RE: [Harp-L] FEELING THE GROOVE and reflecting it physically

["Bradford Trainham" <bradford.trainham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I read that in his Chronicles.
The only thing I can think of that I can associate with triplets is his song
No Time to Think off Street Legal which has a strange triplet thing running
through the rhythm.
Another song, less "tripply", but with a hint of 3/4 suffused within 4/4 is
his Where Tear Drops Fall off Oh Mercy.
 But I wouldn't be surprised, if we were ever able to ask the "horse's
mouth" directly, if he was talking about something totally different.
Brad Trainham


-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Gary Warren
Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2010 1:01 PM
To: Ken Deifik; Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] FEELING THE GROOVE and reflecting it physically

Bob Dylan talked about learning something from Lonnie Johnson, I think,
about a different timing pattern.
Seems it had something to do with threes.  I think Bob does this with his
band at this point and finds it a bit hard to find musicians that can hang
with it.
Do you know anything about that?

At 01:22 PM 1/3/2010, you wrote:
>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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--
Gary "Indiana" Warren

"The important thing is not to stop questioning."
                                 Albert Einstein 

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