A few years ago the word 'beat' suddenly came to mean 'rhythm
pattern.' "I like so and so because he makes such good
beats..." Though I love witnessing language morph over time, it is
the kind of thing that makes older people cranky, and I'm older
people. In any event, I'm gonna use the old meaning of the word
'beat', as in pulse. It is the thing you hear when you turn on the
metronome. In my lexicon it is not the groove, it is not a rhythm
pattern, or at least not a very good one.
I love using my metronome, I practice with it daily, but it will not
teach anyone to feel a groove. It WILL teach you to feel the beat,
though, and to express it.
(I urge every musician who doesn't use a metronome to run out and
buy one before finishing reading this post, and start practicing
with it every day until it is easy and fun to use. It will not be
at first, but will become so, and along the way you will develop a
super-strong sense of time. This is the simplest thing you can do
to seriously improve your musicianship.)
All grooves are rhythm patterns, but not all rhythm patterns are
grooves. A groove is a rhythm pattern that you can feel, and in
American dance band music that feeling better be enjoyable or your
band will be mainly gigging in your basement. (Blues Bands make a
species of American dance band music.)
Luckily, developing and playing great grooves is something you can
get good at. I'll refine my definition further in just a
moment. But first, more on The Beat.
Almost all American dance band music is in four-four, four beats to
the measure. And music that is danceable places more emphasis on
the first and third beats or the second and fourth beats. Most but
not all blues places its emphasis on the two and the four. If you
watch white people clap to the music in the audience of the Grand
Ol' Opry, they clap on the one and the three, even if the emphasis
is on the two and the four. Go figure.
Rarely does an arrangement go from being a one & three arrangement
to a two & four. (The Band does it sometimes, and to greatest
effect on their album Stage Fright. But those guys had lived Groove
for years at that point, and could really monkey with it.)
(A rare instance of emphasis on all four beats is the Steely Dan
tune Time Out Of Mind, but it's really two grooves combined very
craftily, half the band playing one pattern and half playing the
other. They were able to accomplish this because, like many
professional musicians, they have though long and deeply about
Groove. It is an endlessly deep subject, as many advanced Harp-l
players can tell you.)
So, one & three or two & four is the very basis of building a groove
you can feel. Any rhythm pattern that makes you feel great, and
makes you want to dance is a good groove, but it's hard to name a
groove that doesn't build on either one & three or two & four.
Here's a pertinant story. In the early 60's Leiber & Stoller wrote
and produced an incredible record on Chuck Jackson called "I Keep
Forgetting." (It was later - um - appropriated by Michael McDonald,
whose representatives negotiated a deal to split the writer credit
with L&S.) If you ever get to hear this song you'll be amazed
because it feels so unique. The fact is, L&S were experimenting
with building a groove on the one & four. As listening music it is a marvel.
But Chuck Jackson played the record for Smokey Robinson back stage
at the Apollo and Smokey sadly and kindly told Jackson that though
it was an incredible song, the record wasn't going to be a
hit. Why? Because you couldn't dance to it.
It wasn't a hit.
In America we mainly feel like dancing when we hear a good groove
built on the two & four. That's how most rock & roll and blues is
built. Some people build their grooves intuitively, i.e., they have
never been educated in the subject, but I guarantee you that most of
your favorite grooves were crafted by people who's entire being is
imbued with the subject.
The epitome of beautifully constructed grooves might well be Stax
recordings. The drummer on those recordings, Al Jackson, spent his
life devising delightful - um, groovy - rhythm patterns. After the
Stax recording band broke up, he went around the world collecting
great rhythms, and then went home and developed some of the greatest
patterns ever devised. His pattern for Al Green's 'Let's Stay
Together' is so great that Willie Mitchell and Al Green shared their
writer's credit with him. (In the studio, they divided a single
drum kit up into two kits and Jackson played half the pattern on his
half kit and Archie Turner, the regular drummer on Al Green's
records, played the other half. Listen to the record, you'll hear
it and now you know why the drum groove on that recording feels so unique.)
So... Feeling the Groove. That is, grooves you can feel. If
there's a rhythm pattern going and you can't feel it, it isn't a
groove. At least not for you. If you play with musicians who
already make good grooves that make you want to dance while playing,
learn from them. Otherwise, listen to the records of the Meters,
Booker T and the MG's, Stuff, the Mar-Keys, Chess Blues and R&B
records, Motown records. You almost always want to dance when you
hear those records. Study the grooves on those records.
Learn to play those grooves on harp. Learn to play them so that
people want to dance when you are playing them by yourself. (Here's
where metronome practice really comes in. If your inner metronome
(your 'time') is mediocre, and it probably is if you don't work with
a metronome, when you play those grooves you'll see people dance to
it for a moment and then trail off, bored. But if you work with
your metronome your time will become solid and you can play a groove
forever and people will just go nuts with joy. You'll be Feeling the Groove.
Now, this doesn't mean you should play all the elements of a great
groove when you're playing with a band. Far from it. The band
creates a groove where all members play PART of it. It all locks
together and you get a band really sounding like a band. As the
groove is being developed, your job is to do what is called 'finding
the holes', i.e., the places where nobody else is playing, and then
fill those holes that make the overall groove even more delightful
and DANCEABLE.
For blues grooves, I'd listen to Tip On In by Slim Harpo. Simple
and utterly perfect. (By the way, played by studio musicians,
groove experts.) Slim's the lead instrument, harp so often is, but
even so is finding the holes. (Slim's 'Hey Little Lee' is a rare
blues built on one & three. Stunning groove.) Of course the Chess
records are just unbelieveably groovy, too.
So the first step in all this is definitely Feeling the Groove, but
you want to develop your playing, learn how to be PART of the
groove. Learning how to hear the holes will help you as a soloist,
too. Alot. There used to be a terrific blues jam in a North
Hollywood rehearsal studio where I must've only played three solos
every night. I was mainly interested in working out with the rhythm
section and being part of it. Fantastic experience, because the
players were so strong, and they were interested in finding ways for
me to be part of the groove, too.
The thing you can do on your own is identify the grooves on the
records you love best and learn to play them on harp. Learn to play
them really, really well and you'll be on your way to Feeling The
Groove in every playing situation.
And of course practice with that metronome.
K
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