern I start to groove.

The notes in my bass line are secondary. You can groove just roots to the beat. You talked about the rhythm guitar guys matching the beat with their strum. I also play rhythm guitar and I have three to four strum patterns that I have put into muscle memory and now days they "just come out as I feel they are needed". We do not have a drummer in the band I play rhythm guitar for. When that happens I become the beat master and I furnish the groove - pattern. My point, there has to be a beat pattern that repeats through out the song. Once established everyone locks on that beat...... And the groove develops from that. You have to listen for it - pick it out - from all the other stuff that is happening in the song.

My point; If everybody is just doing their thing and not focusing on the beat - rhythm of the song- the groove will never develop. I focus on the drummer's kick drum pattern and in doing that I feel the beat of the song. As the beat develops it turns into "the groove".

OK that is fine if you have a drummer. Yep, I hate it when the drummer does not show up and I have to be the beat master. Where or who do you lock in with if the drummer does not show up? I lock with the lead vocalist and sing the song with him/her under my breath. Most lyric words take one note (beat) per lyric word syllable; hap-py gets two beats, as would birth-day.

I feel the groove by locking with the kick drum and if there is no drummer I lock with the lead vocalist.

If you can not hear the kick drum, look at his kick drum foot pedal. That will give you the beat pattern.

The following has some good information and some videos that may help you hear the groove..
how to improve timing while jamming to songs
Here is Scott Devine's video on the subject. Ask.com

Good luck.
 
Last edited:
#5
you have my sympathy. "just feel it" is both 100% true and 100% useless advice.
As Malcolm said, if I could feel it I wouldn't be asking.

"just feel it" actually means:
  • subconsciously recognize the musical context
  • instinctively apply experience, habit and muscle memory to play phrases that will fit
  • instinctively use your ear to adjust when things sound bad to you
  • pretend its magickal fairy woo when someone asks

quick! think of a word that rhymes with "peach"
Easy, no?

When the band is jamming and you can't ad lib what to play, it's a vocabulary issue.
Only Playing for 2 years, You don't yet know enough grooves that "rhyme" with the music.

As I said in that other thread you peeked at:
learning by example is powerful for building your feel (vocabulary) for groove.
So find grooves you like and learn.

and by "learn" I mean learning:
  • how to play it
  • the notes by name
  • the supported chord progression
  • the key, intervals and scales involved
  • how to transpose it to other keys

this transforms the piece form a "tune you know"
into a tool in your musical tool bag

In particular understanding the functional chord progression
(that I-IV-V roman numeral stuff)
gives you a context that you can recognize in other songs / jams
and thus you know what kind of chord progression the groove "rhymes" with.
 
  • Like
Reactions: eekamike and BossOnBass
#6
In order to develop the skill you seek you have to listen, listen, listen!

You should listen to the kind of music you want to play both for enjoyment and for learning. Listen critically and actively. Listen while you play along and listen while you don't. Turn anything around you into your personal drum set. Tap your fingers with the bass.

You're going to do well and you're going to have a great time doing it!
 
#7
this is a skill only mastered with time in the barrel.
It is mostly a result of ear training. You have to learn to know what chord is being played by listening to it. Then within that chord, you have to know the scale for the chord and which notes in the scale will work for that instance. You also have to hear from what is being played what the next chord is going to be so you can transition to the next chord.
Remember that you sit between the lead instruments and the drums. You are mostly rhythm, but have to support the lead instruments and the vocal. From those three, you will know what bass line will fit.
A good example of supporting the vocal is Ray Charles' America the Beautiful. The bass player is almost playing the melody.
A good place to start is listening to and playing along with good ole' 12 bar blues tunes. Practice some at home, then go to some open jams and watch the other players and sit in for a song or 2.

With a lot of practice and experience, you will feel it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BBQisgood
#9
Spend hours listening to James Brown. Learn some of his lines. To me for a beginner there is nothing better. James Brown grooves have a serious pocket and almost mantra like simplicity. Someone once described a James Brown song like listening to a band that had been playing the same groove for an hour then someone started recording 55 minutes in.

I'm going to get a little Hippie Dippy with this and suggest you take a simple groove and treat it like a mantra in meditation. Play the line constantly and allow your mind to clear. Eventually you will enter a trance like state. Next time you play with people try the same concept but be aware of your surroundings and be on the lookout for stink eye. You will get that if it doesn't feel good.

C/S,
Rev J
 
  • Like
Reactions: 928cat and Groove Doctor
#10
I'm going to disagree slightly with @MalcolmAmos here. I think the kick drum establishes the BEAT of the song - but the beat alone does not make the groove. It's half the groove. The other half is the way other rhythmic parts - including other drums, the bass, and possibly other instruments - interact with the beat. There is no one thing that IS the groove - that's why there's no cut-and-dried way to answer the question, and people just say to "feel it." In some music, the groove falls very precisely, vertically on top of the beat. In some songs it always pushes ahead of the beat, in others it hangs back just a hair behind it. I do agree with him that to find the groove you have to start by centering on the kick drum. But then you do just have to feel it - does the song want you aggressively pushing ahead of that beat, or coolly hanging behind?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Whousedtoplay
#11
BBQisgood said:
In order to develop the skill you seek you have to listen, listen, listen!

You should listen to the kind of music you want to play both for enjoyment and for learning. Listen critically and actively. Listen while you play along and listen while you don't. Turn anything around you into your personal drum set. Tap your fingers with the bass.

You're going to do well and you're going to have a great time doing it!
Click to expand...

This. Listen to and play along with stuff that grooves. I used to get in trouble in high school for tapping my fingers all the time. Whatever you do, don't try to learn groove from a book, or a class. It isn't possible, and is a waste of money. If you keep listening, one day the grooves will hit you upside the head like a brick and you'll understand that it's a concept that cannot be described with words.
 
#12
Lownote38 said:
Whatever you do, don't try to learn groove from a book, or a class. It isn't possible, and is a waste of money. If you keep listening, one day the grooves will hit you upside the head like a brick and you'll understand that it's a concept that cannot be described with words.
Click to expand...

I agree 100% with listening and playing along
but let's not pretend "groove" is magical woo fairy dust

a groove is a unified compound of discreet musical elements
if your command of these elements is poor your groove will also be poor
with practice the discreet elements can be recognized, identified and and improved
the craft of unifying them into a groove comes from studying grooves of others
listening and playing along

"groove" is not unteachable magic : it's simply more than one thing
 
  • Like
Reactions: Whousedtoplay and Groove Doctor
#13
mambo4 said:
I agree 100% with listening and playing along
but let's not pretend "groove" is magical woo fairy dust

a groove is a unified compound of discreet musical elements
if your command of these elements is poor your groove will also be poor
with practice the discreet elements can be recognized, identified and and improved
the craft of unifying them into a groove comes from studying grooves of others
listening and playing along

"groove" is not unteachable magic : it's simply more than one thing
Click to expand...

I will agree that there are tons of different grooves, but I still say it cannot be put into words, and can therefore not be taught. As a player, it's up to you to listen and learn with your ears. You have to study the grooves of others. Sorry to get all Jeff Berlin about it, but I don't believe in taking classes on grooves, or reading books on how to play grooves. Rhythms? Sure, but not feel and groove.
 
#16
Lownote38 said:
I will agree that there are tons of different grooves, but I still say it cannot be put into words
Click to expand...

I think you mistake my meaning
by "more than one thing " I did not mean "there are many grooves"

I meant a groove has many parts
the parts can be put into words
they can be taught, practiced, and improved

combining the parts can be learned by example

groove is not unteachable magic
 
  • Like
Reactions: Whousedtoplay
#17
The thing is listening to the kick and snare patterns really only work in country, rock and FUnk (yeah to me FUnk gets a capital FU as George Clinton meant it). In jazz swing, reggae, and Afro Cuban music that concept will knock you on your toucas.

One thing that helped me learning Afro Cuban bass was to play with a drum machine programmed to play the clave. Then I could hear how the bass line functions in relationship to the clave. If playing FUnk, Rock and Country play with the click on one and three (in the wise words of Bootsy Collins "The FUnk is all about the one baby. If one ain't there two ain't going to follow. Then comes the ands and ifs.") . If you are playing jazz/swing it's all about the two and four if you want that feel down that's where you tap your foot or put the click.

C/S,
Rev J
 
#18
I read in a bass course that besides listening to the bass and drums locking up in different songs and types of music, but it was suggested that you learn to dance! I never learned to dance but years of practice and listening have given me the ability to pull a decent groove out of midair when needed.
 
#19
OP, how often do you play with other people? That's super important for developing the ability to groove. Do you dance? As mentioned, dancing is strongly related to groove.

Groove is a bit of an abstract concept. As already described, it's that "thing" that make you want to bob your head, tap your feet, rock out, or throw your hands in the air and wave them like you just care. It's strongly related to steady tempo but there's more to it. Otherwise, people would rock out to a metronome. If you put a gun to my head and asked me to define it, it's the recurring rhythmic fingerprint of a song that make it pleasing to the human ear (aka soul). While it's often related to what the drums and/or bass are doing sometimes, it isn't.

Here's a groove established solely by rhythm guitar.



Here's one where even though the snare/cowbell are banging out quarters, the groove isn't really established until the shaker/maraca comes in.

 
  • Like
Reactions: Whousedtoplay
#20
I agree about working with a metronome. I believe it tunes our inner clock, when we practice enough with it. It did mine. I became a much more in the pocket player after I started doing that.

Play with lots of beats. Thousands of them online. Lots of beat machine apps, drum machines, etc.

Focus on feel as opposed to notes, and practice making every note sing and come from every cell in your body. Practice playing those notes with different emotion behind them. Even if you're just pumping out roots and quarter notes. ESPECIALLY if you're pumping out roots and quarter notes. Make whole notes sing.

Practice alone with jam tracks you can find on youtube by searching "jam tracks for bass". This is just one of tons of them available...



And of course practice, practice and then practice some more.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Scatabrain

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back