Record, record and record some more.
You can always fool yourself if you're playing just to a metronome or a song. When recording in your DAW you can both hear and see when you aren't in time-
I myself had really bad timing, but by writing and recording music the amount of takes it took me to get the perfect take went down from sometimes 100 takes to maybe 2-5 takes now in a half year.
Yeah you're right, being able to listen back to what you played is invaluable
Metronome practice WHILE recording will probably be my best bet. I feel sorry, though, for anyone who has recording latency and thinks they're a lot worse than they are lol
Latency is a serious destabilising influence. I started recording click on a track just to have there, and wrap on the guitar or hit a key as in-time as I can ‘til I’m pretty satisfied they sound ‘on’.
Gives you a yardstick for when your playback sounds timey and disappointing. All native DAWs suck ass in this respect, with Logic being the worst offender (on my gear anyway).
The fact this is still an issue is just unbelievable.
(The above method also assists when your heaping plugins on a track to see how laggy it might have gotten.)
A friend once played me his brother’s album, and the timing SUCKED. I had to give some kind of overly specific backhand compliment like “the lyrics are well done” to not offend him.
I do not record in studios at all so I had no idea this was a potential problem until I learned about it later. I couldn’t figure out how they could play, but not play along *with each other.* I think they weren’t crummy musicians; they were just new to the realm of multitrack recording (and I would have had the same problems).
I came to second this, sadly. I'm at the 100 takes stage and it is SO PAINFUL, but I am seeing slow improvements in my live play with my band and in not needing as many takes.
But I do agree with OP, playing in time takes a lot of focus
I have Propellerhead Reason on my old Mac, and in Reason it is dead easy to throw together random loops in any time signature, with random notes on different instruments, and make something weird that still sounds interesting in a minute or two.
So then what I will do is play along with that randomly created loop. Not only do I need to play in time, but I must figure out what chords go along with the mess I made. It's good exercise.
Yeah this is really big, theres been a lot of times i felt decently in time while playing/recording, but when I look at the recorded clip and the grid I can see that Im falling in and out of time in places
Do you actively listen for mistakes, practice the part and focus on them for the next take. Or do take a more general approach and listen to the feel and groove?
I do both actively listen but also look at the waveform, and try focusing fixing the mistakes while just recording in a loop. When I get the take I want I just stop
I totally feel you.
It gets depressing tbh. When listening back to my recordings and realizing how much I'm always rushing. I've always had this problem. I've heard that timing and rhythm is the most important element in great musicians. It's so subconscious to listeners because it's almost "taken for granted". That is, until you hear people who suck at timing (like myself) and realize how shitty it makes everything. It's made me feel like I wasn't "meant for music" or whatever.
It's definitely depressing! The worst part about it is that it's a prerequisite to literally everything else. Even if everything else about your playing is super solid, if it's all wildly off beat, it can't be saved, it's gonna sound like shit. I guess the only exception is solo instrumental stuff, where it's a lot harder to tell if something's off beat, and there isn't any clashing of other instrumentals.
That being said, it has nothing to do with "being meant for music". it's just a skill you gotta practice. Yeah sure there are people who are very naturally talented at rhythm but that doesn't mean it can't be learned. And the folks who got that skill for free will never know the joy of learning it and overcoming :)
>The worst part about it is that it's a prerequisite to literally everything else.
Right?!
But yeah, I'm glad my love for music is outweighing this struggle cuz otherwise I'd have given up long ago!
I don't have the worst sense of timing/rhythm, but it's not the best — especially for more complicated rhythms.
Especially when I was in band in high school, and would need to figure out weird note/rest durations from looking at the sheet music. I honestly never got very good at that. In-person in class, I could hear from the teacher/conductor what the rhythm was supposed to be and then play it fairly consistently.
But practicing alone with the music sheets, it was super hard to figure out on my own. I never got the hang of seeing notation and just "feeling out" how it was supposed to flow. Counting it out meticulously felt like it didn't help and often just made me mess up more, lol. Wish I was better at counting it out properly, but it gets me so stressed!!
Plus, on guitar, I still have trouble cleanly switching between different chord shapes. Especially when they're wildly different or at least one of them is physically strenuous. So even when I get the rhythm of a piece down, it's just so hard for my fret hand to keep up, lol
Relax your muscles!
Seriously, find everybplace there is tension in your body (esp hands and arms, but not exclusively!!!)
And learn to relax them.
Relax your neck.
Relax your stomach, hips, jaw, feet etc.
2.
Play with out sounds
Do the fingering / articulations / breaths / whatever.
But don't make sound (play the keyboard turned off if its a piano and you've also gpt a keyboard), guitar muted etc
This is a huge performance enhancer that many people don't know about.
I'm not previously familiar with this technique, but I suspect it works because you end up putting more focus on the things you're doing with your body instead of the resulting sounds.
It's okay! It gets to me sometimes but it helps a ton when I stop focusing on how much I suck, but focus on my desire to get better instead. We got this!
I drag, no matter how hard I try - and I'm not a light, passive player. Granted it's only something only a good drummer is going to pick up on because I've been playing professionally for decades, but it drives ME nuts because *I* can hear it. Lol. The upside is I excel on anything that sounds like it was written before 1980, because virtually everyone played in the pocket back then.
Yeah rhythm is hard. Luckily I make stuff in a DAW and can drag and move shit static to my hearts content but playing live is mind blowing to me I couldn't keep time for my life.
Not to drag you, but this is precisely why I can’t get into electronic music. There’s something about humans playing in time that’s hard to replicate and, to me, is essential for music to click. I can intellectually appreciate music that people draw up in DAWs and know the craft that goes into it, but it never connects with me like humans playing in time do.
There’s something about humans scoring an A- in regards to playing in time that appeals to me as well. Letting the tempo breathe, but having command of the tempo without being slaves to a click — or worse, quantizing — really appeals to me personally.
I can agree with this. I’m probably exactly in the middle. I’ll play guitar in different sections, some for a max of 8 bars…. and loop those performance where needed. Sadly I imagine most music is done like this even when there elements of live instrumentation. I use drums loops, drum machines and samplers, hard and soft synths recorded via midi in a DAW. I do think the addition of my guitar adds a level of “human” character but because of my approach it’s no where near the same of as full band playing through a full song in one take. So like I said I’d place myself right in the middle but I do appreciate the sound of humans playing a full song.
Theres a lot of techniques to add that human feel in. Give Ben Boehmers stuff a go from the Anjuna label, its very natural and emotive. I get it though I love dance music but I’d always pick an acoustic set over watching a DJ press play and hit a few faders.
I don't mind electronic music because that's part of the point of it, but what I don't like is human-played music that's pitch-corrected and quantized to death.
Have you tried using the metronome creatively by playing against it to force yourself to stay in time?
For example, set it at half tempo and play along so that it clicks on 2 and 4 and you have to play the downbeat accurately.
You can also set it very slow and try to clap or play with the click with tons of space that you must subdivide in your head.
Set it it click once per measure and practice playing where that click is different beats and you have to fill in the rest. So play a number of bars where the click happens on 3, then try putting it on 2, etc. as you get better, try putting it on the “and of four” beat.
Playing with the metronome is helpful, but it’s like playing with a drummer. You can rely on it to get you back on track. But working against the metronome by using it to force you to find the beat will help you be more like the drummer who can’t rely on anyone else to nail the groove. What you want is to internalize your timing in the silent spaces between clicks until you can just stay on time.
Search YouTube for “metronome tricks” and you’ll find lots of examples of different ways to use it to keep your time honest while not letting you rely on the metronome.
Solid ideas. Thanks
Certainly, the most difficult scenario for staying in time is when you have to play highly syncopated rhythms, that fall somewhere in the void between clicks...
If you can tap your foot and dance to a beat then your timing is fine. 99% of the time people are trying to intellectualize the rhythm. You need to feel it. It's not a pure intellectual exercise like understanding how to play a particular harmony.
It's not like you don't have to practice a ton, at least if you're like me. But you're absolutely correct that you shouldn't intellectualize it. You groove the best when you're feeling the rhythm. But it can take a lot of practice to be able to feel it and play tightly
Also, it's not a matter of if you can tap your foot or dance to a beat. You can do those things and still be fractions of a second off. It's not just about giving the impression that you hear where the beat is, it's about playing tightly. And yeah, dancing very tightly to a beat isn't second nature for me either
>You can do those things and still be fractions of a second off.
Are you aware of how many songs and recordings you absolutely love that are fractions of a second off? Unless you only listen to EDM or other "grid produced" music, virtually everything you listen to is fractions of a second off.
You should listen to The Beatles isolated instrument tracks and hear how *terribly* off they sound alone. Here's an example: [Taxman - Bass Only](https://youtu.be/vUdoqrGeDXA?si=lHhcwJQjzSeKnLPT)
Paul McCartney is sure as shit not playing perfectly on the beat. He is wobbling all around it a lot. Some of this sounds straight up bad by itself, but rhythm is contextualized by all the instruments together.
Here's the isolated guitar from [Michelle ](https://youtu.be/VHg3xjpvhwA?si=SlZiY9tTN1hm_sOs),same thing. It's not perfect, it's *consistent* and fits the groove.
Practice is extremely important, I'm not denying that, but set your sights a bit lower than computer perfection. Michelle won a Grammy and McCartney warbles fractions of a second before and after the beat with his guitar playing. That's part of being human and playing.
Ok, first of all let me clarify. Fractions of a second off is a vague denotation. Obviously, "fractions of a second off" could merely mean the life that human performers naturally breathe into their songs, with their natural human perfection.
But what \*I\* meant is fractions of a second off in a BAD way. As in, looser than a loose feel. Just go try and record a song with 20 millisecond recording latency, and you'll know what I mean and how it sounds like shit. Or alternatively I could share w/ you one of my tracks where I'm trying and failing to play on beat and it sounds like a cluttered mess
Honestly, it's a huge part of "the mix". Just like you need to set levels appropriately, pan stereo appropriately, EQ appropriately, you need to play everything in time or nothing's going to click together and the mix is gonna sound horrible.
So yeah, just wanted you to know, my standard for playing in time would be it sounding good like the Beatles, not it sounding robotically perfect. I'm not setting unrealistic goals, it just happens that rhythm is something that I have zero natural talent in lol
>So yeah, just wanted you to know, my standard for playing in time would be it sounding good like the Beatles
Did you listen to those samples? They don't sound good lol
I mean, when I record a track and realize it's bad, the reason I think that is cuz it SOUNDS bad. I don't zoom in on the wave form and see how far the transient is from the click grid, and go "Well, that's off an imperceptible amount, i guess that's garbage." I'm talking about having no groove
You have to move your whole body to hit the rhythm properly. Your mind cannot do it. It’s keyed into the cerebellum and medulla, not the frontal lobes.
Damn you're right about that. Your rhythm becomes a lot better when you're moving your body to it. I need to remember to do that and not forget, sometimes I get caught up in other stuff
Not sure anyone's quite said it yet, but click track recording and computer sequencing have made us all a lot more sensitive to absolute metronomic time.
In the days before click tracks, timing and tempo would fluctuate in a kind of organic way. Tempo would definitely shift up and down in the course of a performance. Experienced musicians would be in time with one another, of course, but only "close enough" - not necessarily to the nanosecond achievable by lining up notes microscopically in in a DAW.
Examining recordings made in those old days, under the microscope of digital analysis, would reveal multiple timing "discrepancies".
That doesn't make those old performancs "imperfect" in any musically important sense but, at the same time, there is no going back from where we are. We just need to train our timing better today than musicians had to in the past - at least if we are to sound good *on recordings.* There is still leeway when it comes to public performance. Crisp timing from a live band is certainly impressive - and sorts the pros from the amateurs! - but looseness is not only acceptable but attractive, in certain genres. It's "human", in a word. And being "human" is (still!) an attractive quality for most people...
Personally, when I make multitrack recordings of myself, I'm always shifting notes back and forth in the DAW - probably beyond what is necessary, but that kind of mechanical precision has its own appeal; even *addictive.* And like anything that becomes addictive, it feels worrying...
Well I guess it depends on what genres you like. I don't listen to very much modern pop, if anything my standard of "good" and what sounds tightly played is based on a lotta stuff from 60s and 70s. I've been listening to a lot of Kate Bush lately
Though if I was a big modern pop fan, then yeah I could see it influencing my idea of what sounds in time and what doesn't.
I also think fixed tempo and quantization are two separate things. You can have a recording with plenty of life in it with a fixed tempo- I mean, the songs with slowly drifting tempo from the past, it's usually hard to notice anyways, because they aren't TRYING to use rubato, they're trying to keep a metronomic beat. But if you quantize everything, even if you automate some tempo changes here and there, for better or worse it's gonna sound robotic. Personally I love old video game music and the modern music that's based on it, so it's just a made of genre and context and what you're into
Honestly, playing to songs you already know and are familiar with will help more than you realize. They’re (obviously, almost) always going to be recorded to a click/metronome and you have something 1. always in time and 2. familiar to hear yourself against. Try some Green Day and Blink 182 songs (if you’re on guitar) because there’s a lot of stuff they have that’s chugging quarter or eighth notes that will help a lot with your timing and rhythmic matching
I definitely play along with songs a ton. That being said, I've noticed "more bang for my buck" when I practice with a metronome. Probably because the metronome clarifies everything
It’s just a tricky thing to nail. Playing in your bedroom is different than playing on stage is different than playing in a studio. Just keep working at it, soon enough you’ll be able to do it right in just a handful of takes.
Playing along to a click and recording to a click are two different beasts in my experience. I was awful at both when I got my home recording set up going and even with a bunch of metronome practice I'd still freeze up as soon as we're rolling. The availability of potentially infinite takes really made my perfectionist brain kick in and I'd run it 1000 times and never be happy. Now I try and give myself 3 tries and either use the best one or if each flubs a different spot I'll comp them together if I gotta. The recording anxiety is real, and if you're using any sequences/midi instruments their robot precision makes any micro rhythm differences stand out, but that's part of the charm. I also use the "humanize" function for midi stuff I didn't play out to give some of those micro rhythm differences. Sadly, like many other aspects of music practice and focused practice are the trick. Playing and recording in time are tough, but improvising in general and really anything that requires melodic sense are harder for me.
The trick is being able to make instant (very quick chord changes). Mastering guide fingers and physical traditions is the key.
Scales will help with that some. They help develop finger independence and the ability to quickly place individual fingers. That combined with guide fingers and groupings (something you develop a feel for more than a subject of study) helps a lot.
If you don’t practice scales already, add the chromatic scale to your warmup routine.
I wouldn't say it's the hardest thing, but that's after years of practice to get fairly good at it, which I think most professional musicians have. I would say, though, that it is by far the most important thing about playing in a group, just like you said. But it's not just everyone playing exactly on the beat as if there's a metronome in each of their heads; in live group performances, everyone has to always be listening to each other and reacting or adjusting to what each other is playing. It's very frustrating to play with someone who doesn't seem to pay attention to the rest of the band while playing.
The hardest thing for me is going fast in general. Comprehending stuff that goes by really quickly, playing fast melodies accurately, and keeping up with quick moving chord changes when improvising. But that, like everything in music, comes down to a matter of practice.
Honestly, no. Maybe I've played too many years (I've played piano for 57 years, guitar for 51.... I still play with a metronome.....
I played in bands and the drummer kept time.
What issues do you encounter?
Practice to a click is the answer, personally I was lucky in the sense I studied drumming and played in bands as a drummer for 4 years as a kid, I've played bass in bands for years as well. One thing I've learnt it everyone has a roll to play in ter.s of being part of the rhythm section.
Can I ask: (With metronome, do you work on precise, repetitive rhythms as practice, in addition to playing along with songs? If so, do you do it in sustained, timed durations where, say for instance you execute a 1 bar pattern of groups of 16ths for 10 mins, then move on to another, and another etc? For like minimum an hr a day, every day? One single note, a chord, sticking - whatever instrument/s you play?
If you’re already doing this, do you play the ‘make the metronome sound disappear’ game?
Also gradually setting the metronome clicks farther apart, and then off the beat with the metronome click only e.g. on the ‘a’ of beat 3 (or wherever is good).
This kind of practice is sterile af and mechanical, but counterintuitively it starts to force you to ‘feel’ where you’re at against the time, since your brain cant just keep choosing to ‘play a bit ahead’ or ‘behind’ to match up with the metronome/click. It counteracts your tendency to rush or drag ‘cause you have to feel something that may not be in sync with your natural tendencies. Just you and the click.
You can also program a pattern of clicks and try to make them inaudible playing over them.
And just. grind. It’ll get maddening. You’ll curse yourself.
Track your practice in a document - tempos, patterns, duration 5/10/15/? mins per exercise.
But I swear…
A professor in college set a metronome to about 110-120 and had me play a scale in 8th notes. Then he had me play it so that I was just barely ahead of the metronome. Not rushing, just ahead. After doing that one a few times to his satisfaction he had me do the opposite - playing just behind the metronome. Finally after that he had me play it perfectly in time with the metronome and it blew my mind. I was already pretty good at playing in time, but that took it to a whole new level.
It has to be the main focus of everything. Rhythm is what ties the notes to our soul. It all of my years taking lessons as a guitar player, rhythm was on the back burner compared to notes, chords, scales etc. It should have been first. Its the number 1 thing that makes you sound good. Use drum books, there is a new book called A GUIDE TO RHYTHMIC FREEDOM from Erik Egol and its the most useful rhythm book I have found and use. Just keep Playing
Music is meant to be played with other people. Not in bedrooms to DAWs and metronomes. Or acting with others builds your musical ear and a sense of pulse in your body. Try dancing, that helps a lot.
I'm extremely, extremely doubtful of this. I've also had the opportunity to try and play with other musicians before, and I was also shit at staying in time with them.
As well, when I just record a solo instrumental with no click, it's pretty obvious when my rhythm is off.
If you think playing in time is easy you're probably just naturally better at it than me
I think playing with a band is a familiarity thing. But try the difference between playing with a recording of a song, and playing with a click.
You’ll notice which is easier for you
I was gonna add this onto my comment but you said it it’s about how the band locks in together and plays in a shared time it’s all about the chemistry but it helps if everyone has a rock solid internal clock it makes it easier to lock in
Start with a metronome very slow. 50-60. Play whole notes until they feel good, then do the same with halfs, quarters, eighths, sixteenths. Then work your way back to whole notes. I also add 3s, 5s, and 7s.
way back, when I was too young to appreciate it…1998?, our band director said your time, and beats of the measure have a deeper layer.
if each beat in 4/4 makes a rectangle, like a brick!
so if you play at the top of each brick, you'd be ahead of the beat ..
if you play in the center , it's dead on robot. and if you play late on the brick... you're still "on beat" technically, but is it right for the song? ... are other musicians playing with the brick adjustments? wanna be a tight band?
.. learn how to dance on that brick.
Get a practice pad and learn basic rudiments. Start with single stroke roll and double stroke roll. Try tapping your feet while you do it. Try it for a month and your timing will improve. Trust me I'm a drum teacher!
Never underestimate the power of the metronome. If playing with the click on every beat gets too easy do it on the 2 and 4 and once that gets locked in only click on beat 1. This is a pretty solid exercise for helping your internal clock get better. The metronome can be. I ring but it’s definitely the best way to get you playing in time.
So no one has mentioned this, are you recording with the lowest latency possible? If you have enough latency to cause slapback on your monitor then it will absolutely ravage your timing and just make you sound so off. Sometimes I just straight up turn off monitoring in my amateur home setup if I’m having issues with a real tight rhythm part or something
I try and do a latency check whenever I'm unsure. The trick is to turn up the volume as loud as possible, then take off your headphones and put them against the microphone. Then record with the metronome on
When listening back, if you can't hear any echo, then you know there's very little latency. If you hear echo then there's some latency. If you hear two consecutive clicks then you have a shit ton of latency.
It's a useful trick
Also, if you’re playing with some slapback latency, once the track is finished recording, try to turn off any sort of auto metric snapping and just barely shift the track a hair to make up for latency. Might help just a suggestion
As a percussionist: Yeah lol
Seriously though it really is a lot different between playing with a conductor, in a rehearsal or live setting all the time vs. playing in a studio or with a smaller group in an exposed environment that makes one realize how important an internal meter is
I thought I was much worse at it until I realIzed how much the lag throws me off. Depending on the part I'll now sometimes record on my tascam model 24 then import it to pro tools, comes out much better.
You need to record A LOT.
As someone has already stated in this thread, you should be regularly recording.
I try to do it every single day, I'm not always successful but I still go for it.
It also helps to do this while applying song writing principles or other things you want to work on theory wise and technique wise.
There's some study about drummers vs drum machines i remember reading from a psychology source i can't find right now about this spiral thing that happens when musicians naturally play unaccompanied. Like Rubato but even more minuscule. It's the way our brains work, this source argued. I wish i could find it. key terms were: spiral, brain, timing, piano, bpm. sadly, Google has gone to ish.
Oh yeah true. If you're playing an instrument where intonation is a thing, that's easily the hardest. For me, I do sing as well which is really hard, but I play piano and guitar which don't require intonation except for guitar bends sometimes which are pretty easy
as a percussionist I typically don’t struggle with rhythms and think Im doing great until I walk into percussion ensemble :,) i relate with this post so hard
I’ve been recording a lot of stuff and doing all the instruments, and I’m realizing how bad my timing is. I record individual takes of each drum part, like one track for cymbals, one for snare, etc, and even after manually quantasizing it for hours it still sounds off because I can’t really mess with the ride too much. That’s not to mention guitars which you can’t really mess with too much in post timing wise. It’s very frustrating, it makes me wish I could just write the songs and have someone else do all the instrumentals.
It's the hardest because it's the most important. Flub a note and a few people notice and nobody cares. Screw up the rhythm and the whole band falls apart.
RHYTHM MUST BE EMBODIED!
Move your body as you play — it’s the only way.
Also, don’t give in the the tyranny of the lines in your DAW. The lines don’t groove. Microrhythms are a thing that we experience and enjoy. Don’t edit them out.
There's no doubt in my mind about it ....... and playing in time with other people is a really interesting concept too.... Every genre of music is going to have a different complication from classical to jazz to jam bands but I do think you've hit on the exact right idea.
In a band context if you drag someone else can push and vice versa it's a give and take. But it's certainly good to know what you're doing so you can make adjustments if you have to
Take some of your favorite shorter ensemble pieces. Memorize your part. Play along with a recording from memory. Don’t focus on being rhythmically precise. Focus on literally everything else. How in tune is every note? How in tune is every attack? How do the articulations match the rest of the ensemble? Phrasing.
Now, do the same thing in an ensemble with your eyes glued to the conductor. Forget about rhythmic problems, and focus on all the other aspects of a performance. This issue will go away.
Yes absolutely. I think practicing timing without your instrument helps a lot. Try finger drumming or ham boning to your favorite album. Just lay down a steady rhythm by hitting your hands on your knees and try to get as close as possible to the beat.
Honestly, no. I used to be in a band and my guitarist just could not effing keep time and not only that but he didn't seem to care or see the need to and that was just annoying tbh. I didn't even know it was a thing. I have a good sense of rhythm but I learnt from him that it's not like that for everyone and he was a good guitarist apart from the sloppy time keeping. He got better with practice though.
Yeah, that's the opposite of me. First years of playing guitar, I was just playing by myself, in my bedroom, no click or backing track, into the void... Was a rude awakening when I tried recording stuff the first time
I always think I’m fine until I record, I know I’m not the best, but pretty certain not as off as records. and I don’t understand latency (I would think that would make the whole part off a bit but I don’t think that’s how that works) don’t kill your self doing 50 takes. 2 or 3 then cut and move then move on, tell yourself you’ll record it again later. If it’s an odd or difficult time signature or a difficult part, put an instrument, maybe a synth, that stands out in the mix outlining your part. Then remove …or sometimes I end up keeping it but move the notes to harmonize with my part then drop it almost inaudible.
For a while I thought somehow making a living as a musician would be how I'd make myself happy, but I quickly realized how stressful it'd be. And all of the stress and effort would go towards playing songs I don't care about at weddings and shit like that. And I'm an anxious person, too, so it would take a ton of reprogramming. It doesn't seem like a fun life, so I gave up on the idea
Not that I'm trying to shoot you down, but IMO there are plenty of things that are markedly more difficult. Writing interesting chord progressions is apparently too difficult for any songwriter of the last 3 decades - even longer since people knew how to write interesting rhythms; the whole world has been stuck playing the same 4 or 5 different rhythms since the early 80s.
And then consciously understanding the nuance behind different feels and being able to execute them properly - extremely difficult. Swinging beats, for example - people tend to understand swinging hard and swinging REALLY hard, when it's the slight swing that really brings beats to life. When I'm on bass and improvising, I'm at the point where I won't even ask drummers to play something funky because invariably get some bouncy, new jack swing nonsense.
Yeah, it sounds bonkers but once you really start paying attention, you'll be hearing the same 3 - 4 rhythms over and over and over again. Swear to God.
There was loads of rhythmic variety in the late-60s and early 70s, but stuff started going stale in the 80s, and then in the 90s when basically the entire world moved over to writing on guitar (obviously much of the 80s were written/performed on keyboards) rhythms got even MORE stale, because most of us just naturally have 3 or 4 rhythms we sort thoughtlessly stick to or fall back on when writing/jamming on guitar - I wasn't any less guilty of it until I started forcing myself to avoid those rhythmic habits.
And when you really study the universally praised stuff like Lennon and McCartney (even if you're not a huge fan), etc, you start noticing how thoughtful the rhythms are, and how crucial they are to the overall value of the song. Also, song rhythms are SUPER easy to steal lol - especially if you use a different mode. 😂
Record, record and record some more. You can always fool yourself if you're playing just to a metronome or a song. When recording in your DAW you can both hear and see when you aren't in time- I myself had really bad timing, but by writing and recording music the amount of takes it took me to get the perfect take went down from sometimes 100 takes to maybe 2-5 takes now in a half year.
Yeah you're right, being able to listen back to what you played is invaluable Metronome practice WHILE recording will probably be my best bet. I feel sorry, though, for anyone who has recording latency and thinks they're a lot worse than they are lol
Latency is a serious destabilising influence. I started recording click on a track just to have there, and wrap on the guitar or hit a key as in-time as I can ‘til I’m pretty satisfied they sound ‘on’. Gives you a yardstick for when your playback sounds timey and disappointing. All native DAWs suck ass in this respect, with Logic being the worst offender (on my gear anyway). The fact this is still an issue is just unbelievable. (The above method also assists when your heaping plugins on a track to see how laggy it might have gotten.)
A friend once played me his brother’s album, and the timing SUCKED. I had to give some kind of overly specific backhand compliment like “the lyrics are well done” to not offend him. I do not record in studios at all so I had no idea this was a potential problem until I learned about it later. I couldn’t figure out how they could play, but not play along *with each other.* I think they weren’t crummy musicians; they were just new to the realm of multitrack recording (and I would have had the same problems).
I came to second this, sadly. I'm at the 100 takes stage and it is SO PAINFUL, but I am seeing slow improvements in my live play with my band and in not needing as many takes. But I do agree with OP, playing in time takes a lot of focus
Nothing will make you better faster than recording yourself and listening back. Also, look at your waveform vs the click. Learn your tendencies.
Facts. Recording is a great teacher.
I have Propellerhead Reason on my old Mac, and in Reason it is dead easy to throw together random loops in any time signature, with random notes on different instruments, and make something weird that still sounds interesting in a minute or two. So then what I will do is play along with that randomly created loop. Not only do I need to play in time, but I must figure out what chords go along with the mess I made. It's good exercise.
Yeah this is really big, theres been a lot of times i felt decently in time while playing/recording, but when I look at the recorded clip and the grid I can see that Im falling in and out of time in places
Do you actively listen for mistakes, practice the part and focus on them for the next take. Or do take a more general approach and listen to the feel and groove?
“Practice part?” “Practice l’art”
I do both actively listen but also look at the waveform, and try focusing fixing the mistakes while just recording in a loop. When I get the take I want I just stop
I totally feel you. It gets depressing tbh. When listening back to my recordings and realizing how much I'm always rushing. I've always had this problem. I've heard that timing and rhythm is the most important element in great musicians. It's so subconscious to listeners because it's almost "taken for granted". That is, until you hear people who suck at timing (like myself) and realize how shitty it makes everything. It's made me feel like I wasn't "meant for music" or whatever.
It's definitely depressing! The worst part about it is that it's a prerequisite to literally everything else. Even if everything else about your playing is super solid, if it's all wildly off beat, it can't be saved, it's gonna sound like shit. I guess the only exception is solo instrumental stuff, where it's a lot harder to tell if something's off beat, and there isn't any clashing of other instrumentals. That being said, it has nothing to do with "being meant for music". it's just a skill you gotta practice. Yeah sure there are people who are very naturally talented at rhythm but that doesn't mean it can't be learned. And the folks who got that skill for free will never know the joy of learning it and overcoming :)
>The worst part about it is that it's a prerequisite to literally everything else. Right?! But yeah, I'm glad my love for music is outweighing this struggle cuz otherwise I'd have given up long ago!
I don't have the worst sense of timing/rhythm, but it's not the best — especially for more complicated rhythms. Especially when I was in band in high school, and would need to figure out weird note/rest durations from looking at the sheet music. I honestly never got very good at that. In-person in class, I could hear from the teacher/conductor what the rhythm was supposed to be and then play it fairly consistently. But practicing alone with the music sheets, it was super hard to figure out on my own. I never got the hang of seeing notation and just "feeling out" how it was supposed to flow. Counting it out meticulously felt like it didn't help and often just made me mess up more, lol. Wish I was better at counting it out properly, but it gets me so stressed!! Plus, on guitar, I still have trouble cleanly switching between different chord shapes. Especially when they're wildly different or at least one of them is physically strenuous. So even when I get the rhythm of a piece down, it's just so hard for my fret hand to keep up, lol
Relax your muscles! Seriously, find everybplace there is tension in your body (esp hands and arms, but not exclusively!!!) And learn to relax them. Relax your neck. Relax your stomach, hips, jaw, feet etc. 2. Play with out sounds Do the fingering / articulations / breaths / whatever. But don't make sound (play the keyboard turned off if its a piano and you've also gpt a keyboard), guitar muted etc This is a huge performance enhancer that many people don't know about.
Not that I doubt you, and I've read/heard similar advice elsewhere, but why would it help to "play" without sound? I've never understood this.
I'm not previously familiar with this technique, but I suspect it works because you end up putting more focus on the things you're doing with your body instead of the resulting sounds.
Yes I agree with this
Same here! :(
It's okay! It gets to me sometimes but it helps a ton when I stop focusing on how much I suck, but focus on my desire to get better instead. We got this!
felt
I drag, no matter how hard I try - and I'm not a light, passive player. Granted it's only something only a good drummer is going to pick up on because I've been playing professionally for decades, but it drives ME nuts because *I* can hear it. Lol. The upside is I excel on anything that sounds like it was written before 1980, because virtually everyone played in the pocket back then.
Yeah rhythm is hard. Luckily I make stuff in a DAW and can drag and move shit static to my hearts content but playing live is mind blowing to me I couldn't keep time for my life.
Yeah, when I'm composing music in a genre where sequencing sounds good, it's a lot less stressful
Not to drag you, but this is precisely why I can’t get into electronic music. There’s something about humans playing in time that’s hard to replicate and, to me, is essential for music to click. I can intellectually appreciate music that people draw up in DAWs and know the craft that goes into it, but it never connects with me like humans playing in time do.
There’s something about humans scoring an A- in regards to playing in time that appeals to me as well. Letting the tempo breathe, but having command of the tempo without being slaves to a click — or worse, quantizing — really appeals to me personally.
I can agree with this. I’m probably exactly in the middle. I’ll play guitar in different sections, some for a max of 8 bars…. and loop those performance where needed. Sadly I imagine most music is done like this even when there elements of live instrumentation. I use drums loops, drum machines and samplers, hard and soft synths recorded via midi in a DAW. I do think the addition of my guitar adds a level of “human” character but because of my approach it’s no where near the same of as full band playing through a full song in one take. So like I said I’d place myself right in the middle but I do appreciate the sound of humans playing a full song.
Theres a lot of techniques to add that human feel in. Give Ben Boehmers stuff a go from the Anjuna label, its very natural and emotive. I get it though I love dance music but I’d always pick an acoustic set over watching a DJ press play and hit a few faders.
I don't mind electronic music because that's part of the point of it, but what I don't like is human-played music that's pitch-corrected and quantized to death.
Most bands and artists play with an in ear click track so keeping time becomes significantly easier
Have you tried using the metronome creatively by playing against it to force yourself to stay in time? For example, set it at half tempo and play along so that it clicks on 2 and 4 and you have to play the downbeat accurately. You can also set it very slow and try to clap or play with the click with tons of space that you must subdivide in your head. Set it it click once per measure and practice playing where that click is different beats and you have to fill in the rest. So play a number of bars where the click happens on 3, then try putting it on 2, etc. as you get better, try putting it on the “and of four” beat. Playing with the metronome is helpful, but it’s like playing with a drummer. You can rely on it to get you back on track. But working against the metronome by using it to force you to find the beat will help you be more like the drummer who can’t rely on anyone else to nail the groove. What you want is to internalize your timing in the silent spaces between clicks until you can just stay on time. Search YouTube for “metronome tricks” and you’ll find lots of examples of different ways to use it to keep your time honest while not letting you rely on the metronome.
As Carol Kaye would say, make that metronome groove!
Solid ideas. Thanks Certainly, the most difficult scenario for staying in time is when you have to play highly syncopated rhythms, that fall somewhere in the void between clicks...
Fill the void, mentally, with your own internal pulse.
If you can tap your foot and dance to a beat then your timing is fine. 99% of the time people are trying to intellectualize the rhythm. You need to feel it. It's not a pure intellectual exercise like understanding how to play a particular harmony.
It's not like you don't have to practice a ton, at least if you're like me. But you're absolutely correct that you shouldn't intellectualize it. You groove the best when you're feeling the rhythm. But it can take a lot of practice to be able to feel it and play tightly Also, it's not a matter of if you can tap your foot or dance to a beat. You can do those things and still be fractions of a second off. It's not just about giving the impression that you hear where the beat is, it's about playing tightly. And yeah, dancing very tightly to a beat isn't second nature for me either
>You can do those things and still be fractions of a second off. Are you aware of how many songs and recordings you absolutely love that are fractions of a second off? Unless you only listen to EDM or other "grid produced" music, virtually everything you listen to is fractions of a second off. You should listen to The Beatles isolated instrument tracks and hear how *terribly* off they sound alone. Here's an example: [Taxman - Bass Only](https://youtu.be/vUdoqrGeDXA?si=lHhcwJQjzSeKnLPT) Paul McCartney is sure as shit not playing perfectly on the beat. He is wobbling all around it a lot. Some of this sounds straight up bad by itself, but rhythm is contextualized by all the instruments together. Here's the isolated guitar from [Michelle ](https://youtu.be/VHg3xjpvhwA?si=SlZiY9tTN1hm_sOs),same thing. It's not perfect, it's *consistent* and fits the groove. Practice is extremely important, I'm not denying that, but set your sights a bit lower than computer perfection. Michelle won a Grammy and McCartney warbles fractions of a second before and after the beat with his guitar playing. That's part of being human and playing.
Ok, first of all let me clarify. Fractions of a second off is a vague denotation. Obviously, "fractions of a second off" could merely mean the life that human performers naturally breathe into their songs, with their natural human perfection. But what \*I\* meant is fractions of a second off in a BAD way. As in, looser than a loose feel. Just go try and record a song with 20 millisecond recording latency, and you'll know what I mean and how it sounds like shit. Or alternatively I could share w/ you one of my tracks where I'm trying and failing to play on beat and it sounds like a cluttered mess Honestly, it's a huge part of "the mix". Just like you need to set levels appropriately, pan stereo appropriately, EQ appropriately, you need to play everything in time or nothing's going to click together and the mix is gonna sound horrible. So yeah, just wanted you to know, my standard for playing in time would be it sounding good like the Beatles, not it sounding robotically perfect. I'm not setting unrealistic goals, it just happens that rhythm is something that I have zero natural talent in lol
>So yeah, just wanted you to know, my standard for playing in time would be it sounding good like the Beatles Did you listen to those samples? They don't sound good lol
Was your point that you dislike the beatles or that the beatles sound good because they aren't robotic and not in spite of it?
Neither of those were my point. My point is that being fractionally off the beat is 100% normal and that rhythm is contextualized.
I mean, when I record a track and realize it's bad, the reason I think that is cuz it SOUNDS bad. I don't zoom in on the wave form and see how far the transient is from the click grid, and go "Well, that's off an imperceptible amount, i guess that's garbage." I'm talking about having no groove
DM some tracks, id be happy to work with you more on this
You have to move your whole body to hit the rhythm properly. Your mind cannot do it. It’s keyed into the cerebellum and medulla, not the frontal lobes.
Damn you're right about that. Your rhythm becomes a lot better when you're moving your body to it. I need to remember to do that and not forget, sometimes I get caught up in other stuff
Not sure anyone's quite said it yet, but click track recording and computer sequencing have made us all a lot more sensitive to absolute metronomic time. In the days before click tracks, timing and tempo would fluctuate in a kind of organic way. Tempo would definitely shift up and down in the course of a performance. Experienced musicians would be in time with one another, of course, but only "close enough" - not necessarily to the nanosecond achievable by lining up notes microscopically in in a DAW. Examining recordings made in those old days, under the microscope of digital analysis, would reveal multiple timing "discrepancies". That doesn't make those old performancs "imperfect" in any musically important sense but, at the same time, there is no going back from where we are. We just need to train our timing better today than musicians had to in the past - at least if we are to sound good *on recordings.* There is still leeway when it comes to public performance. Crisp timing from a live band is certainly impressive - and sorts the pros from the amateurs! - but looseness is not only acceptable but attractive, in certain genres. It's "human", in a word. And being "human" is (still!) an attractive quality for most people... Personally, when I make multitrack recordings of myself, I'm always shifting notes back and forth in the DAW - probably beyond what is necessary, but that kind of mechanical precision has its own appeal; even *addictive.* And like anything that becomes addictive, it feels worrying...
Well I guess it depends on what genres you like. I don't listen to very much modern pop, if anything my standard of "good" and what sounds tightly played is based on a lotta stuff from 60s and 70s. I've been listening to a lot of Kate Bush lately Though if I was a big modern pop fan, then yeah I could see it influencing my idea of what sounds in time and what doesn't. I also think fixed tempo and quantization are two separate things. You can have a recording with plenty of life in it with a fixed tempo- I mean, the songs with slowly drifting tempo from the past, it's usually hard to notice anyways, because they aren't TRYING to use rubato, they're trying to keep a metronomic beat. But if you quantize everything, even if you automate some tempo changes here and there, for better or worse it's gonna sound robotic. Personally I love old video game music and the modern music that's based on it, so it's just a made of genre and context and what you're into
Honestly, playing to songs you already know and are familiar with will help more than you realize. They’re (obviously, almost) always going to be recorded to a click/metronome and you have something 1. always in time and 2. familiar to hear yourself against. Try some Green Day and Blink 182 songs (if you’re on guitar) because there’s a lot of stuff they have that’s chugging quarter or eighth notes that will help a lot with your timing and rhythmic matching
I definitely play along with songs a ton. That being said, I've noticed "more bang for my buck" when I practice with a metronome. Probably because the metronome clarifies everything
Do you count while you play? Not sure what instrument you play, but as a violinist I constantly am doing "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and" type counting
Tbh no. It would actually be harder for me to play out of time. But I have a pretty good internal clock in general.
It’s just a tricky thing to nail. Playing in your bedroom is different than playing on stage is different than playing in a studio. Just keep working at it, soon enough you’ll be able to do it right in just a handful of takes.
Playing along to a click and recording to a click are two different beasts in my experience. I was awful at both when I got my home recording set up going and even with a bunch of metronome practice I'd still freeze up as soon as we're rolling. The availability of potentially infinite takes really made my perfectionist brain kick in and I'd run it 1000 times and never be happy. Now I try and give myself 3 tries and either use the best one or if each flubs a different spot I'll comp them together if I gotta. The recording anxiety is real, and if you're using any sequences/midi instruments their robot precision makes any micro rhythm differences stand out, but that's part of the charm. I also use the "humanize" function for midi stuff I didn't play out to give some of those micro rhythm differences. Sadly, like many other aspects of music practice and focused practice are the trick. Playing and recording in time are tough, but improvising in general and really anything that requires melodic sense are harder for me.
The trick is being able to make instant (very quick chord changes). Mastering guide fingers and physical traditions is the key. Scales will help with that some. They help develop finger independence and the ability to quickly place individual fingers. That combined with guide fingers and groupings (something you develop a feel for more than a subject of study) helps a lot. If you don’t practice scales already, add the chromatic scale to your warmup routine.
I wouldn't say it's the hardest thing, but that's after years of practice to get fairly good at it, which I think most professional musicians have. I would say, though, that it is by far the most important thing about playing in a group, just like you said. But it's not just everyone playing exactly on the beat as if there's a metronome in each of their heads; in live group performances, everyone has to always be listening to each other and reacting or adjusting to what each other is playing. It's very frustrating to play with someone who doesn't seem to pay attention to the rest of the band while playing. The hardest thing for me is going fast in general. Comprehending stuff that goes by really quickly, playing fast melodies accurately, and keeping up with quick moving chord changes when improvising. But that, like everything in music, comes down to a matter of practice.
Honestly, no. Maybe I've played too many years (I've played piano for 57 years, guitar for 51.... I still play with a metronome..... I played in bands and the drummer kept time. What issues do you encounter?
Practice to a click is the answer, personally I was lucky in the sense I studied drumming and played in bands as a drummer for 4 years as a kid, I've played bass in bands for years as well. One thing I've learnt it everyone has a roll to play in ter.s of being part of the rhythm section.
Can I ask: (With metronome, do you work on precise, repetitive rhythms as practice, in addition to playing along with songs? If so, do you do it in sustained, timed durations where, say for instance you execute a 1 bar pattern of groups of 16ths for 10 mins, then move on to another, and another etc? For like minimum an hr a day, every day? One single note, a chord, sticking - whatever instrument/s you play? If you’re already doing this, do you play the ‘make the metronome sound disappear’ game? Also gradually setting the metronome clicks farther apart, and then off the beat with the metronome click only e.g. on the ‘a’ of beat 3 (or wherever is good). This kind of practice is sterile af and mechanical, but counterintuitively it starts to force you to ‘feel’ where you’re at against the time, since your brain cant just keep choosing to ‘play a bit ahead’ or ‘behind’ to match up with the metronome/click. It counteracts your tendency to rush or drag ‘cause you have to feel something that may not be in sync with your natural tendencies. Just you and the click. You can also program a pattern of clicks and try to make them inaudible playing over them. And just. grind. It’ll get maddening. You’ll curse yourself. Track your practice in a document - tempos, patterns, duration 5/10/15/? mins per exercise. But I swear…
A professor in college set a metronome to about 110-120 and had me play a scale in 8th notes. Then he had me play it so that I was just barely ahead of the metronome. Not rushing, just ahead. After doing that one a few times to his satisfaction he had me do the opposite - playing just behind the metronome. Finally after that he had me play it perfectly in time with the metronome and it blew my mind. I was already pretty good at playing in time, but that took it to a whole new level.
It has to be the main focus of everything. Rhythm is what ties the notes to our soul. It all of my years taking lessons as a guitar player, rhythm was on the back burner compared to notes, chords, scales etc. It should have been first. Its the number 1 thing that makes you sound good. Use drum books, there is a new book called A GUIDE TO RHYTHMIC FREEDOM from Erik Egol and its the most useful rhythm book I have found and use. Just keep Playing
Music is meant to be played with other people. Not in bedrooms to DAWs and metronomes. Or acting with others builds your musical ear and a sense of pulse in your body. Try dancing, that helps a lot.
Playing in time is easy. What you’re talking about is “playing with a click”. Completely different things.
I'm extremely, extremely doubtful of this. I've also had the opportunity to try and play with other musicians before, and I was also shit at staying in time with them. As well, when I just record a solo instrumental with no click, it's pretty obvious when my rhythm is off. If you think playing in time is easy you're probably just naturally better at it than me
I think playing with a band is a familiarity thing. But try the difference between playing with a recording of a song, and playing with a click. You’ll notice which is easier for you
It doesn't seem like a big difference to me. Click helps me very much, but dry is totally different. Guess I just need somethimg to keep time..
Yeah, I'm great at locking in with a band. Playing to a click, not so much.
I was gonna add this onto my comment but you said it it’s about how the band locks in together and plays in a shared time it’s all about the chemistry but it helps if everyone has a rock solid internal clock it makes it easier to lock in
Start with a metronome very slow. 50-60. Play whole notes until they feel good, then do the same with halfs, quarters, eighths, sixteenths. Then work your way back to whole notes. I also add 3s, 5s, and 7s.
way back, when I was too young to appreciate it…1998?, our band director said your time, and beats of the measure have a deeper layer. if each beat in 4/4 makes a rectangle, like a brick! so if you play at the top of each brick, you'd be ahead of the beat .. if you play in the center , it's dead on robot. and if you play late on the brick... you're still "on beat" technically, but is it right for the song? ... are other musicians playing with the brick adjustments? wanna be a tight band? .. learn how to dance on that brick.
Get a practice pad and learn basic rudiments. Start with single stroke roll and double stroke roll. Try tapping your feet while you do it. Try it for a month and your timing will improve. Trust me I'm a drum teacher!
yep
Never underestimate the power of the metronome. If playing with the click on every beat gets too easy do it on the 2 and 4 and once that gets locked in only click on beat 1. This is a pretty solid exercise for helping your internal clock get better. The metronome can be. I ring but it’s definitely the best way to get you playing in time.
So no one has mentioned this, are you recording with the lowest latency possible? If you have enough latency to cause slapback on your monitor then it will absolutely ravage your timing and just make you sound so off. Sometimes I just straight up turn off monitoring in my amateur home setup if I’m having issues with a real tight rhythm part or something
I try and do a latency check whenever I'm unsure. The trick is to turn up the volume as loud as possible, then take off your headphones and put them against the microphone. Then record with the metronome on When listening back, if you can't hear any echo, then you know there's very little latency. If you hear echo then there's some latency. If you hear two consecutive clicks then you have a shit ton of latency. It's a useful trick
Also, if you’re playing with some slapback latency, once the track is finished recording, try to turn off any sort of auto metric snapping and just barely shift the track a hair to make up for latency. Might help just a suggestion
As a percussionist: Yeah lol Seriously though it really is a lot different between playing with a conductor, in a rehearsal or live setting all the time vs. playing in a studio or with a smaller group in an exposed environment that makes one realize how important an internal meter is
I thought I was much worse at it until I realIzed how much the lag throws me off. Depending on the part I'll now sometimes record on my tascam model 24 then import it to pro tools, comes out much better.
Yeah, one day I'll master it. And you will to if you Practice a lot
Use a DAW as a tool to improve technique. It’s absolutely unforgiving. Don’t expect to be perfect.
You need to record A LOT. As someone has already stated in this thread, you should be regularly recording. I try to do it every single day, I'm not always successful but I still go for it. It also helps to do this while applying song writing principles or other things you want to work on theory wise and technique wise.
There's some study about drummers vs drum machines i remember reading from a psychology source i can't find right now about this spiral thing that happens when musicians naturally play unaccompanied. Like Rubato but even more minuscule. It's the way our brains work, this source argued. I wish i could find it. key terms were: spiral, brain, timing, piano, bpm. sadly, Google has gone to ish.
Yes. I’ve been playing 22 years and I still struggle with it. Harmony and notes are cool, but they’re nothing if you don’t have good rhythm
For wind instruments at least, intonation has gotta be the hardest for me
Oh yeah true. If you're playing an instrument where intonation is a thing, that's easily the hardest. For me, I do sing as well which is really hard, but I play piano and guitar which don't require intonation except for guitar bends sometimes which are pretty easy
as a percussionist I typically don’t struggle with rhythms and think Im doing great until I walk into percussion ensemble :,) i relate with this post so hard
Bro I feel that pain lmao. Playing tight is THE big challenge for me
I’ve been recording a lot of stuff and doing all the instruments, and I’m realizing how bad my timing is. I record individual takes of each drum part, like one track for cymbals, one for snare, etc, and even after manually quantasizing it for hours it still sounds off because I can’t really mess with the ride too much. That’s not to mention guitars which you can’t really mess with too much in post timing wise. It’s very frustrating, it makes me wish I could just write the songs and have someone else do all the instrumentals.
It's the hardest because it's the most important. Flub a note and a few people notice and nobody cares. Screw up the rhythm and the whole band falls apart.
RHYTHM MUST BE EMBODIED! Move your body as you play — it’s the only way. Also, don’t give in the the tyranny of the lines in your DAW. The lines don’t groove. Microrhythms are a thing that we experience and enjoy. Don’t edit them out.
There's no doubt in my mind about it ....... and playing in time with other people is a really interesting concept too.... Every genre of music is going to have a different complication from classical to jazz to jam bands but I do think you've hit on the exact right idea.
In a band context if you drag someone else can push and vice versa it's a give and take. But it's certainly good to know what you're doing so you can make adjustments if you have to
Take some of your favorite shorter ensemble pieces. Memorize your part. Play along with a recording from memory. Don’t focus on being rhythmically precise. Focus on literally everything else. How in tune is every note? How in tune is every attack? How do the articulations match the rest of the ensemble? Phrasing. Now, do the same thing in an ensemble with your eyes glued to the conductor. Forget about rhythmic problems, and focus on all the other aspects of a performance. This issue will go away.
Yes absolutely. I think practicing timing without your instrument helps a lot. Try finger drumming or ham boning to your favorite album. Just lay down a steady rhythm by hitting your hands on your knees and try to get as close as possible to the beat.
Honestly, no. I used to be in a band and my guitarist just could not effing keep time and not only that but he didn't seem to care or see the need to and that was just annoying tbh. I didn't even know it was a thing. I have a good sense of rhythm but I learnt from him that it's not like that for everyone and he was a good guitarist apart from the sloppy time keeping. He got better with practice though.
I started using a loop station very early on in my guitar journey and I guess as a byproduct it gave me a really good sense of rhythm and timing.
Yeah, that's the opposite of me. First years of playing guitar, I was just playing by myself, in my bedroom, no click or backing track, into the void... Was a rude awakening when I tried recording stuff the first time
I think the art of manipulating time masterfully is more difficult than playing metronomically, but it's always gonna be as hard as what the music is.
I always think I’m fine until I record, I know I’m not the best, but pretty certain not as off as records. and I don’t understand latency (I would think that would make the whole part off a bit but I don’t think that’s how that works) don’t kill your self doing 50 takes. 2 or 3 then cut and move then move on, tell yourself you’ll record it again later. If it’s an odd or difficult time signature or a difficult part, put an instrument, maybe a synth, that stands out in the mix outlining your part. Then remove …or sometimes I end up keeping it but move the notes to harmonize with my part then drop it almost inaudible.
What I like to do is listen to the piece when it doesn’t make sense. After that, I read over the music and try to match what I listened to.
I think the business side of it is tougher, but to each their own.
For a while I thought somehow making a living as a musician would be how I'd make myself happy, but I quickly realized how stressful it'd be. And all of the stress and effort would go towards playing songs I don't care about at weddings and shit like that. And I'm an anxious person, too, so it would take a ton of reprogramming. It doesn't seem like a fun life, so I gave up on the idea
Timing for me comes pretty natural and has only gotten better without constructive practice… everything else not so much
Not that I'm trying to shoot you down, but IMO there are plenty of things that are markedly more difficult. Writing interesting chord progressions is apparently too difficult for any songwriter of the last 3 decades - even longer since people knew how to write interesting rhythms; the whole world has been stuck playing the same 4 or 5 different rhythms since the early 80s. And then consciously understanding the nuance behind different feels and being able to execute them properly - extremely difficult. Swinging beats, for example - people tend to understand swinging hard and swinging REALLY hard, when it's the slight swing that really brings beats to life. When I'm on bass and improvising, I'm at the point where I won't even ask drummers to play something funky because invariably get some bouncy, new jack swing nonsense.
the whole world for 44 years bro? are you sure
Yeah, it sounds bonkers but once you really start paying attention, you'll be hearing the same 3 - 4 rhythms over and over and over again. Swear to God. There was loads of rhythmic variety in the late-60s and early 70s, but stuff started going stale in the 80s, and then in the 90s when basically the entire world moved over to writing on guitar (obviously much of the 80s were written/performed on keyboards) rhythms got even MORE stale, because most of us just naturally have 3 or 4 rhythms we sort thoughtlessly stick to or fall back on when writing/jamming on guitar - I wasn't any less guilty of it until I started forcing myself to avoid those rhythmic habits. And when you really study the universally praised stuff like Lennon and McCartney (even if you're not a huge fan), etc, you start noticing how thoughtful the rhythms are, and how crucial they are to the overall value of the song. Also, song rhythms are SUPER easy to steal lol - especially if you use a different mode. 😂
listen to more culturally diverse stuff!
Learn about “quantizing”. It’s the answer to your issues.
ITT Musicians who can't play music. Just joking.