Anticipating and "playing into" changes – help please!

Jazzaferri

many of thge greats of jazz haved said you can't play jazz without feeling it.....and if you aren't moving something to the pulse you ain't feeling it.

lots of different quotes...some from guys who django looked up to and learned from .....and so on down to the current crop...all saying basically that same thing.

when I am standing playing (sax) its swaying on ballads and heel for up tempo....when sitting toe sometimes heel sometimes sometimes both feet sometimes alternating. usually in cut time on the faster ones.

Jazzaferri

I have played in a big band (with drummer) where the bandleader went ape if you tapped your foot...I had to learn to move my toe....personally I thought he was wrong ...and I might add..the band didn 't really get in the groove either....the few times I played with them it felt stiff.

Lango-Django

WTF, that bandleader sounds like a major league #%~¥+%, Jay.

speaking of idiotic bandleaders, it just so happened that I used to play with two different sax players down in Buffalo NY who were THE most wonderful, creative jazz players I've ever had the privilege of playing with.

Now these two guys didn't usually play together, but it just so happened that their wives both went to the same Bible-thumper church, so the two of them wound up both playing in the same church band for a while.

Wouldnt you think that the bandleader of the church band would've been thrilled to have not one but two monster sax players in his band?

Well, life is funny, my friend, for it turned out that the church bandleader hated jazz, and kicked 'em both out of the band!

I'm not sure what the moral of this story is, but would confidentially advise my sax playing friends to stay the hell away from Bible-thumpin' churches!

wim

Jazzaferri wrote:

many of thge greats of jazz haved said you can't play jazz without feeling it.....and if you aren't moving something to the pulse you ain't feeling it.

If you're playing in time then you are, by necessity, moving your hands to the pulse (or some subdivision of it). Isn't that enough? Just why should it be encouraged to move the foot, or any other body part, as well? It can even be distracting, especially if there is a wooden stage floor or something and the tap tap is audible, as is often the case. It can sometimes sound good if it's solidly on the 2 and 4, but I don't ever want to hear it on the 1 and the 3 and I don't want to hear the tap tap 100% of the time that's as annoying as having a metronome audible in the background of a gig.

dennis

well i should specify that the idea of tapping the foot on a given subdivision should be done only when practicing not necessarily when playing live. When playing live, anything goes... obviously , it's not "necessary" , neither are many things that people practice if you think about it.

I have a workshop called musicianship that covers a lot of fundamentals that people often overlook.
I use the foot tapping as a tool for teaching certain phrasing concepts in my workshops, and the students are always blown away when i explain these concepts, some of the people that have attended theses lessons/workshops are professional musicians, music school grads, phd music students, and they're always shocked that they were never taught these things in music school... it's a shame... i'm not gonna get into my whole workshop curriculum, but a lot of these things i learned from fapy originally, and then i took it further by studying the beats that were emphasized in improvs by the jazz greats.

The idea is not just to tap the pulse of 2 and 4, but to understand how to bring out the "swing" or "groove" or whatever you call it. i could write a whole book about it but i'll just stop here :-)

Jazzaferri

You get to do whatever you want....unless the guy paying you says different...then you get a different choice.

I do what I do sometimes on 1 and 3 sometimes two and four ...depends on the feel and th person ... LOL

My heel coming up on two and four gives me more drive on cut time swing. But i am a dancer of sorts....not a skilled one...

Pops, bird, prez, ahhh no point in going on.....after all there is no right or wrong to it... A player is either in the groove or not.....

Moving is fine as long as it is not a crutch...and as long as it is not taking up conscious awareness that is better spent elsewhere.

Will....i slipped quietly away...life is way to short for that level of weirdness.....i like going to churches but preferably when there are few or no other people.

T1mothy

dennis wrote: »

this usually tends to be a rhythmic problem. People need to internalize the rhythm as soon as possible.. when playing a song like sweet georgia brown where chords last a long time, the player needs to be fully aware of where he/she is at any given point right down to individual beats...

players are often concerned with note choices when they should pay equal attention to the harmonic rhythm ; it is the key to good phrasing.

The best way to do that is to regularly tap your off and NEVER go off track (it's not easy at all)... you should either tap on 2+4 (preferably) or 1+3 (lots of gypsies do this), whatever you choose, you need to NEVER go off track. I suggest practicing in front of a mirror, or filming your foot while jamming to some tunes... and if ever your foot misses a beat or adds beat, that 's very indicative of what's going wrong.

Once you can internalize the rhythm, anticipating the chords becomes much easier.. It's a very slow process, but you need to be aware of this.

Would you mind elaborating on why should 2+4 be preffered over 1+3? I remember Barry Harris saying the exact opposite. From my point of view I formed a 1+3 habbit and then just wanted to see if I could do the 2+4. Overcoming the previous habbit gave me some trouble but I feel more comfortable with either of these (with the beat in general). Was just wondering

Jim Kaznosky

You should be able to do it on any subdivision. 2&4 supposedly helps one feel the swing more and its a worthwhile exercise to try. 1&3 (according a bandleader I know), is to be more on top of the beat. As Dennis and Jazz stated, as long as you know where the groove is.