Timing Question

you can do whatever you want to, you just have to deal with the results. why don't you try stuff and find out what works and what you like? for instance, with your first question, you're obviously not going to get any emphasis on the 1. that can work for you or against you, depending on the situation and what you want to hear.

you can do whatever you want to, you just have to deal with the results. why don't you try stuff and find out what works and what you like?

My guess is that's pretty much the nuts and bolts of it. The ear is the final judge and jury of whether things are supporting each other or conflicting.

However, by coincidence, the book I ordered a couple of weeks ago arrived at the local bookshop today, and I've just picked it up.

Guide to Arranging and Orchestration - for People Like Chris

I'll let you know If I come across the answer when I read it. :wink:

Cheers,

Chris

Roy. timing creates the feel of a song. I don't think there are hard fast rules.
Keith Richard's stlye is to come in late; he plays behind the beat.
on the other hand, in Latin style music the bass typically leads the beat.

my best advice is to do what comes naturally to you.

Sounds good to me. Thanks for the responses.

I know it is not exactly what you were asking, but others might find this useful too..

I have found the strumming pattern exercises on this site very useful for developing rhythm... print them about and make it part of your practice routine for a while... really helped me:
http://www.scenicnewengland.net/guitar/acoustic/info/strumming.htm

You can also check out this site with a LONG list of strumming patterns and examples of songs that use them.
http://www.grouptherapy.guernsey.net/strumming.html

And, as always... remember David's "sock puppet". Keep your strumming motion going even if you are not hitting the strings.

I've got some basic timing questions. If I'm doing a basic rhythm pattern in say a D-C-G progression, how close does it have to follow the bassline and it's progression.

Say the bass kicks in with this: (P means a string pluck)

D C G
1&2&3&4&1&2&3&4&1&2&3&4
P P P


I can do the rhythm the same. But, what other rules must I follow?

#1: Can I start the strumming a 1 beat late? Say, like this? (chord strums denoted by chord names below the beats)

D C G
1&2&3&4&1&2&3&4&1&2&3&4
D D D C C C G G G


#2: I guess the follow up to this would be if the final strum's ringing out would need to be muted before the bass does it's first pluck of the next measure and chord?

#3: If I'm doing a fill on a lead guitar part after the vocal and let it ring a bit into the next vocal line, does a chord change limit my ability to do this?

I hope these questions make some sense. It was tough to articulate.

hi roy

you could play anything you like until you're playing in time!an excellent idea for rhythm guitar parts is either to replicate the drums rhythm or the bass one, but you could paly an utterly different pattern too.

Let's say that bass is playing something like this

1,and,3,and

with guitar you could play any 8notes rhythm you like, i.e. a simple 1,2&,3,4& will work perfectly ok

on the other hand if bass is playing a flurry of 8th notes you could play something less busier like a simple

d/du/u/d

cheers

Matteo

Thanks for some more insights Lue and matteo, and thanks again to eveyrone else. I knew one of the possible answers was 'whatever sounds good', so it's not surprising. It's quite a jump from simple strumming, one guitar arrangements to multi-track recording (or playing with others eventually). Like I've said in other posts around here, you learn one thing and discover 10 more things that need to be learned. Good thing learning this stuff is fun. 8)

Maybe you've had some experienced with this…..

A good technical exercise that I've always found useful was to use the metronome, not just kinda listen and kinda hit on the click but make real sure I hit the note, chord whatever exactly on the click, just short quick strums, you want to see if you can bury the click (all the clicks) with the strum of the chord or pluck of the note. So in other words, you should be able to pluck and only hear the note, the click should disappear into it!

I thought it was really cool once I could do this.

Then after you get your timing sharp, then you can play around with rhythm, I think. ‘cause we'll never have great rhythm if our timing is outa wack, that's for sure.

Pat

I thought I posted to this thread a couple weeks ago but I don't see a post. Yea you can play any rhythm you want but is still has to be in time. You're not going to get away with a free time rhythm it will not sound good so whether you're playing whole notes , half note, quarter notes, etc they still need to be in time regardless if you are playing on the offbeat or not.

And if you don't have a metronome and I don't have one, but i got this.....

http://www.metronomeonline.com/

Metronome Good :lol: