Looking for lessons on how to hold your own rhthym instead of following others....

[Max Dread]

Hi all

I'm teaching someone bass at the moment (I'm a guitarist). He's having some trouble with rhythm independence..... When I teach him a part to a song he can play it fine on his own. But then when i play the guitar part he either loses his way completely. or he ends up changing to the rhythm of the guitar rather than holding and playing his own rhythm.

I've had a look for lessons on line which help with this problem but have not found any. That could be because I'm putting in the wrong words; it's one of those things that's heard to put a good search together for.

So it's over to you guys to see if you can help and whether you have or know of any exercises to help with this.....

Many thanks

Max

[tinyd]

For what it's worth I'd make sure that he can tap a basic pulse with his foot while playing. This might mean breaking the bass lines down into smaller pieces but once he can do it he should find it much easier to figure out how the bass interacts with other rhythms.

[danthevan]

get him a metronome. Once he has it right in his head about the timing, it wont matter what you're doing on guitar

[Coilte]

IMO he should try playing along to songs he likes to get a feel for how the bass "fits into" the song. Even if he does not care too much for blues, it is great music for getting the "feel" and "groove". It is hard to actually teach this. A person has to learn to feel the groove themselves.

There are lots of songs on You Tube he could play along to. It is possible to find songs with isolated bass. He can play along to the full instrument version, then try to find the same song without the bass and try his hand at that.


Some basic work with a metronome is a good idea to. For example, set the 'nome at a medium tempo, play a note on each click. Then play a note on every second click, then on every third etc. If you search You Tube for "metronome exercises for bass" it should throw up some useful exercises.

Here is a great one to start with.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvlI43J72Xc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvlI43J72Xc[/url]

Edited May 22, 2013 by Coilte

[ezbass]

A drum track is another extension of the metronome suggestion, this way he can listen to the hihat, snare and kick drum rather than the guitar parts.

[scalpy]

Two things spring to mind.

As this is a "head" thing, not technical, try showing him some basic drum movements, right hand does the hats on the left knee and left hand the snare on the right knee, right does kick. You could then play along to him doing that, increasing your use of accents and complexity as he gets the hang of it. Alternatively, could he sing the line instead of drumming?

With the instrument, you could double the bass line and then throw in the first beat or two of the guitar part before going back to the bass line. Again, increase the complexity and periods of concentration gradually until he's got it.

I often use techniques like this, thinking of them as musical "stabilisers", like a kid riding a bike, with a success.

Edited May 22, 2013 by scalpy

[Guest bassman7755]

[quote name='Max Dread' timestamp='1369181560' post='2086104']
Hi all

I'm teaching someone bass at the moment (I'm a guitarist). He's having some trouble with rhythm independence..... When I teach him a part to a song he can play it fine on his own. But then when i play the guitar part he either loses his way completely. or he ends up changing to the rhythm of the guitar rather than holding and playing his own rhythm.

I've had a look for lessons on line which help with this problem but have not found any. That could be because I'm putting in the wrong words; it's one of those things that's heard to put a good search together for.

So it's over to you guys to see if you can help and whether you have or know of any exercises to help with this.....

Many thanks

Max
[/quote]

Are you playing along to a drum track ? if not that would probably help him a lot as you are asking him to do something that is actually quite challenging even for fairly experienced players. Also maybe start out with some material where the bass is mainly just pulsing one note which the guitar does something completely different e.g. the intro to smoke on the water, or the chorus to all right now.

Edited May 25, 2013 by bassman7755

[xilddx]

Have you asked him what's going on his bonce when this happens? It's possibly the same thing as playing and talking at the same time. I think time will cure this and it won't happen overnight. Definitely metronome practice or even playing with the recorded ensemble version of the song. He will start to break the timing and rhythm into smaller pieces soon.

[enricogaletta]

Try to practice reading and counting, every day a little bit and if you have a chance, if you can, record your playing with a click on your daw, just only with a click, drums and loop tracks are not too much useful if you wanna learn to keep the time good without follow the others.
When you practice any exercise, do it with slow tempo, like 60, than same exercise jump to 80, it will help your time keeping...
Cheers. Enrico

Edited July 5, 2013 by enricogaletta

[EssentialTension]

[quote name='Max Dread' timestamp='1369181560' post='2086104']
... When I teach him a part to a song he can play it fine on his own. But then when i play the guitar part he either loses his way completely. or he ends up changing to the rhythm of the guitar rather than holding and playing his own rhythm ....
[/quote]
This says to me that he doesn't really, deep down, know the bass part.

If he did know the bass part then he'd stick to playing the bass part and wouldn't start playing the guitar part. It's as if the guitar part that is actually happening now is more powerful than the memorised bass part because the memory is not as strong as it appears when there is nothing to interfere.