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The drum track dropping out and coming back in has no basis in reality. All it checks is your ability to hold the notional tempo of a silent partner for a few seconds. If you have to do that in actual music - just you playing for a few measures - everyone else will come in when you cue them not by following their internal own clocks.
Haha! I was going to go there but chickened out at the last minute
Nothing beats practicing. Whether with a metronome or backing music. The more you play, the better you get.
Wrt groove, it's contextual. I've found that groove is about locking in with the drums, so it's important to listen to what's going on around you.
Something else that has really helped me getting the right groove is to not pay too much attention to the fretboard. Too much attention on the board made me think too much about the next note/phrase. Looking away helps me feel it.
Wrt groove, it's contextual. I've found that groove is about locking in with the drums, so it's important to listen to what's going on around you.
Something else that has really helped me getting the right groove is to not pay too much attention to the fretboard. Too much attention on the board made me think too much about the next note/phrase. Looking away helps me feel it.
Oh! okay. sorry for being dismissive, my bad.
I thought OP was referring to the practice of halving the speed of a metronome over and over, so if you're practising something at 120 bpm, set the click to 30bpm. i find this hugely beneficial for practising internal time
Don’t play with drum tracks. You want to focus on the beat. Drum tracks are just a distraction. Use a metronome. And most importantly, record yourself. It will tell you if you’re rushing or dragging and where it’s happening.
Playing with backing tracks or a metronome while practicing. But also playing with others. Got to know how to swing with the rest of the band even when the time is not always perfect.
Practice hard, including playing along with known groove material. I have found playing along with Motown, STAX, Chess, and Atlantic recordings to be helpful.
But, by far the most valuable experience I had was holding down the house bass chair in an open mic weekly Blues Jam for several years. Blues may be unpopular these days; but, the bass parts focus on feel, backbeat, and groove. Getting on stage with diverse musicians playing wide ranging material instructs as no other practice regimen can.
As the saying goes, You Got to Pay your Dues….
I spent years of my youth playing along to my fave bands on vinyl, cd, etc. Should help with your time and feel
Same for me, when I was recording demos (pre-done drums, wrote/played my guitar and bass tracks, sometimes synth too) my timing got VERY good. The audible and visual (seeing the waveform) aspect of home recording made it a lot easier to spot my mistakes and correct them. It's sort of like improving your posture or form by practicing in front of a mirror. It's hard to see where you're messing up without one.
Playing with drummers with impeccable timing helped me tremendously. Cause if weren't tight we knew who was to blame. 
I've been blessed to have played with a few.
I've been blessed to have played with a few.
1. Ed Friedland’s metronome exercise Do this one often enough and you will be able to tell who’s rushing and who’s dragging at rehearsals and gigs.
2. Learning to play complicated lines slowly before playing at full tempo
2. Learning to play complicated lines slowly before playing at full tempo
Thread Drift: Oh, man, I would love to hear a percussion ensemble play that tune! And kudos to you for being able to play it as a high school sophomore!
btw, I've told this story before:
I attended a clinic that Jeff Berlin gave at Berklee in 1980, and he told a hysterical story about the first time he ever played "Beelzebub". He was sight-reading that bass line in a rehearsal studio, but he had a few minutes to himself before the rest of the band was ready to play, so he snuck a look at the chart and started playing through it
...very slowly. And all the while trying to count it in his head. And struggling. Because it is not only in an odd-meter, but the bass part is also heavily syncopated. So Jeff's sitting there sweating bullets trying to nail those crazy offbeat rhythms at maybe 40bpm, and Bill finally sits down at his kit, announces "alright, 'Beelzebub' from the top" and clicks off a tempo with his sticks that's a good three times faster than Jeff had been playing it!
In the clinic Jeff did a wonderful vocal impersonation of Bill's sick asymmetrical at-tempo drum groove from that tune.
Continuing Thread Drift:
That is a cool story and I can sympathize (granted I was under way less pressure). I recall my blank stare at the music and hurried counting through the piece when the director first put it in front of us. I had never heard the song before, but could tell from the sheet music what I was in for.
I expect most would think a high school group would be terrible at a song like Beelzebub. We were for the first week or so of practice. However, the group I was in practiced a ton and was a well known high school group at the time (well known within percussion circles that is; so not really all that generally well known). We had a Pro Mark sponsorship and the director had a signature mallet line through Pro Mark. We also practiced between 2 and 8 hours a day Monday-Saturday during fall/winter. Eventually we were good at it and it was a really fun piece when everything was clicking. Even hard pieces are playable when you have a good instructor and put in the practice time.
Metronome studies are great.
But what really gets results is playing a LOT with great drummers and other musicians with great time and feel. All the metronome work I ever did wasn't nearly as beneficial as playing with musicians much better than me, and doing it a lot.
Also, start recording yourself against a click. It's brutal, but it'll help - especially if you want to get into sessions and studio work.
But what really gets results is playing a LOT with great drummers and other musicians with great time and feel. All the metronome work I ever did wasn't nearly as beneficial as playing with musicians much better than me, and doing it a lot.
Also, start recording yourself against a click. It's brutal, but it'll help - especially if you want to get into sessions and studio work.
Time: Not really applicable to the OP, but in college I was in a jazz combo with no drummer; we were congas, sax, piano, and me on bass. I had to play the role of time setter / time keeper, and man that semester my timing got rock solid. I think that's carried over and all these years later I still get compliments on being steady. Outside of that type of opportunity, it's playing along and listening. Agree with others' comments about listening to recordings of yourself playing.
Feel: I have mixed thoughts on this. Part of it I'm sure is listening to different players and thinking about what their doing, but man, I think feel is partly innate, and we all have our level of it. We'll all heard/seen players who can shred, tap, slap, rip crazy lines, but can't lock in with a drummer. So much of feel is listening and adjusting to what the other player(s) is/(are) doing or reacting to a song. Knowing when to play just behind the beat, knowing when to play on top of the beat, sensing how the drummer's fill is going to end so you can do the same rhythm, etc. Not sure how you develop that on your own in a practice room.
Feel: I have mixed thoughts on this. Part of it I'm sure is listening to different players and thinking about what their doing, but man, I think feel is partly innate, and we all have our level of it. We'll all heard/seen players who can shred, tap, slap, rip crazy lines, but can't lock in with a drummer. So much of feel is listening and adjusting to what the other player(s) is/(are) doing or reacting to a song. Knowing when to play just behind the beat, knowing when to play on top of the beat, sensing how the drummer's fill is going to end so you can do the same rhythm, etc. Not sure how you develop that on your own in a practice room.
It can also be done without reading.
When I studied with Ed (before he wrote his books) the goal wasn't on grooves but just keeping my time steady. He suggested using a drum machine playing rimshots as a metronome because most metronomes don't go really slow (my Seiko only gets to 40 bpm). That way at a tempo of 80bpm, playing a rimshot only on beat 1 gives a 20bpm click. Playing the rimshot on 1 and 3 gives a 40 bpm click, etc.
Play something you don't need to think about, like a scale or arpeggio in quarter notes and pay attention to lining each note up with the click. At 20 bpm that’s brutal.
Or you can play at 80 bpm or slower but with the rimshot playing only on the 1 instead of all four beats. Then try it only on the 2, only on the 3, only on the 4. You might be surprised how hard it is to follow a metronome at slow tempos when it only clicks on 2 or 4, 3 isn’t too difficult.
Once you can play for 5 minutes straight with zero mistakes (be honest!), try ticking the tempo up. Try playing at 160 bpm or higher with the rimshot only on 2 if you want a real challenge
Then try stuff like treating the click a 1 of the first bar but not the next. That way you have to play eight quarter notes before the next click. You can then create all kinds of similar exercises on your own, like setting the time signature to 3/4, 5/4, etc., or the click only coming every four bars, every eight bars, etc., and using eighth or sixteenth notes rather than quarter notes.
Beautiful. Every time I think I've got it all covered and that I can come up w all the best exercises, I read something like thisIt can also be done without reading.
When I studied with Ed (before he wrote his books) the goal wasn't on grooves but just keeping my time steady. He suggested using a drum machine playing rimshots as a metronome because most metronomes don't go really slow (my Seiko only gets to 40 bpm). That way at a tempo of 80bpm, playing a rimshot only on beat 1 gives a 20bpm click. Playing the rimshot on 1 and 3 gives a 40 bpm click, etc.
Play something you don't need to think about, like a scale or arpeggio in quarter notes and pay attention to lining each note up with the click. At 20 bpm that’s brutal.
Or you can play at 80 bpm or slower but with the rimshot playing only on the 1 instead of all four beats. Then try it only on the 2, only on the 3, only on the 4. You might be surprised how hard it is to follow a metronome at slow tempos when it only clicks on 2 or 4, 3 isn’t too difficult.
Once you can play for 5 minutes straight with zero mistakes (be honest!), try ticking the tempo up. Try playing at 160 bpm or higher with the rimshot only on 2 if you want a real challenge
Then try stuff like treating the click a 1 of the first bar but not the next. That way you have to play eight quarter notes before the next click. You can then create all kinds of similar exercises on your own, like setting the time signature to 3/4, 5/4, etc., or the click only coming every four bars, every eight bars, etc., and using eighth or sixteenth notes rather than quarter notes.
Major scales and crazy time exercises for the next 3 months it is!
