#16
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No, not really.
I am an ex drummer so if I et my feet do what comes naturally my left would be playing an imaginary hi-hat and my right the bass drum. like others, I stand to perform. My right hand is pretty rhythmic with my boom-chick style. I have a friend who is a professional acoustic blues singer/player. he cannot help but stomp. he did t o hard for so long that he developed problems with his leg and had to have a stent fitted into it! He stomps a bit less now. last week i was watching the feet of the acts playing at my club (I sit by the stage at the mixer) I was surprised how many of the lesser performers tapped in time with the melody and not the rhythm. (bit like Kieth Moon used to play).
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Silly Moustache, Just an old Limey acoustic guitarist, Dobrolist, mandolier and singer. I'm here to try to help and advise and I offer one to one lessons/meetings/mentoring via Zoom! |
#17
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The question, though, is: your left foot may be keeping "perfect time with my beat." But is your beat in perfect time? What your teacher said back then reminds of a common experience I'd see in jazz workshops, jam sessions with bunches of amateurs (including me!). I'd see horn players playing out of time, and tapping their feet out of time too. Obviously they thought they were in time. Presumably they thought the foot tapping helped, but obviously it didn't. The reason - obviously - is their foot was being controlled by the same faulty internal clock that their fingers (and mouths, being horn players) were. Your foot is not a metronome. Your sense of time is organic, it's going to shift this way and that depending on your mood. You can think you're holding a tempo when you're not. Where foot tapping does help - IME and maybe in your case too (as you time has obviously improved in some way) - is when your sense of time is already reasonably good, and you're playing a lot of syncopated rhythms. Foot tapping helps keep the basic pulse steady so you can feel whereabouts the chords and notes should fall relative to the beat. What foot tapping won't do (and a lot of people think it does) is help you keep to a steady tempo, without slowing down or speeding up. I.e, it can help you place those syncopations correctly against the beat, getting strumming patterns and grooves working, but it may not help you keep the beat at a steady overall tempo. That's what metronome practice is for. When you see pros tapping their foot, it's probably not because it helps them keep time. It's because their time is already good, and they are just expressing that with the foot tapping - as they are with their playing too. The groove is already in them, and they are just moving to it.
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"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen. |
#18
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Yes, and unless I really concentrate, it's hard to control.
In the sixties and seventies, I had complaints from the folks in the apartment below. At recording sessions, I've had the engineer tell me to take off my shoes and once had to put my foot on a pillow. I'm a member of the Northumberland Orchestra & Choir and have been told by the director, "This isn't folk music Jim. If you must tap your foot, try leaving your foot on the floor and tapping your toe inside your shoe."
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Jim _____________________ -1962 Martin D-21 -1950 Gibson LG1 -1958 Goya M-26 -Various banjos, mandolins, dulcimers, ukuleles, Autoharps, mouth harps. . . |
#19
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Depends on the tune. If I'm playing some sort of blues with a backbeat, I'm sometimes a foot stomper. If I'm playing something slower and with less of a rhythmic emphasis, I often don't. I think I don't more often than I do, because when I do, I notice it and I'm powerless to stop it...
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"It's just honest human stuff that hadn't been near a dang metronome in its life" - Benmont Tench |
#20
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I'd argue, however, that a mediocre player with poor organic timing (like me) will keep better (albeit maybe not great) time if they tap vs. not. Especially when the tune has a mix of whole, half, quarter and eighth notes. It's not hard to keep decent time when playing a tune with all 1/8 notes - for example "The Boxer" by Paul Simon. I've almost got "Dead Flowers" by Townes Van Zandt worked out. It's got 1/4, 1/8 and 1/16 notes, in a rather randomized fashion. Tapping it out was crucial for me to get the timing anywhere close. Then I needed to play with a metronome to get it just right. Then to get the right lazy-ish feel to the tune, I had to stop playing it with a metronome! |
#21
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I don't have perfect timing. Contrary, I play most everything slowed down as I like that style. My left foot and right hand are playing together with whatever beat I play. Maybe I just don't slow down or speed up a lot like I used too? |
#22
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Sometimes I does, and sometimes I doesn't. Sometimes I just don't know.
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#23
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I'm not but Hank Marvin and the shadows were in 1963
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour..._UX2AunqX1ERop |
#24
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It took a few tries to get used to playing with the metronome. The first few times I hated it, it took all the fun out of playing. So every six months or so I came back to it. Now it doesn't take any fun out of the playing. It does amuse me at times to see how when I think I'm on time, and I'm stomping my foot along quite nicely, that the metronome tells me how close or far I am from being on time. I bought a DRS-01 Boss unit which is a fair bit more fun to play along to than the plain vanilla metronome I have on my phone. |
#25
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Yes, just started but I don't mind if if it's not audible. Finding it helps move the guitar along from one line or phrase of music to the next as I pause too much in phrasing
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http://www.youtube.com/user/studio249 |
#26
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Always. I wouldn't be a bluegrasser if I didn't.
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"I've always thought of bluegrass players as the Marines of the music world" – (A rock guitar guy I once jammed with) Martin America 1 Martin 000-15sm Recording King Dirty 30s RPS-9 TS Taylor GS Mini Baton Rouge 12-string guitar Martin L1XR Little Martin 1933 Epiphone Olympic 1971 square neck Dobro |
#27
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You can have a lot of fun watching professionals tap (or not). I remember one guy who'd tap with both feet - and knees. Another would tap one foot or the other, then stop, then after a bit, change. I am sure he was not thinking about it at all.
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The Bard Rocks Fay OM Sinker Redwood/Tiger Myrtle Sexauer L00 Adk/Magnolia For Sale Hatcher Jumbo Bearclaw/"Bacon" Padauk Goodall Jumbo POC/flamed Mahogany Appollonio 12 POC/Myrtle MJ Franks Resonator, all Australian Blackwood Blackbird "Lucky 13" - carbon fiber '31 National Duolian + many other stringed instruments. |
#28
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The first time I saw John Hartford live was about 45 years ago. He played guitar, banjo and fiddle sitting down, but his feet were going a mile a minute.
After a couple of decades, he started playing standing up with his feet still going a mile a minute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCVQ3w3sKxA
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Jim _____________________ -1962 Martin D-21 -1950 Gibson LG1 -1958 Goya M-26 -Various banjos, mandolins, dulcimers, ukuleles, Autoharps, mouth harps. . . |
#29
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I’ve always tapped my left foot (I’m right handed; do lefties tap their right foot?) while playing guitar, bass, even piano much of the time (though my left hand can substitute if it has a steady pattern). I don’t remember if someone advised me to do this, but it absolutely helps keep a steady beat.
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Collings OM-2H with cutaway Cordoba GK Pro Negra flamenco National Resonator Collegian Taylor 562ce 12-string |
#30
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Yes, when I feel the urge. I ALWAYS "tap" on the back beat, though. When I'm sitting with a group of other players I'm the only one who feels the beat on the 2 and 4. It's somewhat embarrassing, but I've been doing it for 50 years and I'm not about to change that any easier than changing my left-handedness.
Luckily, there's no handedness with instruments , so I play "right-handed" just fine. |