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I respect your take on this, Torben.I actually have a alternate take on the subject, for what it's worth (maybe just additive instead
of contradictory)What I've discovered is one can understand extremely complex rhythms (syncopations, polyrhythms and odd
meters) if they understand the sub-pulse in the rhythm in question.Frequently, people's simple physical responses to rhythms, especially those that favor the downbeat (with tapping, dancing and other body movements )actually get in the way of understanding what's happening.
I firmly believe that all rhythms that we play that are disparate are actually learned as coordinations.
It has, of course, to do with how sophisticated a person is rhythmically.If, for example, you are playing offbeat triplet 8th notes against a the short West African 6/8 bell (and then against the four pulse in your right foot and the three pulse in your left foot) it becomes necessary to break the rhythm down, note for note to understand the coordination required
to play all 12 notes of the subpulse.If you are dancing or swaying or tapping your foot, you just don't have a chance of learning how to do this.
I'm not saying that 'feeling' the rhythm is unimportant, but frequently unsophisticated rhythm players since of 'feel' gets in their way of actually hearing what some one is actually playing.
I've seen this time after time in master West African percussion classes where people assume a metronomic grid of 12 or 16 notes, tapping their foot on the four pulse the whole time.
I'm with you, that it takes a long time and a lot of practice to learn more complex rhythmic schemes, but they can be broken down, intellectually, and with, admittedly slightly inaccurate gridding schemes
to help a novice (or an adept) learn the coordination.That next huge step is being able to hear the subtle differences between a perfect gridding mapping
and the actual way something is planned.But, as Gregory Bateson so wisely said, "We are doomed to make maps of the world that are intrinsically
inaccurate, but there IS such a thing as a better map." yours, Rick Walker On 4/5/12 10:15 AM, Torben Scharling wrote:
Another thing when it comes to rythm and keeping time is to be physical with the tempo/groove.The more you feel the music, feel it with your body, and express it with some footsteps, a little dance (no, I'm not kidding), foot stomping, leg stomping, body grooving - you'll channel that feel onto what you're playing, and when you emphasize the first beat in that dance (or whatever you choose to do physically to keep the groove) you'll magically land pretty close to where that first beat should be, because you've done the same footsteps and moved your body to the groove since the previous first beat etc.This also helps things a lot, when it comes to the more advanced grooves with off beat stuff, african rythms etc. cause you'll still have a first beat that's there at the same spot every time, but the music within will not be a metronome'y strict pattern, but perhaps something with a very different feel - yet still rythmically "tight" to that feel. So in order to pull that off, without physically grooving to it, becomes much more difficult, and often leads to a more wishy washy, and loose in the "not-so-cool way" end result.