Becoming comfortable with beat subdivisions ...

[ML94]

Hi guys,

From all the lurking and posting on this side of the forum I can say gathering the knowledge of all the great players my reading has gotten much better since the start of last year. Im amazed at the speed that I can recognise notes, feel comfortable in different key signatures and so on. Theres only one thing that is bugging me at the moment. It's subdivisions of the beat and becoming comfortable with them.

At the moment beginning from the biggest value note semibreeve, minims, crotchets, quavers, i can pretty much say I'm comfortable with. Its once you start getting into the semiquaver notes, rests and in music like funk, acid jazz, all of those oozing soulful baselines theres some form of semiquaver pattern, rhythm.

I normally work them out by playing the amount of ghost notes that are required in the rest E.G. dotted quaver rest I would play 3 semiquaver ghost notes and then play the last semiquaver. What I would like to achieve is playing that rhythm without having to force myself counting, playing ghost notes to get to the note.

I hope some of this makes some sense as I really want to get better at reading the rhythms as well as being comfortable with them in my playing so it becomes fluent.

(If it helps, this month I'm working on Incognito bass lines so you can see its heavily syncopated sometimes ...)

HELP!!

Edited February 26, 2014 by ML94

[ambient]

It's just practice, just like you see the word ELEPHANT, you don't have to break it down into smaller pieces, you recognise it as a whole word. The more you play complex syncopated rhythms the easier you'll find it to just recognise them and play them.

If you have a bar of small notes and rests, just use a pencil and divide the bar up, make the phrase smaller and work on it a bit at a time, then put it together.

You'll eventually just feel it.

That's my experience anyway, I'm only in year 2 of my degree, so I'm still working on stuff, and expect to always be. The average chart I have no real problem with.

[SteveK]

If 'reading the rhythms' is what you want, then I can highly recommend [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Reading-Text-For-Instruments/dp/0769233775/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393464511&sr=8-1&keywords=Modern+Reading+Text+in+4%2F4+For+All+Instruments"]this book[/url]

[ML94]

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1393447331' post='2380518']
It's just practice, just like you see the word ELEPHANT, you don't have to break it down into smaller pieces, you recognise it as a whole word. The more you play complex syncopated rhythms the easier you'll find it to just recognise them and play them.

If you have a bar of small notes and rests, just use a pencil and divide the bar up, make the phrase smaller and work on it a bit at a time, then put it together.

You'll eventually just feel it.

That's my experience anyway, I'm only in year 2 of my degree, so I'm still working on stuff, and expect to always be. The average chart I have no real problem with.
[/quote]

I can get by with average stuff its when you start looking at Jaco, Incognito, tower of power bass lines and it makes you cry

[ambient]

[quote name='ML94' timestamp='1393500358' post='2381006']
I can get by with average stuff its when you start looking at Jaco, Incognito, tower of power bass lines and it makes you cry
[/quote]


I had to play a tower of power song last year, that was tough man. We get given a transcription of song a week to learn for a performance with guitars, drums and vocals. I think it was Funkifize .

[Bilbo]

If you can read eighth notes, you can read sixteenths. They are the same only quicker!! Half a bar of sixteenths is EXACTLY the same rhythmically as a full bar of eighths. You just have to learn to 'see' it quicker. It is only about practicing a little more to get to that next level.

[ML94]

I guess its back in the shed for some more practicing ! Hopefully I will get it someday ...