[Harp-L] Subject: Re: Finding the groove/beat/rhythm

[EGS1217@xxxxxxx]

There are several posts I'm referencing here..Ken's, the one with Rachelle  
Plas' videos, the 'funk' ...finding 'rhythm'..
 
.. I'm a fan of funk...and love when Jason (Ricci) includes it in his  
sets..it always gets the audience grooving along - and I so  enjoyed the Greg 
Zlap, Rachelle Plas, Bejia vid too. Don't know  who Bejia is, but if you watch 
him 'bopping along' with his shoulders and  head during the early and later 
playing...this is also a natural and subtle way  of keeping time with the 
beat (and what I do when I'm seated at a show and can't  get up to dance)...
 
..'no need for feet to keep the beat' (okay, I came up with that one  ;)   
And Beija's certainly cute too!  Hey, we girls are  entitled to some eye 
candy as well, since all we ever hear about is how guys  should dress and look 
good on stage to play to good looking girls  and women in the audience. 
Turnabout is fair play...
 
Rachelle also keeps moving...her entire body grooving along.  It might  not 
be obvious to some, but watch it again.....notice how she's always 'in  
motion', albeit subtly. It's something I find myself doing as well.
 
Never been to the Grand Ol' Opry, but this is one caucasian  woman who's 
never clapped along offbeat or in 'wrong time', despite Ken's  statement ;) 
Some of us DO get the groove and it's nothing at all to do  with what colour 
of skin we were born with. You either get it or don't, and it's  too facile 
to assume that one's race or choice of music precludes one from  the right 
timing.  
 
I'm with JP...can't understand how anyone needs to be taught rhythm or how  
to keep a beat unless one is born profoundly hearing impaired.  
 
It's with us since we're born...heartbeat, pulse, clackity-clack of hooves, 
 or heels (even high heels, which is why they're used to such good effect 
in  retro movies), bicycle wheels, car tires turning, bumping over grooves in 
a  road...a bus has a rhythm..subway too. A shopping cart has a rhythm. 
Even  without an instrument there is 'music' all around us; rhythm and  'beats' 
one is hearing and feeling through your entire body. You simply have to  
tune into this layer underlying the one you actually hear audibly.  It's  been 
there all along. It's the sounds you simply aren't aware  of consciously.  
Tune into it...focus on removing the obvious outside  noise and you'll be 
amazed by just how much underlying 'music', beat and rhythm  is going on all 
around you.
 
Perhaps because some people are much more visual than aural...they focus on 
 the beauty of objects while ignoring the sounds there as well and merely 
need to  refocus their brain's computer... 
 
Something I've always wondered when I attend a Peter White or Jason Ricci  
show/concert (my two most common): how certain audience members can sit 
plonked  in place without any part of their bodies moving...whether it's fingers 
 snapping, hands clapping, shoulders moving back and forth, heads bopping - 
all  things I cannot help but do, even if almost imperceptibly. 
 
I've watched audiences, astounded by people who sit completely immobile  
through the performances yet end up applauding as much as I do at the end of a 
 number - even cheering loudly...yet by my reckoning they didn't appear to  
be having a good time at all based on their immobility and/or  inertness. 
It's a complete puzzle since for me it's unfathomable to remain  motionless 
when there are those kinds of beats and rhythms going on..and  yes, I think 
of them as two separate things.
 
And it isn't taught (at least in my case)...there were no musical people in 
 my family before I came along and began playing harmonica at age 4...could 
play  whole songs immediately with the proper timing. How? Who knows. I can 
play  almost anything by ear, even on piano/keyboard. My two older siblings 
are  without the ability. Why? Who knows. It's not something I should be 
commended  for - I had nothing to do with it. It's not like the good grades I 
actually  worked for, this was happenstance.
 
But to get back to rhythm. There is rhythm even in water dripping from a  
tap or a downspout, and rain...and how tires sound so different swooshing  
through puddles than on a dry road. ..someone chopping wood when they've  
established a pattern. It's there.. you simply have to listen for and TO  it.  
 
When choosing to listen to a piece of music, try a little  exercise/game:  
separating the music from the underlying beat...listen to  only the beat.  
Feel it. Close your eyes and concentrate on it (granted  some pieces of music 
are easier to do this with than others). So first try some  of the easier 
more obviously drum-driven pieces then work up to the more  subtle...
 
Do it sitting down. Forget you have feet. Or hands. Just sit somewhere  
relaxed...eyes closed and HEAR the beat. Now, what does your body want to  
do...how does it want to move to this beat. If you've never done this before and 
 think you have no rhythm then after a while you should begin to feel  
...something: whether it's simply swaying in time or an actual 'bopping' back  
and forth..shoulders changing direction...hips... It's amazing how much the  
human body can actually move while seated and without conscious thought.
 
Above all, don't feel foolish. The truth is that more people are  feeling 
the beat around you (when you're at a show or concert or even a bar)  than 
there are who are sitting immobile. There's also nothing remotely  unmasculine 
about feeling the beat. I suspect many men who don't 'move to the  music' 
were told not to as children, perhaps because their fathers might  have 
considered it a feminine trait. It isn't.  Getting in tune with  the beats around 
you, within you, is healthy. Helps you run better, exercise  better and 
simply FEEL ..  better.
 
Elizabeth
 
 
PS Ken's post re Beat and Rhythm is very accurate but involved  and may be 
a bit further down the road 'Pro' wise, for the person who  simply has so 
far no sense of ability to move to music at all. Then,  my own experience with 
metronomes is that after about 10 minutes I want to toss  the thing out the 
window. I find them intrusive, restrictive and  horribly annoying. But of 
course your mileage may vary. If they work for you,  that's great.  I must 
have my own built-in 'metronome' or timing or  whatever it's called...but the 
real thing drives my ears crazy akin to  fingernails on a chalkboard or 
water dripping from a leaky tap.....  
 
 
_http://webmetronome.com/_ (http://webmetronome.com/) 
 
...But here's an online one you can set for speed and  emphasis on the  one 
through  4.  I confess I wanted to toss even this one through the  window 
after about 5  minutes<G>