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Double Bass Of time and Dave Holland

Throckmorten

Throckmorten

Aug 3, 2006
388
6
Central NY
#1
I’ve been listening to Dave Holland recently (mostly Gateway stuff, some of his late band) . What I have long admired about Dave is not his note choice or tone, fills or whatever, but his time. How does he count?

He gets in the time, in between the time, goes for bar after bar and never comes down on 1, but he’s always there where he needs to be and he always swings or drives and never loses the beat even though he doesn’t play it.

Lord! If I don’t thump down on the first beat regularly I get lost. I can gliss over it for a bar or two, or come in on 2 but if it’s not “3and4and1” after that I might as well be on Mars. Dave’s there on 3 and gone, back on "2andy" in the next bar for two 8ths and then gone again.

Am I making sense?

It seems there is a way to count your way through the beats and put a 1 in your head while the band is on some other beat but still stay with the time and come back to a mutually agreed 1 at some point.

Drummers like Jack DeJohnette and John Christensen do the same thing. Between them and who ever is on bass you always get the sense that there is a beat someplace in the room but no one owns it.
 
#2
Throckmorten said:
What I have long admired about Dave is not his note choice or tone, fills or whatever, but his time. How does he count?

He gets in the time, in between the time, goes for bar after bar and never comes down on 1, but he’s always there where he needs to be and he always swings or drives and never loses the beat even though he doesn’t play it......Drummers like Jack DeJohnette and John Christensen do the same thing. Between them and who ever is on bass you always get the sense that there is a beat someplace in the room but no one owns it.
Click to expand...


There is a very good book by an electric bassist that might help you. It's called "The Music Lesson". The book talks about time concepts in a very interesting way. Hope it helps you.:cool:
 
#5
Holland gave a master class where he talked about one of the ways he conceptualizes time. He equated it to a dance, so the rhythm is literally in your body. He began by tapping his hands and feet, then gradually picked up the bass while maintaining the groove and applied it to the bass. He still moves quite a bit when he's playing, but how he can throw in cross rhythm after cross rhythm while maintaining a foundation for the band is something he's been doing his entire career.

-Pat
 
#7
+1 for good things to say about Dave Holland. The Oracle is among my favorite tunes to play & hear. My favorite version is on Extension.

I find staying in time needs a drummer who can internalize the rhythm. With a steady beat I could walk 4 on 12 over 2 bars of 6/4 time. Neither the drummer nor I could hold it together for long. It was great fun, though & it drove the drummer nuts! Pay back, 8-)

BTW, Dave used to sell charts for most of his recorded music for just a few $$. I see he is putting up a new site. I hope the charts are still available.
 
#9
Throckmorten said:
Drummers like Jack DeJohnette and John Christensen do the same thing. Between them and who ever is on bass you always get the sense that there is a beat someplace in the room but no one owns it.
Click to expand...
Weckl and Patitucci did the same thing in some of the better Elektric Band stuff. Just as soon as I was sure that nobody knew where they were in the chart, much less where 1 was, the whole band would kick a complex unison run over the bar.
 
#12
I've been spending quite a bit of time working on this over the past few years. Vic's book is great because it really gets you thinking about how the Music exists in nature, the universe, and more importantly to the listener.

Also, Dave is on another level with this concept.

A funny story.

I was giving a master class recently and we played a little concert at the beginning of the day. We didn't think about it before hand but most of the tunes we played (the Oracle was one of them actually) were not in 4/4. I kid asked how we conceptualize 'odd' time signatures. My answer was "it can't be a mathematical exercise. Then it ends up sounding contrived. If you want to move an audience it needs to be more visceral. It has to have that dancing feel." Then I said something that turned into a quote that the guys in the group wanted to put on a t-shirt "I don't know about you but math doesn't move me."

So how does this apply to Dave Holland? He's the master at this. The Yoda. The Sensei. I remember the first time I saw him live things were in all kinds of crazy time signatures but I didn't care 'cause my foot just wouldn't stop tapping.

I actually wouldn't suggest transcribing him. Just listen and absorb.

For me I feel like I've failed when someone asks me during break "What time signature was that last one in?"

Good luck!
 
#14
Throckmorten said:
Lord! If I don’t thump down on the first beat regularly I get lost. I can gliss over it for a bar or two, or come in on 2 but if it’s not “3and4and1” after that I might as well be on Mars. Dave’s there on 3 and gone, back on "2andy" in the next bar for two 8ths and then gone again.

Am I making sense?

It seems there is a way to count your way through the beats and put a 1 in your head while the band is on some other beat but still stay with the time and come back to a mutually agreed 1 at some point.

Drummers like Jack DeJohnette and John Christensen do the same thing. Between them and who ever is on bass you always get the sense that there is a beat someplace in the room but no one owns it.
Click to expand...

Actually I don't think the people you mentioned above think too much about where they are in the bar, they just feel it and play it. Dave Holland definately isn't thinking I'll come in on 2 and play the "and" of 4. It's all just internalized through thousands of hours of practicing, rehearsing, listening to records,playing gigs... etc.

Counting and practicing playing on different beats is great when you are practicing on your own, to develop your rhythm, but on the bandstand there is no time to count, or really think about rhythm at all. There is no place for latency, everything must come directly, especially time and rhythm.

I think you will have greater rhytmic "chops" just by playing more with people and listening to records with people who have really good time. Practice tapping your foot on 1 and 3 while playing, and 2 and 4. A good basic excercise is to tap your foot on 2 and 4 and sing the melody to a standard tune at the same time.


Just my 2 cents...
 
#16
pcreelbass said:
That's exactly what he was getting at, I'm sure.
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At the master class I attended with Dave he said exactly that. Every time signature can be broken down it divisions of 2 and 3. He said he got the concept fom talking with Don Cherry. He talked alot about how he and Billy Kilson (and I'm sure other drummers) will take let's say an eight bar section of 4/4 which is 32 beats and divide it up in different ways. One way would be 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2. Another would be 3 3 3 3 3 2 3 3 3 3 3. Etc, etc, etc. That sounds kind of cold and mathematical but if you try it you'll probably discover we do stuff like that all the time without it being a calculated thing, we just group beats together while at the same time feeling the larger sections as a complete entity. The simplest example would be the blues. You don't count the first four bars of the I chord, you just move to the IV chord when its time for the IV chord and so on. In that four bars you can get away with straying pretty far from the 4/4 time feel and the I chord so long as it resolves to the IV. An example I love is Holland playing "Take the Coltrane" on Triplicate where he flips the beat ... I think its in the second time thru the head.

Another group that kills at this kind of thing is the Miles quintet with Hancock , Williams and Carter as the rhythm section. They create these great thematic and rhythmic patterns grouped across bars lines and sometimes thru whole forms of the tune. Charlie Haden does that alot in his solos but that's kind of a different thing.

I also had a back and forth email discussion with Holland years ago about the whole cyclical pattern thing he does melodically and harmonically. He said it largely grew out his love for Barok.
 

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