Following the beat

There are some types of music where you can follow the beat. Other types of music you need to be with the beat. You need to be locked to the beat.

In classical music you can often follow the beat. You can follow the conductor and play slightly after them. A lot of orchestras do that normally. German orchestras especially do this. There’s a certain amount of time that they always play after the conductor’s beat. And the whole orchestra is together because they all know exactly how long to wait. There are a number of videos of Leonard Bernstein conducting the Vienna Philharmonic like this.

Orchestras from the U.S. are a little different. U.S. orchestras often play directly on top of the beat.

Jazz and pop and rock music isn’t like this either.

In those styles of music you want to be phase locked. This means that you are playing at the exact same time as everyone else in the band. When they play the first beat, you also play the first beat. You are both synced and playing on the exact same beats.

The way to practice this is to play with a constant beat and practice playing as with that beat as you can.

This can be done with a metronome or with a recording. Either one works, as long as you have a constant beat. A metronome is often useful because it’ll be ruthless in telling you how on the beat you are. That immediate click will let you know whether you’re ahead of the beat or behind the beat. You’re exposed while playing with a metronome.

With a recording it can sometimes be a little harder to tell at first. There are often multiple other instruments playing different rhythms so you’re covered up a little bit more than with just a metronome. There are other elements that might be masking how on the beat you are.

Another way to practice your rhythm is to practice purposefully playing before or after the beat. You want to feel like you’re pulling or pushing the beat by the exact same amount. Playing right before the beat the same way every time is much more difficult than it sounds because in order to play the exact same amount before the beat you need to know exactly where that beat is going to fall. The same goes for playing slightly after the beat. Playing slightly after the beat, in the exact same way, every single time, you need to be able to anticipate when that beat will come so that you’re prepared to play right after it.

One final way to practice this is to practice subdividing the beat. Practicing different 8th note, 8th note triplet, and 16th note rhythms can help you improve your rhythms because you’re learning to change the beat up. You can also practice playing constant rhythms and accenting different parts of the beat. Play constant 16th notes and practice accenting the first 16th note first. Then practice accenting the second 16th note; the “e” of every beat. Then practice accenting the third 16th note; accenting the “&” of every beat. Then finally practice accenting the fourth 16th note; the “a” of every beat.

That would look something like this.

Using these techniques can greatly improve your rhythm. It’s something that students often don’t realize they need to practice until they hear themselves in a performance and don’t understand why they don’t sound as good as they thought they did. Playing in time is quite difficult to do, and unless you’ve practiced it it’s often something that you don’t hear while you’re playing.

Luckily for us there are plenty of different ways to practice playing in time that will improve our rhythm quickly.

ISJ