Purely a rhythm player

Jazzaferri

When people in a genre aren't open to a different take from players in the genre

Eg "Nah thats too different, don't like it much" that's the beginning. Next comes, that's not the right rhythm. LOL

Regardless of where one is on this, it doesn't matter. People will behave as they usually do, some things will change some stay the same. Some like it hot some cold.

For those that like abstractions...connect the dots to this next factiod.........one of my sax coaches is having me focus on one note solo's.

Craig Denney

Jon wrote: »

I'll second Titi Bamberger Love his steady, insistent, old-sounding rhythm in this

I love his tone. Does anyone know what guitar he's using? Sounds...old, and wonderful!

Al Watsky

I met him in Bklyn this past fall.
He had a guitar that was made by one of the former Favino workmen I think he said and he had it strung with D'Addarrio 13's Chrome flat wound . Truth is often stranger than fiction.

Craig Denney

@Al Watsky

Thank you! Interesting about the string choice....

Bob Holo

Haha... wow. Truth is stranger than fiction. I wonder if Titi was the guy I heard about - an old school gypsy player who likes heavy strings and caved in the top of a guitar using them and then had a gypsy guitar custom made to be able to take heavy strings.

From the ball-ends with the short bulky-looking red silk wraps in this video, I'm guessing that he uses Galli v027 silk & steel on his vintage rig. It looks like he might upsize the e & b strings, but those wound strings look like Galli S&S and a lot of the guys he hangs with use them... or rather, a lot of people used them before Galli started making its coated S&S like like Jon uses and before Argentine re-formulated and re-launched the silver coated copper wrapped strings that most people use now. My last three sets have been Galli GSL. I might be hooked. I've been working on vintage designs recently and the Galli are dynamite at bringing out that old-school dark chunky cutting sound. The jury is still out, but one thing is for sure, I like them, at least for that vintage application, they're darned good... and a lot less likely to cave in a guitar top ;-)

Matteo

i m a firm believer that acoustic music can work (in certain settings) without amplification

Yes! It should be tried more often. It's so wonderful to hear the real sound of acoustic instruments in the hands of good players. And many gigs have been ruined by poor sound in the loudspeakers. So why not try to do without them when possible?

dennis

@stuart, it's difficult to say, because everyone has a different idea of what good rhythm is; i certainly have mine. As I said, it is our choice to decide who we want to play with. A lot of the best musicians that I have spoken too , tend to agree with me, that rhythm playing should not get in the soloist's way…

I am convinced that a lot of rhythm players who do all those tricks think they're doing a great job and that they're being hip. In the end it's quite subjective.

But I stand by what I said, the rhythm player should strive to elevate the music by supporting the soloist, but never getting in his way. The rhythm section is always right behind the soloist. If a soloist plays loud, the rhythm plays loud as well but just below the volume of the soloist, if a soloist is playing something intense, the rhythm section can play something intense as well (But without getting in the way), if the soloist plays quietly, then so should the rhythm section.

@matteo

yes it's unfortunate, people are always talking about pickups, mics etc to amplify their instruments. For playing in bars or loud places , i can understand doing this, but the more we think that way, the more we're likely to forget that this was once an acoustic genre. We therefore lose so much in tone/nuance from the fingers as a result of all this technology.

When I play concerts in concert halls, I simply ask the sound man to place mics in front of everyone, and we barely have any monitoring (sometimes none), and we musicians all sit very close to each other. It's a great a feeling, because then we can really play with dynamics and nuances!

Soundmen always want pickups and all that shit and they like to blast music really loud, but i always tell them just to amplify us just enough so that the audience can hear us. With this set up, there is no danger of feedback…

I actually even managed to play a bar with this set up recently, and people actually shut up to listen to us, it was great!

Charles Meadows

So when we're taking about rhythm playing here do we mean accompaniment for a lead guitar? Would rhythm playing behind say a violin tend to be different - more fills? I really love some of the cool little chord flourishes Angelo and Bireli throw in behind the violin. But then I guess they've got Tchavolo Hassan or Hono Winterstein behind them too...

lostjohn

Charles, the same thought crossed my mind. In Django's case, he threw a fair amount of embellishment into his rhythm, but he was never playing behind a lead guitarist, but behind another instrument.
Then again, he was Django, so he had that going for him, also.

Jazzaferri

I think you have put it very well Dennis. The way I understand it is the role of rhythm is to support the melodic statement in a way that makes the overall product sound better. To me that doesn't necessarily ALWAYS playing the same rhythm, NOR does it, in ths genre, mean overplaying so that one limits or steps on what the soloist is doing.

Sound reinforcement rather than amplification.......hmmmmm....in my experience not that many sound people get the reinforcement concept.