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My goal is to be able to improvise the blues. I realised quite early that I don’t need to know more notes if I didn’t learn the rhythmic phrasing. But I feel that I go very slowly learning songs, and learning licks specifically does not help much – I just learn the lick and the rhythm structure memorizes tied to that particular lick.
Also searching google for “rhythmic vocabulary” gives very little. This is probably the best video on the topic I’ve found so far https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEdtUOGCCnU
Do you have any recommendations for how to build my rhythmic ideas vocabulary systematically? -
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Sorry, I haven’t seen any posts by you earlier, so I thought maybe you were not yet a premium member. But If I wanted to fine tune my rhythm playing, I would do a deep dive into the world of funk guitar. Brian has several funk lessons, including EP457 which came out recently. Check it out and see what you think.
Sunjamr Steve
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Hi,
That’s a very difficult question.
I would say that listening to the greats (B.B. King for example) and trying to reproduce their phrasing is one way to improve one’s own rhythmic vocabulary. Taking a section of a solo and slowing it down is often very revealing of the rhythmic subtlety of the song.Another interesting avenue is to dive into African rhythms – poly-rhythms, in fact.
I once had the opportunity to enroll to a masterclass in African percussions; we spent a whole weekend doing nothing but playing together with sticks, drums and djembe’s. Each individual rhythm was simple enough on its own, but different from all the other rhythms, and the magic came from putting all that together. Trying to keep track of all the various individual accents was a fantastic exercise.
Latin rhythms might provide a similar experience.Just some suggestions…
JM -
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Hi Viacheslav,
How’s it going? I also am not familiar with the term but from watching some of the video you shared I think you are asking about improving your rhythm is that right? And specifically you want to improvise solos rhythmically? I will try to answer that but if I don’t answer your question just lmk and we can talk about something else.
Try this lesson…EP251 (Improvising with just 4 notes) – Good blues lesson switching back and forth between rhythm and lead and the lead sections all use the same 4 notes. This demonstrates how musical you can be with with very little.
Learn a lot of songs. Learn the whole song. Always practice playing them along with the track, a drummer, a backing track, or metronome. If you want to improve your rhythmic ability you need to play with something that is keeping time. Btw, the lessons on this site count as “songs” whether you want to call them songs, musical compositions or whatever. The idea is to learn a piece of music and play it in time.
When I joined a band I could play rhythm well (meaning ‘in time’) but I could only use a couple of chord variations for each chord. As a result, I wasn’t playing anything very interesting. If the band was on and A chord for 8 bars, I just banged on an ‘A’ Barre chord for the whole 8 bars. It didn’t take long before it occurred to me that I could sort of do what ever I wanted (improvise) during that 8 bars as long as it was related to A. Basically any combination of strumming, arpeggiating, licks etc.) Not all licks though (that’s a solo) and the vocalist is singing lol. I also realized I didn’t have to even fill the space. I could wait and start on the second measure, or start on a beat other than beat one. Anyway, I won’t bore you to death but the point is, playing in time (in this case with a drummer) helped me naturally begin to come up with rhythmic ideas to fill space. A metronome or backing track will work just fine too.
The same concept above applies to lead. you need to fill the space but with a cadence that is pleasing to listen to. It is similar to how we speak. We speak rhythmically and with a cadence so that we don’t speak a confusing long run on sentence without pauses (I think I got that from Brian:). The music you learn are basically examples of rhythm. So learn as much music / songs as you can and watch your own rhythmic vocabulary improve.
Hope this helps. Lmk if I answered a question you didn’t ask
Patrick
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While trying to learn to play bass (still a work in progress) a friend of mine who is a professional bass player told me to get a drum machine to practice with – he said it’s much better than a metronome. It is more interesting. Now I spend my time learning how to use the drum machine, another work in progress….
Still learning after all these years
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Your friend is certainly right when he says that the drum machine is more fun than the metronome… but with a drum machine, I find it sometimes harder to hear if I am dead on the beat or not (or how much I’m behind or in front if that’s what I want).
The metronome is absolutely unforgiving and for certain exercises that’s exactly what you want! … and it is easier to use LOL
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Good answers, thank you.
I also stumbled upon this answer, to a different question, but it gives a lot of ideas along the same topic of rhythm improvisation in solos https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/78441/how-to-avoid-following-the-rhythm-while-soloing-or-improvising-melodies
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