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Old 10-27-2017, 05:25 PM
David Rock David Rock is offline
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Default Melody or rhythm?

I was a little curious and always have been...I know this is a loaded question but do not mean it that way.

Preface with -- I was at Greek restaurant yesterday they were streaming some pretty cool music...it reminded me of Ottmar Liebert kind of stuff. So I looked up O.L. youtube. I pulled up Barcelona Nights and some other Rhumba examples. Now I am not a Rhumba or Flamenco kinda guy, but it was cool and interesting. (Sorry, but I cannot get my right hand that loose. I am sure it would just fall off!)

Which is more important 'groove' or melody?

I have always been chasing melody but maybe groove calls for more attention to the art? So much 'new age' is in my opinion focused on groove.

Groove or melody?

Here is an example of my chase for melody:



Thanks for the input
D

Last edited by Kerbie; 10-27-2017 at 05:27 PM. Reason: Sp... in title
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Old 10-27-2017, 08:15 PM
Mandobart Mandobart is offline
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Rhythm rules. Always. The right note at the wrong time is still wrong.
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Old 10-27-2017, 08:53 PM
reeve21 reeve21 is online now
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Hi David,

That is a very nice melody, like all of your compositions!

I wrote a paragraph arguing one side of the question, and then another arguing the other side. I deleted them both and will just say a great tune has both

I enjoy your compositions!
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Old 10-28-2017, 12:23 AM
Guitar Slim II Guitar Slim II is offline
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Originally Posted by Mandobart View Post
Rhythm rules. Always. The right note at the wrong time is still wrong.
+1. If it ain’t in rhythm, it ain’t music.
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Old 10-28-2017, 01:56 AM
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A great melody is hard to beat and I will take that over something rhythmic without melodic content of interest. However often it can be a nice combination
of both and not some either/or choice.
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Old 10-28-2017, 02:15 AM
Guitar Slim II Guitar Slim II is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by David Rock View Post
I was a little curious and always have been...I know this is a loaded question but do not mean it that way.

Preface with -- I was at Greek restaurant yesterday they were streaming some pretty cool music...it reminded me of Ottmar Liebert kind of stuff. So I looked up O.L. youtube. I pulled up Barcelona Nights and some other Rhumba examples. Now I am not a Rhumba or Flamenco kinda guy, but it was cool and interesting. (Sorry, but I cannot get my right hand that loose. I am sure it would just fall off!)

Which is more important 'groove' or melody?

I have always been chasing melody but maybe groove calls for more attention to the art? So much 'new age' is in my opinion focused on groove.

Groove or melody?

Here is an example of my chase for melody:



Thanks for the input
D
I could tap my foot to it, therefore it had rhythm. A loose interpretation of the term "groove" would be...anything you could tap your foot to!

I say, keep chasing whatever it is you are compelled to chase. It's already coming out as music. You seem a pretty competent composer. If you want to write something with a heavier beat or a more percussive sound, then give it a try. If not, then don't. It's not like you have to choose one or the other. And trying something different doesn't negate what you did before or will do in future. In fact, it adds to it...

Might even like to hear some more of what you do. But...put a little more into the recording first, please. All that noise and distortion is pretty unpleasant, and can damage sensitive equipment. Are you recording with one of those sound-hole pickups? Or a not-so-great built-in pickup? That's what it sounds like. See if you can figure out a setup where you can mic your guitar. Maybe your recording level is too high, also. What are you recording this on?

Finally, go hang out in the "Record" forum, you'll learn a lot about recording there.

As far as the playing and writing go, you're kinda beyond simple forum advice, I'd say....

Last edited by Guitar Slim II; 10-28-2017 at 02:31 AM.
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Old 10-28-2017, 03:00 AM
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To me, this question is like asking, "When walking, which foot is more important, your right or left?" As in music, one without the other is going to be handicapped. Sorry, how insensitive of me. Disadvantaged.

cotten
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Old 10-28-2017, 04:56 AM
mattbn73 mattbn73 is offline
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Of course it's both, but in terms of guitarists generally and where deficiencies are or may be? Rhythm all the way.

Go to a piano recital or anything for beginning musicians, and this becomes evident. Rhythmic mastery is more essential to the performance vs compromising rhythm to execute pitch perfectly. Each note has a time and a place (pitch). If you play the wrong pitch but maintain time otherwise, basically 50% of a single element is wrong, whereas if time is compromised to accommodate pitch, everything following is somewhat compromised. Basically hurts the entire form of the song/piece being played.

Slightly different values depending on whether you're talking about improv or composition, but generally if you question which is more important, just aren't a single piano recital (especially of an incompetent teacher). Your question will be answered.
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Old 10-28-2017, 06:54 AM
Bikewer Bikewer is offline
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As Rick-Solo says.... A great deal of so-called “new age” music and related “soft jazz” seems to me to be “endless noodling”.

Pretty picking, but it doesn’t go anywhere or do anything. I want dynamics, melody, emotional content.
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Old 10-28-2017, 08:05 AM
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Rhythm will get you through periods of no melody better than melody will get you through periods of no rhythm.
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Old 10-28-2017, 08:35 AM
David Rock David Rock is offline
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Default Better Example?

Thanks for all the replies...

It certainly seems both groove and melody are important, and a song that has both trumps. I suppose a strong melody can be rhythmically leading in a way that properly clues or directs the ear?

It seems to me as I write tunes I am trying to overcome some of the inherent "isms" or limitations of the acoustic guitar. Once a note is struck it is going away with varying degrees of decay. If there is not a 'groove', something has to push (or pull?) it forward.

Guitar Slim, sorry for the lousy recordings. I have lived on a boat for a number of years so the only way I record is direct from pick up to digital, and under the poorest of circumstances (I mean really worst of, really). We have bought a house in San Antonio and are in the process of moving back to land and I hope to properly record my stuff...these are just to share with AGF. But I am sorry for poor quality. Here are a couple of others done in a room with a SM 81 on a steel string. And, you nailed it, the level was too high (by a long shot).

Bob Reeve21, thanks for your comments too. Here are couple of other samples I am happy to share.

I believe the gift has a strong groove (rhythm), and also what I call a hum-able melody. I think I captured both in this one.



On the other hand I also like Someday, but I think it is more melody driven (although there is a discernible rhythm too).



There is also a version of Someday on my Soundcloud on a nylon string guitar (which is the platform I have gravitated to). It may not be a 'good' recording though...

As I happily go merrily boom chucking along
D
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Old 10-28-2017, 08:40 AM
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I think the OP was talking about music which is inherently more rhythmically driven versus melodically driven - not about whether the person playing the music is able keep time. Lots of great music to listen to has no rhythmic variation content at all per se other than perhaps accelerados and ritardanos here and there.
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Old 10-28-2017, 08:46 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Rhythm is obviously the most important element for dance music. Which is of course why the question occurred to you listening to rumba!

Rock music was also originally dance music (as was jazz originally, and R&B always). A lot of folk music too, of course.
Even classical music, such as minuets, sarabandes, allemandes - all dances originally.

The less you care about your music being danceable, the less crucial rhythm becomes. Timing is still important, but not necessarily groove. I.e., tempo needn't be "strict", it can be rubato if dancing is not required.

Dizzy Gillespie (whose bebop was always danceable) had a nice quote: "some people think of a note and put a rhythm to it. I think of a rhythm and put a note to it." So he clearly felt rhythm was more important than the notes.
I was once in a class run by Brazilian percussionist Bosco D'Oliviera, and he had another nice saying about the clave (the rhythmic cell of both Cuban and Brazilian music). He said the clave was a pattern that existed "in the air" - you just had to hook on to it and follow it. (Like one of those drag lifts on ski runs, I guess )

Obviously notes matter, but what they're both saying is that the groove comes first. The groove is the foundation on which everything else rests. Maybe the notes end up dominating, but without that firm foundation the whole thing can collapse.

My own epiphany came at a jazz gig, when I was listening to some pros play some quite simple stuff, and wondered why it sounded so good. I realised it was because their timing was impeccable, absolutely precise. Even when they swung, or played loose behind the beat, every note was place on exactly the right nano-second. It's that precision of timing that sorts the pros from the amateurs. I'd had a lot of experience playing with amateurs at that point, and the loose timing made everything tiring to listen to. You could admire some nicely melodic soloists now and then, but it all just dragged, even at fast tempos.

Technically, achieving crisp timing is partly about having a good internal clock - being totally aware of tempo and groove - but also about articulation. You not only have to know how to groove, but to have the chops to be able to place those notes exactly where you want them in the bar, and hold them exactly as long as you want. Chops in the service of time, IOW, not speed!
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Last edited by JonPR; 10-28-2017 at 08:57 AM.
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Old 10-28-2017, 09:05 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by David Rock View Post
I believe the gift has a strong groove (rhythm), and also what I call a hum-able melody. I think I captured both in this one.



On the other hand I also like Someday, but I think it is more melody driven (although there is a discernible rhythm too).


Very nice playing! Great sound too. (I'm mystified by the "distortion" Guitar Slim heard in After the Wind. It's clearly heavily compressed (more so than the other two), but it sounds clean and clear on my system. There were occasional buzzes, which seemed to be string rattles of some kind, amplified by the compression.)

FWIW I thought the rhythmic element was all fine, you seem to have a good sense of time, even if I couldn't always follow the meter. I.e., it wasn't always clear where the beat was (or which was beat 1), but that's no big deal in these pieces IMO. This is music to listen to, not to dance to.

That's not to say more concentration on rhythmic foundation wouldn't be a good exercise (a fresh viewpoint?), but there's some beautiful sounds there. I'd be very pleased to have created recordings like this. (What's your gear? guitar, pickups, recording?)

If there's a flaw (if I have to criticize!), it's that it's all very "sweet" (melodically and harmonically), but without much clear sense of form. It sounds at least partially improvised. Nothing wrong with that, but it means all three tunes sound much the same.
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Last edited by JonPR; 10-28-2017 at 09:14 AM.
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Old 10-28-2017, 09:23 AM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by David Rock View Post
I was a little curious and always have been...I know this is a loaded question but do not mean it that way.

Preface with -- I was at Greek restaurant yesterday they were streaming some pretty cool music...it reminded me of Ottmar Liebert kind of stuff. So I looked up O.L. youtube. I pulled up Barcelona Nights and some other Rhumba examples. Now I am not a Rhumba or Flamenco kinda guy, but it was cool and interesting. (Sorry, but I cannot get my right hand that loose. I am sure it would just fall off!)

Which is more important 'groove' or melody?

I have always been chasing melody but maybe groove calls for more attention to the art? So much 'new age' is in my opinion focused on groove.

Groove or melody?

Here is an example of my chase for melody:



Thanks for the input
D
David, you have posted some very nice music, and thanks for that. You play quite well.

Regarding rhythm, it is inherent in everything we do. We speak with a rhythmic cadence. If we didn't, we would not be able to make sense out of what anybody says. When we reach out to shake hands, there is a rhythm that includes a starting point and an end point, and a rhythm to the overall movement. Our body movements, our speech, and our music all has a rhythmic component that gives all of it coherence.

What is unfortunate (not in your music, thankfully) is that, in much of the music I hear on the radio, seems to be rhythm with slamming, pounding drums overtaking everything else instead of supporting everything else. This change seemed to have its start with disco back in the 70s. Drums are amplified to compete with the vocalist and other backing of the band. It seems clear to me that a lot of people really enjoy this, leaving me in a relatively small minority. We even have this in acoustic guitar playing, with people now smacking their guitars and doing their tapping, but seeming to all too often leave out a clearly stated melody.

I don't know why this is so, but it seems to have become the standard over the past 30 years or so. Music with a string rhythmic component that leaves sonic space for the other elements of the band (i.e. groove supporting the melody), as your example in the OP mentions, has been with us for a long time. Santana provides many good examples of that applied to pop music. That, at least to me, is different than what I described in my previous paragraph.

To me, both groove and melody are important, but the groove supporting the melody sounds much more musical to my ears.

Tony
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