Rhythmic ear training -- how do I go about it?

[poonna]

Thanks for your advice. I'll get a metronome. Used to have one but gave it away.

Re: your question about the band giving me the boot. The people in my band, except me, have no problem with rhythm or timing and they regularly play and record, with metronome. I'm the only one that sucks. If we are doing this professionally, I'd have been given the boot long ago. We're friends and doing our project just out of the love for music.

[sammy24]

)Definitely get a metronome
2)Tap your foot while listening to music (or your hand, or anything to get your body involved in the listening process)

3)Dick Grove's School Without Walls music distance learning program, Chapter 5 of the course See It /Hear It Part 1 is all about rhythmic ear training. As you mention, there are not many courses available on this subject, at all. This chapter is absolutely terrific, and once you work through the material you will be well on your way toward getting good rhythmically.

Call Dirk, who runs the program. (dickgrove.com) I am nearly positive they will let you purchase just one chapter of the course. (All their courses are top-notch, I can't recommend them enough, but this particular chapter focuses solely on rhythm and rhythmic ear training). It may run around $100, i'm not sure exactly, but you can work through it over weeks, months, etc., and I can guarantee you will learn more from this than you would with $100 of private lessons or anything else you could do with $100 to get better at rhythm. (deal w the devil? will prob cost u more than $100 ) btw I'm not affiliated with them, other than having taken some of their courses myself.

[sammy24]

btw, Hink, I agree rhythm is about "feel", but there is such a thing as rhythmic ear training. The word "ear" can be misleading sometimes. When musicians speak of one's ear hearing something (like harmony for example), as opposed to the mind, it simply means that you can hear it intuitively instead of having to think about it. But obviously the brain is what helps someone gain the ability to do that. Similarly, rhythmic ear training would mean training oneself to become intuitive and spontaneous with their rhythmic ability. In order to do that, you have to "feel" it, for sure; but that's what playing by ear really connotes-- the ability to feel the music, hear it, execute it, understand it.

[jancivil]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Glennie

Glennie has been profoundly deaf since age 12. This does not inhibit her ability to perform at the international level. She regularly plays barefoot during both live performances and studio recordings in order to "feel" the music better.[2]

Glennie contends that deafness is largely misunderstood by the public. She claims to have taught herself to hear with parts of her body other than her ears. In response to criticism from the media, Glennie published Hearing Essay in which she personally discusses her condition.

[Sascha Franck]

I just re-read the first post. So, what can I possibly say?
Even with my last post I went a little too far regarding possible suggestions.
It's also not about getting a metronome (at least not immediately - and I think that you'll be using a sequencer of some sorts anyway, hence you're posting at KVR...) and even less about getting some books teaching you about rhythm and what not. Forget about all that for now, seriously. Practising with a metronome is useful but a rather dry and unfunny thing. Learning about rhythm is helpful but not what seems to be needed ATM.

When you (poonna that is) write something that you sometimes can't even hit a downbeat properly, the problem seems to be somewhat deeper.
But no worries, most persons *can* adress this, especially once you're aware of it (which you obviously are). No idea whether you'll be able to do it entirely on your own, with just some help of the internet - could very well be, but you may as well need to go a little deeper, by joining whatever course. For now, let's hope you don't need that.

So, what I think would be by *far* the most important thing to achieve is to "get the groove into your body" - rather than into your head or whatever.
"Feeling" a rhythm, a groove, a beat - or probably even better: a "pulse" - shouldn't be a cognitive thing at all. It should be intuitive, instant and sort of a second nature (well, for musicians it should probably be "first nature"...). Once you need to care about rhythmic patterns, accents and what not, you will have to switch on the cognitive part of your brain, sure, but a) these things aren't exactly difficult, b) I don't think it's what you need to do now.

I already said so, IMO it'd be the best to just try to move parts of your body along with some music, the most obvious thing (at least for the vast majority of music that is true) would be quarter note movements, which almost always define the basic "pulse". Starting with your feet is another good idea because you'll have your hands free.
Again as said, I find it to be a good idea to do this via standing up and stepping, simply because that way you really get the moves into your body.
As far as suitable music goes, anything without lots of breaks and such will do, but you may find it even easier playing some stuff with a strong 4-on-the-floor kick going on. Things such as disco, house or even techno music come to mind.
Once familiar with that, you could try to continue but grab a book or newspaper and read them. Eventually, this should really be possible. And once it works, you can be sure that you're much closer to an intuitive and less cognitive understanding of the basic pulse of the music.
You could then even sit down, reduce foot movement a little and do whatever you feel like (read, eat, surf the web...). Just make sure to continue with some rhythmic movement, and be it only a slight head nodding.

There might be other ways of getting there, but one thing is for sure: You need to get there somehow. Otherwise you ill always be unsecure, your timing will suffer and you won't be able to proceed with things such as indeed concentrating on whatever actual rhythms. But I'm sure that once you're there, you'll feel relieved.

Best
Sascha

[jancivil]

as far as a metronome... it can be demonstrated that real music doesn't so much conform to one, not on every beat anyway (if you import a rock 'n roll record or something into Cubase and warp the timeline to it you can find out what time it is for real). there are studio pros that can't stand playing to a click as it's like dancing with too-tight shoes. at the outset, it is rather 'unfunny'.

when I was 13 and a drummer I was exposed to professionals in performance situations and it was noticed I had a tendency to rush, so working with a metronome was advised and I think that was valid...

there isn't much reason to buy one in any case, I believe you have a computer.

SF is right, get your body to know something first. bang out what you understand from a drum part on a record.
dance; move your body in a way that corresponds with rhythm in some music.

[Hink]

a metronome sucks to people who cannot keep time and if you complain about it than it's probably a problem that needs to be addressed, but I'm old school. I think someone should be able to perform their part to just a click track, sure it's not fun and no one should perform in public like that. But no one said practicing is suppose to be fun (or funny), I also do not believe music should be robotic, I do not do much audio quantizing becsuse I like some mistakes to make it human. There should be a human feel, a little variance in timing is fine when you know what you're doing, I myself have worked with too many drummers that speed up when I start playing faster and I have worked with drummers that had no flash but were human metronomes...maybe I'm a complete nut job but I believe the drummer there is to keep the band in time.

In this case we have a singer that does not grasp timing, sure he does it for fun but he has expressed a desire to improve that. Like I said I'm old school, when I first starting player there were no sequencers, nevermind computrs and I agree that typically one can just use a computer. I suggest a metronome because they are dirt cheap and can be used anywhere. A singer should be able to sing their part acapella and to a metronome just like my guitar should be tuned, in key, in time and I should be able to play it to just a click track (naturally that does not apply to improvising which imo is for the advanced performer. Though I said practicing is not meant to be fun I think it would be a lot more fun for him if he wasn't the weakest link...a metronome albeit frustrating as all hell is one good way of improving that weakness.

Use a computer or a metronome (I would still use a metronome because you can even sing in the shower to one) and you will get better at both performing and understanding timing, time signatures and feel. Then once you have a basic understanding you move on to more complex rhythms where the metronome becomes moot and you can start to move your body to the beat of the music as Sascha says...but you know what? You have to learn how to crawl before you learn to walk and you have to learn to walk before you learn to run...using a metronome is as basic as it gets and in my my humble opinion where one starts with any instrument.

I use to hate it, I have been in studios where I had no choice and the reason I hated it was the metronome doesn't lie and it exposed my weaknesses. Now I often open my DAW when I come up with a riff, lay it down using just a metronome and without even thinking about it the click track is running the entire time I work on the song. I say get a metronome, it's been a standard tool before there was elctricity to power them...it works, it's worked for centuries and I believe will continue to be used for centuries to come...but that's just me

[debra1rlo]

a metronome sucks to people who cannot keep time and if you complain about it than it's probably a problem that needs to be addressed, but I'm old school. I think someone should be able to perform their part to just a click track, sure it's not fun and no one should perform in public like that. But no one said practicing is suppose to be fun (or funny), I also do not believe music should be robotic, I do not do much audio quantizing becsuse I like some mistakes to make it human. There should be a human feel, a little variance in timing is fine when you know what you're doing, I myself have worked with too many drummers that speed up when I start playing faster and I have worked with drummers that had no flash but were human metronomes...maybe I'm a complete nut job but I believe the drummer there is to keep the band in time.

In this case we have a singer that does not grasp timing, sure he does it for fun but he has expressed a desire to improve that. Like I said I'm old school, when I first starting player there were no sequencers, nevermind computrs and I agree that typically one can just use a computer. I suggest a metronome because they are dirt cheap and can be used anywhere. A singer should be able to sing their part acapella and to a metronome just like my guitar should be tuned, in key, in time and I should be able to play it to just a click track (naturally that does not apply to improvising which imo is for the advanced performer. Though I said practicing is not meant to be fun I think it would be a lot more fun for him if he wasn't the weakest link...a metronome albeit frustrating as all hell is one good way of improving that weakness.

Use a computer or a metronome (I would still use a metronome because you can even sing in the shower to one) and you will get better at both performing and understanding timing, time signatures and feel. Then once you have a basic understanding you move on to more complex rhythms where the metronome becomes moot and you can start to move your body to the beat of the music as Sascha says...but you know what? You have to learn how to crawl before you learn to walk and you have to learn to walk before you learn to run...using a metronome is as basic as it gets and in my my humble opinion where one starts with any instrument.

I use to hate it, I have been in studios where I had no choice and the reason I hated it was the metronome doesn't lie and it exposed my weaknesses. Now I often open my DAW when I come up with a riff, lay it down using just a metronome and without even thinking about it the click track is running the entire time I work on the song. I say get a metronome, it's been a standard tool before there was elctricity to power them...it works, it's worked for centuries and I believe will continue to be used for centuries to come...but that's just me

+1 Not exactly the same, but my timing noticeably improved when I started working with a drum machine in a studio setting after playing in garage bands with various drummers of differing abilities.

[Hink]

a metronome sucks to people who cannot keep time and if you complain about it than it's probably a problem that needs to be addressed, but I'm old school. I think someone should be able to perform their part to just a click track, sure it's not fun and no one should perform in public like that. But no one said practicing is suppose to be fun (or funny), I also do not believe music should be robotic, I do not do much audio quantizing becsuse I like some mistakes to make it human. There should be a human feel, a little variance in timing is fine when you know what you're doing, I myself have worked with too many drummers that speed up when I start playing faster and I have worked with drummers that had no flash but were human metronomes...maybe I'm a complete nut job but I believe the drummer there is to keep the band in time.

In this case we have a singer that does not grasp timing, sure he does it for fun but he has expressed a desire to improve that. Like I said I'm old school, when I first starting player there were no sequencers, nevermind computrs and I agree that typically one can just use a computer. I suggest a metronome because they are dirt cheap and can be used anywhere. A singer should be able to sing their part acapella and to a metronome just like my guitar should be tuned, in key, in time and I should be able to play it to just a click track (naturally that does not apply to improvising which imo is for the advanced performer. Though I said practicing is not meant to be fun I think it would be a lot more fun for him if he wasn't the weakest link...a metronome albeit frustrating as all hell is one good way of improving that weakness.

Use a computer or a metronome (I would still use a metronome because you can even sing in the shower to one) and you will get better at both performing and understanding timing, time signatures and feel. Then once you have a basic understanding you move on to more complex rhythms where the metronome becomes moot and you can start to move your body to the beat of the music as Sascha says...but you know what? You have to learn how to crawl before you learn to walk and you have to learn to walk before you learn to run...using a metronome is as basic as it gets and in my my humble opinion where one starts with any instrument.

I use to hate it, I have been in studios where I had no choice and the reason I hated it was the metronome doesn't lie and it exposed my weaknesses. Now I often open my DAW when I come up with a riff, lay it down using just a metronome and without even thinking about it the click track is running the entire time I work on the song. I say get a metronome, it's been a standard tool before there was elctricity to power them...it works, it's worked for centuries and I believe will continue to be used for centuries to come...but that's just me

+1 Not exactly the same, but my timing noticeably improved when I started working with a drum machine in a studio setting after playing in garage bands with various drummers of differing abilities.

to me that is the same, the drum machine is a modern day metronome as well as a sequencer. But there has to be a balance otherwise working with live drummers can get frustrating quickly, fortunately for me I would not complain if I was never in the same room as drum kit again in my whole life

[debra1rlo]

But there has to be a balance otherwise working with live drummers can get frustrating quickly

Yeah, agreed... after that when I did play with a live drummer, I was pretty fortunate to mostly play with those who understood keeping up steady tempo was more important than flashy fills. Feeding off the energy of other members and vice versa and still staying locked in.

fortunately for me I would not complain if I was never in the same room as drum kit again in my whole life

*withholds multitude of drummer jokes, just barely*

Sure, I kid, but EZDrummer never tells me it's going to do that fill like Neil Peart did instead.

[Sascha Franck]

But no one said practicing is suppose to be fun (or funny)

Oh!
Make that -1. A VERY strong -1 even!
I think practising NEEDS to be fun to be successful. Just as I think work needs to be fun to be successful.
It doesn't exactly always need to be funny, but the more often, the better.

- Sascha

[Hink]

it's all relative, not all praticing is going to be the most fun part of playing so it's not always going to be fun relatively speaking. For me the real fun comes when I apply what I gained by practicing.

Keep this in context, this thread is about someone limited skills who wants to improve them. This thread is not about people who have been playing for years, and that makes it all relative. I guess I should not have used the 'suppose' and said "no one said practicing has to be fun" but the point remains the same.

There often is pain in gain, some things I would not want to learn how to do again. Even learning to tune was hard, it was frustrating and it surely is not someting I think is a whole lot of fun..I wasn't born with a perfect ear and I had to work for it. It doesn't matter where it is at now but it wasn't the fun that trained my ear...instead it was determination, I would never let it not being fun stop me from obtaining my goal. That goal being growth, a goal that I still have and not all of that growth is going to be fun...but it will always bring me great joy

[jancivil]

I think working on music should not feel like homework. I think it should be done to obtain a musical result as much as possible. for some people, a metronome is going to be ok and even fun. when I was made to do it it sucked for me. but I have innate rhythmic sense, I was just immature. the advice made me conscious of a problem and I eventually corrected it being paranoid. plus I was taking lessons. everyone is different in these ways. Some like some DISCIPLINE, some girls just wanna have fu-un.

Practicing scales, if you're going to do that, do it with care to the tone and try to phrase those things. I don't know, some people think a robot is a cool thing to be seems like.


I've had widely varying results working with drummers. From Sammy! who could not keep time but wanted to be Bill Cobham, we hadda fire his crazy ass, to Scott McLaughlin, solid as a rock and inventive in the early days. later became an architect. later on, a drummer who got that corporate gig, dress for suckcess, and became sloppy. The last episode inspired me to buy a drum machine and got me back into doing my own drums rather than keep having contentious discussions with a drummer. People don't like to be told what to play for some reason!

but the way a drummer supports the lead player's time if they go outside exceeds time-keeping, Vinnie Colaiuta with Zappa is the exemplar. Never lost sight of where ONE is however. If I had the space I would work with drummers... but I do like to write my own drum parts now and it's FUN to make it happen some kinda way.

could be getting outside of one's comfort zone is less fun for some than others. I don't know what's good for someone I don't know necessarily. But I do believe it has to be approached more from the body than the intellect if it's a basic problem.

[jancivil]

it wasn't the fun that trained my ear

I had no ear for shit. It was pure fun for me, I wore out records copying everything I could find on it. It was kind of irritating to suck at first, but I'd rather have done nothing else. It couldn't have been a lot of fun for my mother. I don't know maybe pain is fun for me.

[debra1rlo]

I think working on music should not feel like homework. I think it should be done to obtain a musical result as much as possible...

I agree with this up to a point... certainly there definitely needs to be an element of fun for beginners so it's not "homework" so much, and perhaps a rhythm machine with a steady beat would be more in order for someone starting out...

But, and maybe this is veering slightly off topic so apologies in advance, sometimes difficult "work" is necessary in order to challenge one's technique. Sometimes you (and I mean ME as ymmv) need to get a little frustrated with yourself in order to push the envelope/learn a new technique.

Again, not so much for beginners and obviously you don't want to be frustrated all the time (cue youtube video of that guy getting angry after repeatedly choking on the same section ) but sometimes I think it does need to go beyond fun... and again, maybe that's just me.