Time / Rhythm

Time and rhythm are critical for every musician. Many times people think that time is a conductor's or drummer's job. That way of thinking is limiting. In order for a group to sound tight, every musician must have a great sense of internal time. You can develop tightness with experience, but you don't have time to develop tightness in many performance and recording situations. You have to have it internally.

Ex1 - Playing to Tracks

Playing to tracks is a good way to make sure you are capable of at least following steady time. It's also a good way to develop your ear

Approach

Put a track on and play over the top of it, either doubling a part, or improvising your own part. Pay attention to any tendency to speed up or having to catch up.

Ex2 - Playing to a Click

For the purpose of developing a sense of time, playing to a click (metronome) is a step up from playing to a track. When playing to a click, every beat subdivision has a very definite point, so this is a good way to check that your time is precise.

Approach

The approach is like playing over a track, except that the other instruments can no longer cover any inconsistent time issues. You want to be able to "bury the click" by having your notes exactly match the click - boom, boom, boom, not bloom, bloom, bloom.

Next Steps

For a real challenge, use your mind to move the clicks from downbeats to upbeats. This forces you to use your internal sense of time for the downbeats, and the upbeats are only a check.

Ex3 - Removing Clicks

It's possible to be overly dependent on a click-track. If you are depending on the click, you are not depending on your internal sense of time.

Approach

The assumption with exercise 2 is that each click was on the down-beat. For the first part of this exercise, cut the speed of the clicks in half, while keeping the tempo consistent. So, instead of getting clicks on beats 1, 2, 3, and 4 - you only get clicks on beats 1 and 3. Once you are comfortable with this, use your mind to move the clicks to beats 2 and 4. Once you are comfortable with this, cut the speed of the clicks in half again. Practice with the click on beat 1, then use your mind to move the click to beats 2, 3, or 4.

Tips and Warnings

when you remove clicks, make sure you are hearing the missing clicks in your head.

Next Steps

With 1-click-per-bar, use your mind to move the click to the upbeat of 1, 2, 3, or 4.

Ex4 - Removing Measures

You want to be sure you can groove with or without a drummer. This exercise helps you to maintain your groove when the drummer stops.

Approach

If you have a rhythm machine, program a drum track or click track to repeat a four-bar phrase. Make sure you can groove to the track. Now, program the track so the drummer or click is silent for the last measure. Make sure you can groove to the track, and flawlessly hit beat one every time it comes around. Program the drummer or click to play 2 out of 4 bars, then 1 out of 4 bars.

Tips and Warnings

Make sure you can hear/feel the drummer or click during the silent bars.

Next Steps

Program the drummer or click to play one beat out of four measures

Ex5 - Looping 16

This exercise helps you to tune up your beat placement of the 'e' and 'a' 16th notes. Most people count 16th notes as 1-e-&-a-2-e-&-a-3-e-&-a-4-e-&-a. Our placement of 'e' and 'a' is typically not exact, but more of a rough mid-point between the downbeat and upbeat.

Approach

You need a loop station for this one. Set up your loop station for a one-bar loop. You can have a click on each downbeat. The goal is to record 16 perfect 16th notes - perfect both in duration and placement. The trick is that you are not allowed to record 16th notes back-to-back. You need to play one 16th note per measure for 16 measures, shifting the note by one subdivision at-a-time.

Tips and Warnings

This is still really hard for me. At first I tried to do it by feel, but I kept getting lost by about the 9th 16th note. The easiest way for me is to think of groups of four 16th notes. When I'm on a down-beat, make sure I'm feeling down-beats. When I'm on an upbeat, make sure I'm feeling both upbeats and down-beats. When I'm on an 'e' or 'a', make sure I'm feeling all four subdivision of the quarter notes.

Next Steps

Victor does this as part of his live show. He changes the pitches to create an interesting run. Once all 16 are recorded from the downbeat of 1 to the 'a' of 4, he layers over them backwards, starting from the 'a' of 4 and working back to the downbeat of 1. This allow him to lay down a track of counter-moving 16th note runs.

Notes

The element of "notes" is the primary focus of conventional music theory. In The Music Lesson, Victor's character describes "music theory" as "note theory".

Since so much has already been said about notes, it doesn't make sense to replicate that here. It makes more sense to encourage people to study music/note theory, and to offer suggestions to get beyond theory and explore the concept of groove.

My favorite book on theory is Harmony and Theory as published by The Musicians Institute. I also like Writing Hit Songs by Jai Josefs. The title strikes me as corny, but the content is very good.

Having a good foundation in note theory is important. Many people think that learning theory will interfere with their creativity. I've only experienced the opposite. There is no reason a musician can't be both very creative and very knowledgeable. As a minimum, be sure you have a good understanding of major diatonic harmony. Major diatonic harmony is very foundational, and very easy to learn. It's too useful and simple to not know. You should know how to build triads and seventh chords that are harmonized with any degree of the major scale. TODO: Find a decent source in the internet

By now, hopefully the idea of learning theory makes sense. Victor likes to point out to bass players that even after studying theory, we still have problems grooving.

I think of groove is a feeling of "rightness", where everything fits together. A big element of groove is time and rhythm, but groove goes deeper into the other elements of music. Some people define groove as "a feeling that makes your body want to move". That's not a bad definition, but to me it is somewhat superficial, since it depends on the listener's personal preferences.

Victor stresses that you feel the groove of the song before you place your hands on the instrument. That way you know that the first note you are going to play is going to groove, whether it is in key or not.

Here are some exercises to get beyond "note theory" and work on "groove theory"

Ex1 - Chromatic Scale

This exercise helps to tune your ear to the tension and release achieved by playing and changing various tones. By using the chromatic scale, you open up the possibility of using notes outside of diatonic harmony. You ain't gotta use perfect English to make a point. Likewise, you can play "wrong" notes to create a mood or convey emotion.

Approach

Lay down a track to outline a one-chord groove in a particular key. Use a major 7, dominate 7 or minor 7 chord. Play a chromatic scale over the groove. First, pay attention to how each note makes you feel, then think about how that note relates to the underlying chord structure. Finally, think about how changing to the next note makes you feel. Does it feel like it creates or releases tension? The chord tones should have the greatest feeling of releasing tension. Notes on either side of the chord tones (other than major7 to root) have the greatest feeling of creating tension. Note that 1/2 step up or down from any out-of-key note is an in-key note. Have fun, and make the chromatic scale a groove.

Tips and Warnings

Take it slow. The goal is not to make great music, but to open your ears to the possibilities created by playing outside of harmony.

Make it groove. Go back and forth between notes, especially if it sounds wrong to your ears. Note how the notes sound less wrong as they repeat. This is called "massaging the notes".

Next Steps

Repeat this exercise over major 7, minor 7, dominate 7, and minor 7 b5 chords. Note how different intervals work against different chords.

Ex2 - Note Minimalization

This exercise gets you away the idea that you have to play every note in a particular scale or key. Even when trying to be free from the idea of "right" notes, we can still get tripped up on thinking we have to play every note.

Approach

Solo over a groove or drum track. Limit yourself to 2 - 5 notes, or even just one note. Explore the possibilities offered by 2-10 (i.e. dynamics, space, articulation, tone, phrasing, rhythm, etc.). As an example, limit yourself to the root, 2nd, and 3rd of the key. As you progress, add or remove notes as you please, but keep the total number of notes minimalized.

Ex3 - Sound Check

This is a sneaky way to get in some groove practice. Life is busy, so we need to take the opportunity where we can. This exercise assumes you are gigging regularly, so much of your playing time is consumed by running your repertoire, so there is not a lot of opportunity for spontaneous playing.

Approach

Be the first to the gig and be ready to set up quickly. As the other guys are setting up and checking their gear, listen to what they are doing and try to groove with them. You can also groove with the Jukebox if there is one playing.

Tips and Warnings

The other guys are probably not thinking groove, so they probably won't stick with an idea for long.

You may annoy other people.

Elements of Music (2-10)

Victor Wooten teaches that if you were to divide elements of music in 10 pieces, there would be many ways to do it, but one way would be:

1. - Notes
2. - Phrasing
3. - Space / Rests
4. - Time / Rhythm
5. - Articulation
6. - Dynamics
7. - Listening
8. - Style / Feel
9. - Tone
10. - Technique

Most conventional music lessons focus on Notes -- #1 on the list. This includes concepts such as pitch, melody, harmony, scales, modes, and chords. The 12 notes are something that all musicians have in common across styles and levels of accomplishment. The notes in a Cmaj7 are the same for the beginner and professional. The notes in Cmaj7 are the same in classical, rock, pop, funk, and country. The differences between styles of music and proficiency of players are the elements 2-10.

The bulk of this site are observations and exercises for exploring and experiencing 2-10.