Tag Archives: practice

How to Master Rhythm and Become a Better Musician (2)

Posted on April 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

This is the second and final part of our article inspired by a reader asking about practical tips and ideas to master rhythm in order to become a better musician. A link to part one is provided at the end of this installment.

More Tips and Advice To Master Rhythm

Continuing on with some more ideas and techniques aimed at learning to master rhythm, I would recommend a couple of related ideas to try that may seem fairly unorthodox at first glance but I believe can be quite useful. One is to work with a mirror, and the other is to record or videotape yourself during your practice sessions. It may seem a little weird to stare at yourself in a mirror, but you need to make sure that what you’re doing physically is not interfering with your precision in any way, so use your instrument or sticks or sing, whatever you like, and watch yourself while you’re doing it. Are you making any unnecessary body movements that are slowing down the beat somehow? Is your breath timing precise? If you’re listening to music and tapping, is your foot coming up too far or awkwardly making it physically difficult to come down precisely on the beat? Check out your entire body and pay close attention to all those physical movements, the smaller the better in general terms, you want to focus all your efforts on precision and not allow any big sweeping movements to interfere with landing the groove as precisely as you can.

Similarly, when listening to yourself on audio or watching yourself on video, try and identify what small, subtle actions you’re doing physically might be getting in the way of your ability to be precise enough to really master rhythm completely. Notice not only whether or not the rhythm is right or not, but what’s wrong with it exactly. Are you behind the beat? Ahead of it? Are you all over the place, fast in some places slow in others? Try to identify exactly where you seem to be going astray and zero in on that problem and work to fix it, one small section at a time (try the video taping method when you’re practicing your downbeats and other isolated attack exercises).

Don’t Get Discouraged

One thing to keep in mind is that not every technique is going to work for every person. Some people need to try many different methods, other people find one method or one particular teacher or a certain comment that just seems to click for them. We all struggle with some areas in music that frustrate us because we don’t feel as though we’re able to improve quickly enough, while other things come much more naturally to us without such an intensive amount of work. Aside from the extremes, virtuosos who can simply pick up their craft seemingly effortlessly and, on the flip side, folks who simply have no natural aptitude for music and are really probably better off simply finding some other creative pursuit because music is just not their thing, the rest of us are pretty much somewhere in between where we have a certain amount of natural aptitude for some aspects of music making (rhythm, pitch, timing, improvisation, creating a great sound, excellent phrasing, and so on), while in other areas we need to spend a lot more time shedding before it comes to us, and even then it is always a sticking point you need to go back to and improve again and again.

In more general terms, here on Upbeat Rhythms we intend to continue presenting our comprehensive series of videos which will, over time, address many of the specific tricky rhythms that can be difficult to master, so please do continue checking back frequently because if you’re looking for specifics we aim to deliver.

Hopefully this article can be the start of a real dialogue for everyone who has tried or is trying to master rhythm in order to improve as musicians, it would be great if some people with experience in this area could chime in with a comment, an idea, or some additional advice, as this is a very important topic and, in practical terms, there are many ways to skin a cat when it comes to practicing and useful techniques and it would be great to hear as many as possible from as many people as possible. So look forward to that, and thanks to all for reading and for checking out UpbeatRhythms.com!

How to Master Rhythm and Become a Better Musician – Part One

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Posted in Mastering Rhythm

Tagged advice, education, help, ideas, improving, learning, master, mastering, mastery, music, musicians, practice, rhythm, rhythms, techniques, tips

How to Master Rhythm and Become a Better Musician (1)

Posted on April 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

This post was motivated by a reader who wrote to ask about tips and advice for improving tempo and timing in order to master rhythm and become a better musician. The reader mentions several techniques that have been tried, all good ones, but wanted to know if there was any more advice out there for someone who clearly has a good working understanding of the concept of rhythm, but struggles with the practical execution of it.

Techniques Previously Mentioned

Several of the techniques mentioned in the comment, toe tapping, pretending to watch a conductor in the mind, using words for certain rhythms, dancing, marching, playing and thinking subdivisions, clapping, drumming with drum sticks, making use of method books, and many other ideas can be useful, some more than others, it really depends on the person and what sort of method works best for them. But I wanted to mention these up front since they were brought up and I don’t want to ignore any of these potentially useful methods along with the advice I’m going to add to this list below.

More Ideas and Advice To master Rhythm

So keeping in mind that the list above has already been tried, I would offer the following additional advice. First of all, what kind of music are you listening to? I find personally that listening to really groovy music, funk or R&B especially, can be of great help if you allow yourself to groove along with the music either by moving your head, tapping your foot, or otherwise trying to get in synch with it. Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, James Brown, and many of the old Motown legends really do the trick for me, but the secret is to find grooving music that you really dig and try and synch up with it as you’re listening to it. I would shy away from classical and jazz and stick with the popular side for one reason, and that is most of the polished studio music is done to a track in the first place, so the rhythm should be pretty precise to start with, unlike jazz and classical where the rhythm on a recording can be a little more fluid and is often guided by the band leader or conductor, and as such may not be quite as precise to begin with in terms of using it for practicing precision. Granted, this is similar to working with a metronome in one sense, but the ability to internalize the groove you are listening to is integral so using real music can be a great help. The idea is to coordinate the external and internal, making sure that what you’re hearing translates to what your doing physically and what you’re perceiving internally so that it all flows together.

Master Rhythm Using a Metronome

Regarding metronome work, yes it’s true that you don’t want to rely on it exclusively, but it can still be a great asset to use it frequently and try to keep yourself perfectly aligned with it. One technique I would advise is to practice only precise downbeats, just grab your instrument and turn on the met and play just downbeats, over and over, only on the one to start with, then maybe the one and the three. Moving along, you can switch to practicing the attack on upbeats, and once that comes along nicely you can move on to inner beats such as the and of one and three or the e’s and a’s, and so on, just one note at a time to begin with. Then you can practice in similar fashion playing two notes per bar, start with the one and, then one e, then and a, vary it up and try lots of different patterns, but be sure and practice just one pattern for a good amount of time until it starts to feel really right and in the pocket and all that good stuff.

Next time, we will finish up with this topic in part 2 of this practical tips towards mastering rhythm series, hope to see you there, and thank you very much for checking out UpbeatRhythms.com!

How to Master Rhythm and Become a Better Musician – Part Two

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Posted in Mastering Rhythm

Tagged advice, education, help, ideas, improving, learning, master, mastering, mastery, music, musicians, practice, rhythm, rhythms, techniques, tips

‘the Practice Pad’ – Time Signatures, Lesson I Part III, Cut Time

Posted on April 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

2/2, or Cut Time, Time Signature

Hello, and welcome back to Upbeat Rhythms! This is the third and final of the written supplement to our time signatures video over on the Practice Pad, which is the space for all our video tutorials and lessons here on the Upbeat Rhythms site.

Looking at Cut Time, or 2/2, here is the first time we’re seeing a different number on the bottom. Instead of a quarter note representing one entire beat, in a 2/2 situation we’re looking for a half note to represent one entire beat. The two on the bottom of the time signature represents a half-note (though unusual, it is also possible to find a one in the bottom of a time signature, representing a whole note as receiving one entire beat, more on that later but I just wanted to point it out so you get the idea that 4 means quarter, 2 means half, and so 1 would naturally mean ‘whole’). So now we’re looking for two half notes represent the entire beats and fill up our measure.

At this point you might be thinking “this sounds almost the same”, and you would be right, because it really is practically the same thing, 4/4 versus 2/2. The difference is more of a ‘feel’ thing, a way of approaching the music, the particular interpretation the composer is looking for when you play through a cut time piece rather than a common time piece. Composers use the 2/2 or cut time to indicate that the music is quick, up-tempo, or ‘double time’ feel. The conductor generally conducts in two rather than four. It depends on your tempo markings as well, of course, so it’s certainly possible to have a slow Cut Time piece. You could have the same piece written in 2/4 and the only practical difference would be there would be twice as many measures. So really it’s more a matter of musical interpretation more than anything else, and many musicians can get thrown off by this, thinking it’s a lot different than it really is. From a nuts and bolts perspective, a measure still contains four quarter notes or two half notes or some other combination of notes and rests that add up correctly. You just need to be aware that Cut Time, or 2/2, simply means that instead of in 4/4 where four quarter notes add up to a complete measure, it’s two half notes that add up to a complete measure.

And that’s cut time. Don’t let it throw you off. By the way, you don’t generally see 2/2 so much, usually you see the cut time notation instead. You see 4/4 quite a bit along with common time, but if it’s cut time usually the score provides the Cut Time notation.

In the next lesson, we’re going to start getting into smaller notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, maybe even talk a little bit about thirty-second notes, and we’ll move right along to some other different types of time signatures as well. So please keep an eye out for that and lots more future new content coming soon, we hope to see you there, please feel free to leave any comments or questions either below this post or over on the Practice Pad video post, and thanks very much for checking out UpbeatRhythms.com!

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Posted in Lessons and Tutorials, the Practice Pad

Tagged 2/2, 4/4, 7/8, how many, how much, lessons, music, musicians, pad, practice, resources, rhythm, rhythms, signature, signatures, tempo, time, tutorials, upbeat

‘the Practice Pad’ – Time Signatures, Lesson I Part II, 2/4 and 3/4

Posted on April 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

2/4 & 3/4 Time Signatures

Hello, and welcome back to Upbeat Rhythms! This is part II of the written supplement to our time signatures video over on the Practice Pad, which is the space for all our video tutorials and lessons here on the Upbeat Rhythms site.

First of all, in both 2/4 and 3/4 time the number at the bottom is the same, four. What that tells us is that it’s still a quarter note that we’re looking for to make up one complete beat in our measure. In 2/4, the top note is now a two. So, unlike in common time where we need four beats to fill up our measure, in 2/4 time we just need just two beats to fill up a measure. Again, two quarter notes, as the bottom number has indicated to us.

Just like a whole note is the largest note value that can ‘fit’ in a 4/4 bar, the half note is the largest note value that can fit in a 2/4 bar. In a 3/4 situation you’d need to add a quarter note to the half note to fill up the whole bar (or some combination of notes and/or rests, of course), but again you wouldn’t see any whole notes in this case because there isn’t enough space within the measure according to what the time signature demands. Jumping ahead, the largest note value that would fit in a 3/4 bar would be a dotted half-note, but we’ll get to all that stuff as we continue along in this series. Don’t worry about that yet if you’re not familiar with dots, they’ll be addressed soon.

As you might have guessed by now, when the top number changes if you still have the four at the bottom you’re still looking at a quarter note equalling one beat, so the top number’s just going to tell you how many of those beats belong in one measure. Continuing on in this manner, a 5/4 measure means you need five quarter notes to equal one measure. 6/4 is the same idea, the quarter note is still indicated as one entire beat in your measure in the bottom of the signature, but now we need six of them. Because in a 6/4 bar you’ve got six quarter note beats in a measure. 7/4, 9/4, same deal. A quarter note is still called for to represent one complete beat, but now we need seven of them (or nine, etc) to fill up one measure. And as for half notes, whole notes, and other notes such as sixteenths and eighths (again, don’t worry if you haven’t heard of them, you will soon!), you just have to start doing the math. Basically if it takes seven quarter notes to fill up a measure, you would need fourteen eighth notes. In a 6/4 bar if it takes six quarter notes to fill up a measure, you’d need three half notes, and so on.

One more slightly unusual type of time signature that was pointed out in the video is a 1/4 time signature. Though rare, it too does occur in music from time to time. The quarter note still represents one entire beat, but there’s only one beat per bar.

Time Signatures Part I

‘the Practice Pad’ – Time Signatures, Lesson I Part I, Common Time

Posted on April 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

4/4, or ‘Common Time’, Time Signature

Hello, and thanks for stopping by Upbeat Rhythms! This is part I of the written supplement to our time signatures video over on the Practice Pad, which is the space for all our video tutorials and lessons here on the Upbeat Rhythms site. This series will begin a comprehensive look at time signatures, hopefully we’re going to cover pretty much any questions or concerns you might have about time signatures so that when you encounter any unusual or interesting time signatures in your next rehearsal or gig you’ll know exactly what it means, and you’ll have a solid understanding of all time signatures and what information they are representing in your music.

First of all we’re going to look at the most basic time signature in Western music, which is the 4/4 time signature, otherwise known as Common Time. The notation is represented either as 4/4, a four on top of another four in your time signature, or else by the “Common Time” notation which looks something like a letter C. Keep in mind, these two types are exactly the same except for what they’re called and how they’re and notated. There’s absolutely no difference to them as far as the information they convey, so if you see the ‘C’ you can think 4/4 if you want to, and vice-versa.

So as we talked about in the first tutorial, what a 4/4 time signature tells us is the number of beats in a measure (or bar), and what kind of a note is equal to one beat. The number of beats is indicated in the top number (in the case of 4/4, it’s indicating four beats per measure), and the bottom number is telling us that the quarter note (the number 4 stands for a quarter note) equals one complete beat in your 4/4 measure. So you need four quarter notes, or four quarter rests, or any other combination of notes or rests that adds up to four quarter notes, to add up to one measure. So a half note is equal to two quarter notes, so we would need two half notes to fill up one bar. A whole note is equal to four quarter notes, so we need one whole note to fill up one bar. Notes and rests are the same, value-wise, it doesn’t matter if it’s a note or a rest as long as it adds up to four quarter notes in total.

Time Signatures Part II

Lesson Two Tutorial on Time Signatures Now Available

Posted on April 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

Hi everyone. Lesson Two of our rhythm tutorial series is now available.

Lesson Two

This is the second lesson, but it’s part I of a several part series exploring all aspects of time signatures, so if you’re looking for a refresher or if there was always something that you didn’t quite understand that’s been nagging at you, please check out the series. If we don’t manage to answer each and every question anyone may have, we promise we’ll make additional videos until the subject is completely covered.

Thanks for stopping by, check back often for new content on UpbeatRhythms!

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Posted in Lessons and Tutorials

Tagged basic, basics, drummers, drumming, education, educators, groove, learning, lessons, musicians, percussion, practice, practice pad, quarter, rhythm, rhythms, rudimental, time signatures, tutorials, upbeat, video, videos, youtube

Lessons & Tutorials Supplemental – Whole Notes, Half Notes, Quarter Notes and Time Signatures

Posted on March 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

This week over on the Practice Pad we’re taking a look at some very basic rhythms, namely the whole note, half note, quarter note, along with whole rests, half rests, and quarter rests. We’re also beginning with an explanation of what a measure is, and what a time signature is and how to make use of it. Please check out the related video for an in-depth examination of these rhythm basics.

First of all the main unit that we talk about on the music page is known as the ‘measure‘ or ‘bar’. The terms are interchangeable, each bar (or measure) is separated by bar lines, and a measure constitutes the smallest segments of music we see generally speaking. Each bar refers back to the clef, the key signature, and the time signature for information you need to know about the bar of music you are looking at. The clef, key signature, and time signature can be found at the beginning of the chart, exercise, or piece of music you are playing. In the case of music which has clef, key or time changes within the piece, you would refer back to the most recent change when figuring out how to interpret the notes and rests you are dealing with inside the framework of the measure.

Secondly, as far as the time signature is concerned, it’s important to remember that it doesn’t matter whether it’s a note or a rest, as long as they add up to an entire measures worth of beats. All of those notes and/or rests just need to add up to the amount of beats the time signature is calling for. The top number in the time signature tells you how many notes belong in one bar. Think of the top number as ‘how many’. But that doesn’t give you quite enough information, because you also need to know what kind of note is considered to be one beat. That’s what that bottom number in the time signature is for, it’s telling you what type of note equals one beat within the bar. For example, a 4 in the bottom of the time signature stands for a quarter note. An 8 would be an eighth note, a 2 a half-note, and so on. Sometimes in modern music you might even see a quarter note or a half note or an eighth note printed in the bottom space of the time signature rather than a number. But generally speaking you’ll see a number unless you’re dealing with common time or cut time, which we’ll get to in an upcoming lesson.

A whole note in a 4/4 measure sustains for the entire four beats. The whole note is equivalent to four quarter notes. A half note sustains for two beats, equivalent to two quarter notes in this case, and a quarter note is sustained for one beat so it would take four quarter notes to fill up one 4/4 measure, two half notes, one whole note, or a combination of these notes and/or rests adding up to four quarter notes in total.

Regarding rests, sometimes whole rests vs half rests can be confusing since they look very similar. The whole note rest is a small rectangle which hangs down from the second line and is very similar to the half note rest, except the half note rest does not hang down, it sits atop the third line. So you can think of the whole note rest as like a top tooth and the half note rest as like a bottom tooth or something like that if that makes it easy for you to remember. In any case, the whole note rest is a rectangle that hangs down from the second line, the half note rest sits on the third line.

You can interchange the notes and/or the rests within a bar, as long as they add up to four quarter notes (again, four quarter notes would be needed in 4/4 time we’ll get to other time signatures in future tutorials). You can also mix them up. A half-note along with a couple of quarter notes, a half note rest and a half note, a half note rest and two quarter notes, any combination is fine. We’ll get into smaller units such as sixteenths and thirty-second notes too, as well as triplets and other unusual groupings, in our upcoming videos and lessons.

See you in the next lesson, feel free to leave a question or a comment if you’d like (we always read all comments!), and thanks very much for checking out UpbeatRhythms.com!

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Posted in the Practice Pad

Tagged basic, basics, half, learning, lessons, notes, pad, practice, quarter, rests, rhythm, rhythms, teaching, tutorials, upbeat, video, whole, youtube

Coming up this week on Upbeat Rhythms

Posted on March 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

Good morning and happy Monday to everyone in America, I wanted to offer up a quick post to talk about upcoming content here on Upbeat Rhythms, and let you all know a little more about the agenda for the blog going forward as well.

First of all, this week will see the premiere of the Practice Pad video series, the first of a series of rhythm related tutorials that is sure to be informative and helpful no matter what your ability level. The idea is to create three levels of video in parallel, beginner, intermediate, and advanced, so that whatever level you’re at you can find some content to make use of right away, as well as a chance to check out some more basic or more advanced content as well if you’re looking for a refresher on the fundimentals or a forward looking challenge. There will also be some drummer-centric rudimental videos coming up, but that’s a little further on down the road.

In addition to the Practice Pad material, there will be some new blog content coming out focused on even more resources and links you can check out around the ‘net, as well as a series we’re starting to highlight some percussionists you might not be aware of, but you definitely should because they are all outstanding in their field and excellent musicians. That will be coming out probably a little later in the week.

Hope you’ll stop by throughout the week to enjoy the new content, and as always thanks for checking out Upbeat Rhythms!

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Posted in Upbeat Rhythms

Tagged agenda, blog, content, pad, practice, rhythms, site, this week, upbeat, upcoming, video

Getting ready to put out my first tutorial

Posted on March 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

Hey everyone. Just another update to let you all know that the first tutorial vid for the Practice Pad is well underway and will be online sometime this week or next. At that point, I plan to have new content over there as well as here at least once a week if not more often than that.

One issue that has been holding me back just a bit has been the matter of what microphone(s) I will be choosing to work with both for screen-cast type videos as well as for regular videos, it seems as though I really need to get myself a lapel mike along with some sort of decent podcaster type mike as well. I’m doing my research and I want to get just the right items, so that’s taking a little longer than I anticipated. Any feedback or suggestions regarding mikes or any other type of equipment would be much appreciated, feel free to leave a comment below this post or send us a note under “contact UpbeatRhythms” if you prefer.

I will be updating the blog with a little info about the tutorial videos over in the Practice Pad section, so you can check it out over there or else find out first right here on the blog. If you’ve subscribed to RSS by clicking on the orange button or signing up for email alerts, you should get updates either way. If you haven’t subscribed to RSS or emails yet, what are you waiting for?

See ya all around the site, and soon in the Practice Pad as well. Hope you enjoy the new vids and I hope they’re useful and informative for you! Please let your friends know, too, because this site will be a good resource for any musicians and music educators alike.

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Posted in the Practice Pad

Tagged education, educators, groove, helpful, informative, learning, lessons, musicians, pad, percussion, practice, rhythm, rhythms, tutorials, upbeat, videos, youtube

Check out the newest feature on UpbeatRhythms.com – the Practice Pad

Posted on March 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

You may have noticed a new section of the site available over on the right hand side under ‘lessons & tutorials’, this is the Practice Pad and will become, hopefully, the real heart and soul of this website. I intend to include a ton of free video and written tutorials covering all the basics of rhythm and percussion, all the way up to some crazy advanced stuff for anyone who wants to take it as far as they can. So, in other words, if you’re looking for fundamentals or a refresher course, you’ll find it in the practice pad. If you want to take a look at some unusual groupings like 5′s and 7′s, hybrid percussion rudiments like flam drags and inverted flam taps, or complex polyrhythmic patterns, that’s all going to be in the mix as well.

So stop over and check out the Practice Pad at UpbeatRhythms.com, and don’t forget to bookmark it because new content will be coming out fast and furious from now on.