Vocalising as a way to improve your rhythm and time

[Caz]

Hi everyone, I'm doing a project on vocalising rhythms as a way to improve time feel. For example, Konnakol in South Indian Carnatic music. I'm looking for ways to apply vocal systems like this to western music - jazz, pop etc, to improve time feel and strengthen rhythmic facility. Part of the project is a series of lessons with Ari Hoenig and Dan Weiss, who have both partly worked on rhythm by vocalising away from the drums. I'm interested to hear from the general community, what things have worked well for you to improve on rhythm and time? If working with a metronome, did you find specific ways to use it to strengthen your time feel when there's no metronome? And is there any vocalising involved when you practice with your instrument?

 

Keen to hear about everything from singing, clapping, dancing etc.. anything that you feel has led to improvements.

 

Thanks,

Caroline

[ambient]

There are various teaching theories that use this kind of internalisation.

 

Check out Montessori, Carl Orff, and Emile Jaques-Dalcroze.

[Geek99]

Ed Friesland endorses it 

[Norris]

Our guitarist was struggling to get the syncopated bit in Black Betty in time. I came up with the phrase "(Oh) I want a nice cup of tea" to help him - the "(Oh)" is silent on the 1st beat. We then repeated it over and over with me and the drummer shouting the phrase at the guitarist as we played - quite an amusing exercise at the time

[mlauritsen]

10 minutes ago, Norris said:

Our guitarist was struggling to get the syncopated bit in Black Betty in time. I came up with the phrase "(Oh) I want a nice cup of tea" to help him - the "(Oh)" is silent on the 1st beat. We then repeated it over and over with me and the drummer shouting the phrase at the guitarist as we played - quite an amusing exercise at the time

Seems like the kind of thing you wouldn't leave your bedroom without.

 

We had a gruelling session last week, butchering "Smoke On The Water" for an hour...

I'm not sure how you can play guitar for a decade and not know what the main riff should sound like.

How do you deal with that as a band? I make mistakes myself in every session, so I try not to be an donkey when other people screw up. Still, you have to say something, there is no way we are playing SOTW that wrong in public.

Our drummer was great, he pounded the riff on the toms to make it clear what was wrong.

 

Incidentally, there was a funny conversation that day:

- Drummer: "Isn't there meant to be a solo in there somewhere?"

- Guitar guy: "Yes."

- Drummer: "Can you play it?"

- Guitar guy: "No."

 

So if you can't play the riff, nor the solo, what exactly are we doing here? :-)

 

(I'm letting off steam here, it's a great bunch of guys and we still had fun playing SOTW many times (main riff consistently all over the place and all). Just glad no original members were present...). A bad hour playing music is better than a good hour at work.

 

I myself was called out for simply playing G through the verse (guitar guy really wanted his half-bar of F) - fair enough. 🙂

 

Ps. In general, I don't believe there is such a thing as "playing songs wrong". However, when you cover songs known and loved by billions of people, you _will_ get in trouble if you screw up the main riff.

 

Pps. How much trouble am I in for drifting way off topic? Would it help if I mention our singer would be better classified as a "vocaliser"?

[Norris]

2 minutes ago, mlauritsen said:

Seems like the kind of thing you wouldn't leave your bedroom without.

He could play it fine by himself or accompanying the record. He just struggled to get the rhythm in a band situation. I was a little surprised actually - it's the first time I've ever known him to struggle, he's an excellent guitarist

[Paul S]

I had a similar situation a few years ago in a band doing rock covers.  We wanted to play Foo Fighters' 'All My Life' but the guitarist couldn't get the rhythm.  He would start the first of the 3 notes on the first beat, rather than the second note.  Yet he happily transcribed and played the keys solo in Highway Star, nailed the solo in Mr Crowley and assorted other complicated stuff.

[mlauritsen]

35 minutes ago, Norris said:

He could play it fine by himself or accompanying the record. He just struggled to get the rhythm in a band situation. I was a little surprised actually - it's the first time I've ever known him to struggle, he's an excellent guitarist

I know how he feels. 🙂

It's amazing how different it is to play with other people, as opposed to a recording or alone.

Actually recovering from someone messing up / losing your/their place or generally getting out of sync is one of the great pleasures of playing together.

The only failure is if it gets so bad you have to stop playing.

[nekomatic]

Good topic! I don’t currently use any particular vocalisation techniques systematically but I sort of feel that I probably should. I think having a system of syllables like the Kodály ones for vocalising rhythms is a useful tool when playing with others, and I sometimes try to sing what I’m playing as it seems to make sense that that would build the connection from brain to fingers, but I can’t show evidence for either of those…

 

I’ve come across some good clapping exercises in workshop classes, like ‘passing’ the beat around a circle, that seemed really effective - from a quick read up on Dalcroze it sounds as though that also uses the same sort of exercises. 
 

This is all mainly in a jazz focused context but I don’t see why it wouldn’t apply to any other style. 
 

Please let us know what comes out of your project…

[alexa3020]

I’ve been trying to work on my rhythm lately.  I don’t know if this will be advanced enough for many here, but check out rhythm trainer app. 
I have found some of the exercises to be pretty useful

 

[Nail Soup]

“Dubba dubba dubba cha”- Reg Presley, The Troggs.

[TimR]

Clapping works better for people who don't like to sing and doesn't rely on any pitching.