Fingerpicking Solo - Keeping Time

[guitarjamman]

Question: when playing with other people and along to tracks, I do not have a problem keeping time during solos. Very easy to "feel the beat" and keep a groove riding along when their is a drum in the background.

I have a bit of an issue though when I am playing alone (sounds terrible), and fingerpicking along. I will play a groove with a set of chords and have no problem bouncing along the intended beat; keeping it going for hours would not be an issue at all. The troubles form when I decide to make a little run or diddy in place of one of my chords along the groove - instead of picking on the Em for a measure, I want to run up and play a little lick in the higher register while keeping the same head bobbing feel to it. I can keep it for a second, but I tend to loose the feel when I come off the lick and try and get back into the chord groove (if you know what I mean). I almost always finish my run on the wrong beat and really kill some timing when coming back down. A drum track (not metronome) keeps me in line because I can focus on the beats and use those as my guide to come back down into rhythm again.

A metronome does not provide enough "sustanance" to help guide me and keep me in line when trying to go a little wild. Any input on how to work on this issue? It seems that if I could master the ability to throw licks and free improv into my groove session then I would place myself right where I want to be in terms of guitar playing. Instead of focusing on timing ALL the time, I could then shift my focus on improving the quality of my lead lines.

Thanks!

[srick]

I have a similar problem. When I play along with pre-recorded tracks, I find that headphones really help me "hear the beat". When I play with friends, I will often watch their hand strokes to keep the beat (also while watching videos) I think the answer is listen and practice.

Like you, I am considering also playing to either a drum track, or a pre-recorded rhythm track and see if this can help my rhythm develop.

best,

Rick

[JonPR]

The idea is to wean yourself off the backing tracks. You'l never be able to keep time properly in a performance situation if you always rely on those.

You get too much support from a full backing track. You get a little less from a drum machine, but still too much (unless you strip the pattern right down).
A metronome is about right. It's difficult, but that's the point.
Nobody has a natural sense of regular time; it's not something that's been necessary in human evolution; our sense of time is flexible depending on circumstances and our mood.
But for music, we need a kind of twin-track perception of time: we need to feel an underlying framework that's metronomic (the "pulse"); that needs to be automatic, subconscious, so that we can play the actual music on top of it, with notes that may slip in and out of the beat. It's that automatic foundation layer that we need to acquire, through training.

You need to practice with a metronome until it's easy to play with the click - until you can sit on those clicks comfortably. That takes time.
And then you need to make it more difficult for yourself by halving the BPM - constantly challenging you to feel correctly where the missing beats come.

Check out this recent thread, and the Victor Wooten lesson:
http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/f...d.php?t=307670

[DaveKell]

I had that problem about twenty years with my first foray into fingerstyle playing and trying out some riffs from Stefan Grossman's old book on Hot Licks. It usually fell flat on the wrong beat. After I agreed to play the elec bass in an orchestra lacking a bassist for 15 years I went back to guitar. I ramped up my efforts to master fingerstyle play and unlike before, I could throw in licks without "losing my place" in the song. I guess the years of being the official timekeeper for the orchestra ingrained something into my head. I recall a number of times in orchestra practice where I would lose my place in the sheet music I had to learn to sight read and i would stop playing. One by one other players would fizzle out without me to keep them on track. The bass is so subliminal in music sometimes, you don't zero in on it the way you do guitar. But without the bass providing the foundation, most songs would sound uninteresting at best. Unless you want to detour into bass playing for awhile, all I can add is to keep trying relentlessly. I've also found when practicing fingerstyle that if I recorded myself, quite often what I thought of as mistakes while playing actually were more like nuances in the playing that worked remarkable well. I'd suggest recording yourself playing to see if your self criticism might not be as bad as you think.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by guitarjamman

...A metronome does not provide enough "sustanance" to help guide me and keep me in line when trying to go a little wild. Any input on how to work on this issue? It seems that if I could master the ability to throw licks and free improv into my groove session then I would place myself right where I want to be in terms of guitar playing. Instead of focusing on timing ALL the time, I could then shift my focus on improving the quality of my lead lines.

Hi gjm...

A second player or a simple looper can hold down the 'track' while you learn your fills. And either can repeat the measure in question forever (and the looper won't get bored and start experimenting on it's own).

There are a couple $120 loopers out there now (the Ditto is $106 at Amazon dot com and you still need a 9v power supply - it doesn't use battery). It's a great simple practice tool with far more applications than learning to play your fills in proper time.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by guitarjamman

The troubles form when I decide to make a little run or diddy in place of one of my chords along the groove - instead of picking on the Em for a measure, I want to run up and play a little lick in the higher register while keeping the same head bobbing feel to it. I can keep it for a second, but I tend to loose the feel when I come off the lick and try and get back into the chord groove (if you know what I mean). I almost always finish my run on the wrong beat and really kill some timing when coming back down.

The problem is most likely the licks you are trying to insert, being a little unsure of them and therefore flustered. If they are not the right length (number of beats), or you are not placing them in the right place, you will have trouble jumping back in to chord on the right beat. Also if you are not sure of the lick you may stumble a bit and lose timing.

For example, say the meter is 4/4 and you want to insert a lick. A typical shorter lick would be 2 beats. So you could play two beats of the 4/4 and then insert the 2 beat lick and get back out of it on time. However, in the above two beat time slot, say you are playing eighth notes in your lick. Your lick needs to be eight notes long - longer or shorter and you won't fit it in.

Also going up the neck to do a lick, do you get to it in time to start it on the beat? If not then the lick will not fit in.

It some cases it might be easier to skip a lead in beat - say in 4/4 strumming skipping beat 2 and do the riff on 3 and 4.

Get to know a few riffs and how many beats they last.

[posternutbag]

I have found that the thing that helps me the most is playing slowly and keeping strict count in my head. If I am playing quavers, I am thinking, " One and Two and Three and Four and" through each measure. In the beginning the music sounds robotic, but after playing for a while I can pick up speed and the pulse becomes internalized.

[guitarjamman]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

The problem is most likely the licks you are trying to insert, being a little unsure of them and therefore flustered. If they are not the right length (number of beats), or you are not placing them in the right place, you will have trouble jumping back in to chord on the right beat. Also if you are not sure of the lick you may stumble a bit and lose timing.

For example, say the meter is 4/4 and you want to insert a lick. A typical shorter lick would be 2 beats. So you could play two beats of the 4/4 and then insert the 2 beat lick and get back out of it on time. However, in the above two beat time slot, say you are playing eighth notes in your lick. Your lick needs to be eight notes long - longer or shorter and you won't fit it in.

Also going up the neck to do a lick, do you get to it in time to start it on the beat? If not then the lick will not fit in.

It some cases it might be easier to skip a lead in beat - say in 4/4 strumming skipping beat 2 and do the riff on 3 and 4.

Get to know a few riffs and how many beats they last.

Thank you for breaking it down into simple terms! My problem is that I took lessons around 10 years ago for a couple months to learn the foundations and then went on my own after that. Granted, I can hold my own but to try and progress to the next level, I need to get the foundation strong with my timing - mediocre is only going to take me so far in a solo type setting.

I understand about playing the lead riffs on beats 2&3 or 3&4 depending how I want to transition back into the chords, and I understand how in 4/4 timing with eighth notes I would play a lead fill with 8 notes, but what about if I want to play a little more freely? Robotic playing is needed at first to engrain the feel, but when you decide that instead of playing just eighth notes for the fill, you want to shoot for the moon and encorporate feel instead.

Do you rely on a heavy sense of engrained timing to "know" when the beat is coming up and its time to run down to the chords again? Would trying to tap a foot along to the beats or bob just a little in my chair help me sense the upcoming transition?

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by guitarjamman

Do you rely on a heavy sense of engrained timing to "know" when the beat is coming up and its time to run down to the chords again? Would trying to tap a foot along to the beats or bob just a little in my chair help me sense the upcoming transition?

Both of those, especially on ad libs. Eighth notes was just an example (stick in there whatever you want), but even with those you can play them in a swing or syncopated style. Other than being completely ad lib you can work out several general licks in advance as to ways to play them and how long they last.

As you said, you have good timing on chording and strumming. Throwing in runs and licks is a bit of a step up and you need to be prepared for them or you will lose your place.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by guitarjamman

I understand about playing the lead riffs on beats 2&3 or 3&4 depending how I want to transition back into the chords, and I understand how in 4/4 timing with eighth notes I would play a lead fill with 8 notes, but what about if I want to play a little more freely? Robotic playing is needed at first to engrain the feel, but when you decide that instead of playing just eighth notes for the fill, you want to shoot for the moon and encorporate feel instead.

IMO, you should begin by working with triplets and 16ths in each beat, before getting more random.
IOW, before "shooting for the moon", shoot for some kind of closer, bigger target! (Work your way up to the moon...)

Comfortable with 8ths? Go for 16ths. Once you can get 16ths (and you may need to start slow), there are many ways of playing syncopations and cross rhythms. Each beat has 4 parts (1+1+1+1, or "One-e-and-a"), and you can play them 1+2+1, 1+1+2, etc, and syncopate across the beat:

|1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . |
 x x   x   x   x     x   x x

etc. Lots of funky rhythms that way .

How are you with shuffle or swing rhythms?

Shuffle is essentially an 8th-triplet rhythm, each beat divided 2+1.
Again, as with 16ths, it's not just about filling the beat with triplets (1+1+1), you can change the rhythm to 1+2, or playing across the beat with a 1/4-note triplet pattern (beats 1 & 2 or 3 & 4):
This demands a good awareness of how shuffle can translate as 12/8, with many ways of breaking up those 12 8ths beyond the standard 4x3 rhythm. That will give your fills plenty of excitment and "feel", withou going outside the beat. This is six 1/4 note triplets in the bar:

 
|1 . . 2 . . 3 . . 4 . . |
 x   x   x   x   x   x

This is all about being able to feel "3 over 2". Can you count the 4 and tap those 6 regular notes? (It's 12 8ths played as 6x2 over a 4x3 pulse.)

Swing is much more flexible than that, because the 8ths can be anywhere between near straight and triplet feel. That enables a very organic level of feel - again without losing the beat.

Of course, the tunes you're playing might not be in shuffle or swing feel; but you can still introduce triplets over a straight 8 feel for effect.

IMO, you have to be in command of these kind of cross-rhythms and syncopations before contemplating anything that ignores or floats over the beat.
The above examples might sound mechanical, but it comes down to what I was saying before about internalising the pulse; making the beat subconscious. Cross rhythms are a great way of adding rhythmic interest without losing the beat.
Build up from 8ths into triplets and 16ths while staying right with the beat. Then try a few syncopations, check you can still come back on the beat.

Originally Posted by guitarjamman

Do you rely on a heavy sense of engrained timing to "know" when the beat is coming up and its time to run down to the chords again?

As much as I can, yes. I can kind of picture the beat as a line with divisions on it, and I know where I am all the time. I can, of course, lose the beat if I go too random - so I just don't go too random! (I find there's plenty of good stuff, good feel, i can apply without going too far outside the beat.)

Originally Posted by guitarjamman

Would trying to tap a foot along to the beats or bob just a little in my chair help me sense the upcoming transition?

It can, yes, as long as you can do that without thinking. If you can feel your way into the groove, then some kind of bobbing up and down can help; foot tapping is a little more problematic, because if you can't do it automatically in time (without thinking), it's one more thing to think about. (It takes a little more control than some gentle rhythmic body movement.)
In fact it's a great way to test your inner sense of time - try tapping, or bobbing, see if it helps, or if it just confuses! You should get a sense of how it's a separate thing: your "body time", if you like, with the notes you're playing on top of it.

Here's Al Di Meola explaining the importance of rhythm, how he developed his, and demonstrating how he plays over the pulse or against it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ4FZ80Qdd8
- nothing he plays is random, or ignoring the beat. He has a great sense of internalised pulse.
(Notice he doesn't say "you must tap your foot"; he says "you must be able to tap your foot" (ie keep it steady regardless of what you play). Tapping your foot is no good if it starts going off the beat when your playing does.