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RC 2 - About good Timing
As a College music student I always carried a small wind-up metronome in my saxophone case, which I used during practice.
My saxophone teacher used to get nervous each time I used it during a lesson. It was beating time irregularly he claimed. I could not hear or understand what he was talking about.
About 5 years later I found the device again in my studio, wound it up and listened to it. At once I could hear what my teacher had been talking about. The instrument's action was clearly uneven. It had taken years for my ear to develop to this "fine tuning" stage. |
The average ear (like mine at the time, even after listening to music for 30 years) has a rather crude sense of timing. Each downbeat is perceived within an approximate time span within a bar.In reality each downbeat is a clearly defined instant which the practised ear will gradually start to pick up with ever increasing precision.
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RC 3 - Timing Exercise
Play each metronome track and clap your hands on the specified beat. Do not tap your foot or make any other rhythmic movement with your body. Sit still, keep your eyes closed and concentrate on the beats.In each exercise the metronome beat starts like this :
1 - 3 - / 1 2 3 4 / 1 - - -
- Timing Exercise 1 : Tempo 120 bpm 90 bpm - Clap your hands on beat 1 of each bar.
- Timing Exercise 2 : Tempo 120 bpm 90 bpm - Clap your hands on beat 1 of every 2 bars.
James Morrison, a well known Jazz trumpet player in Australia, used to do the following exercises at the start of each rehearsal with his regular band.
All players sit in a circle with their eyes closed, perfectly silent.
One player counts in the first chorus of a 12 bar blues : 1 - 3 - 1 2 3 4.
On the first beat of the second chorus (that is after 48 beats) all players clap their hands. Same again on each following chorus.
James claims that the joint timing of the band improved so much that they eventually could count and clap 4 or 5 choruses like this and still be all together in time. |
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RC 4 - Division of a bar in 4/4 time
To make reading music as easy as possible music notation is very visual oriented.
In general in 4/4 time (also called 'Common time') individual notes with black note heads do not span across the middle point (downbeat 3) of the bar.
Also when groups of quavers or shorter notes are beamed together the beam never extends across the middle point of the bar.This makes the middle point of the bar easy to spot, and in effect cuts each bar into two very visual time segments (and therefore rhythm segments) of 2 beats each.
The above right solutions are combinations of four different 2-beat rhythm segments. Can you spot them ?
The Jazclass Rhythm Class Course is based on and developed from this aspect.
Using only a small number 2-beat rhythm segments as basis larger rhythm patterns are built, resulting in an almost infinite range of rhythmic phrases.
The concept is breathtakingly simple, but hugely effective in recognising, understanding and playing complex rhythms.
So come and join the course, it is great fun, and you will become a better and more confident player in the process.
Notes with white note heads can (and dotted minims and semibreves of course must) span across the middle point of a bar in 4/4/ time, but only when they start on a downbeat.
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