Re: [Harp-L] Groove vs Swing

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Carol Kaye's work includes the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, the Carpenters, Sonny and Cher, and many pop idols of the 1960s and their hit records. She was part of a working studio collective that included guitarists Tommy Tedesco and Glen Campbell, drummer Hal Blaine, and harmonicist Tommy Morgan, known collectively as the Wrecking Crew.

So she knows from hit records - she not only played on many of them, she sometimes created the memorable instrumental lines on them, such as the guitar line on "The Beat Goes On" (she was a bebop guitarist before taking up the bass as a way of putting food on the table).


David, do you remember some of the metronome tricks she used?

Perhaps the most common one is one I already alluded to: set the metronome to half the tempo you're going to play at, and then make the metronome click stand in for the 2nd and 4th beats:

(1) CLICK!  (3) CLICK!

This puts the emphasis on the weak beats, 2 and 4, shifting it away from the strong 1 and 3 beats.

By shifting the emphasis you create new energy.

That new energy gives the 1 and 3 something dynamic to bounce off. Hence the ability to play with a swinging feel even as you play directly on top of the beat.

Groove can happen intuitively as some have said. But you can create a lot of interest in your playing by exploring different aspects of what you do:

-- How you articulate (begin and end) and connect notes.

-- Where you place notes relative to the beat.

-- Which beats and parts  of the beat receive emphasis in the ensemble

-- Which beats and parts of the beat receive emphasis in the line you're playing.


Once you've done all that stuff, you'll have more to work with when you let intuition take over. By digging in  this dirt, you'll have created more fertile soil for your imagination, and for your ability to deliver what your imagination comes up with.
Winslow

 
Winslow Yerxa
Author, Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
            Harmonica Basics For Dummies, ASIN B005KIYPFS
            Blues Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-1-1182-5269-7
Resident Harmonica Expert, bluesharmonica.com
Instructor, Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance


________________________________
 From: David Fairweather <dmf273@xxxxxxxxx>

I used to take my son to bass lessons with legendary studio bassist Carol
Kaye.  She swears by the metronome, and she has many different tricks for
getting the most out of metronome practice.   (Apparently this may be
common with bass players because Victor Wooten in his book "The Music
Lesson" describes some of the same tricks.)

I will never forget Carol Kaye's almost spooky ability to create an
auditory illusion by playing "around" the beat to make the metronome itself
, seem like  IT was doing the swinging!

I'll also never forget her insistence that a "hit" record, is a hit from
the first measure and the difference between a hit and a miss is the beat
(or groove or whatever you want to call it.)  She was not shy about taking
credit for creating many of those "hit" grooves.