Canadian Musician November / December 2019 | Page 29

WOODWINDS
Andy Ballantyne is a noted Canadian saxophonist, composer, and educator. He is a member of the Juno
Award-winning Rex Hotel Orchestra and has also performed with jazz greats Rob McConnell, Don
Thompson, Maria Schneider, Carla Bley, and Bill Mays. Andy is on faculty at Humber College in Toronto.
His latest recording, Play on Words, is available on G-B Records. www.andyballantyne.com.
By Andy Ballantyne
Every Instrument
Is a Drum
T
Part 1
raditional woodwind teaching tends to focus on tone and
technique, but when it comes to rhythmic consistency, ac-
curacy, and time feel, students often receive only vague
advice like “just play along with recordings” or “use a met-
ronome.” A strong time feel is a prerequisite for success in
any style of music, but especially so in highly rhythmic styles like jazz,
funk, and Latin.
The following articles will focus on some specific techniques for
improving time feel for woodwind players. I’ve found these exercises
hugely beneficial in my own playing and also with my students.
I once heard the fabulous bass player John Patitucci talk about time
in a masterclass. He said that all great players share a rhythmic strength
he called “traction”: a sense of being anchored to the beat even when
they might be playing slightly ahead or behind. By contrast, players
who possess technical facility but are not strongly engaged with the
rhythmic pulse tend to sound like they are sliding around on an icy road
on bald summer tires.
Here are a few practical exercises that can help you gain traction
and rhythmic confidence in your playing.
Awareness
It’s not a lot of fun, but the first step is to become aware of your weak-
nesses. The quickest way to do that is to record yourself, both in practice
and performance, and isolate the time aspects of your playing as you
listen back.
If you are playing scales with a metronome, do your on-beat notes
happen at exactly the same time as the click? If you are playing with a
drummer, are your eighth notes locked in with the cymbal? Be brutally
honest and see if you can draw some conclusions.
When I did this with my own playing, I found that I was generally
behind the beat – not a big surprise considering my first influence was
Dexter Gordon! It felt right to me when I was playing, but it didn’t sound
right when I listened back. I didn’t have the traction that Dexter did, so
I essentially had to relearn where to place the notes. It felt strange for
a while, but when I listened back to my playing, I knew it was getting
better. I was closer to the middle of the beat and getting more traction.
Getting More from Metronome Practice
Having the metronome on every beat or on beats two and four isn’t
really maximizing the benefit you can get from metronome practice.
We often end up reacting and adjusting to the metronome rather than
having it merely confirm that we are playing with our own independent
sense of time.
A great way to develop independent time is to slow the metronome
way down so you are responsible for subdividing the pulse. Here are some
exercises to test your time feel and improve your rhythmic traction. These
are the kinds of things drummers practice, and as James Brown said, “Every
instrument is a drum,” so woodwind players should practice them, too.
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Start with straight eighth notes; don’t move to a swing feel until
you are comfortable playing each exercise straight.
Set the metronome to 40. This represents a whole note at 160 bpm.
Before you play, count quarter notes out loud: “1, 2, 3, 4,” making
sure that “1” is exactly with the click. Tap your foot or clap your
hands and mentally subdivide the long silence between clicks into
eighth notes. Keep at it until it becomes comfortable and you feel
“locked in” with the metronome.
Now play a scale, exercise, or melody in 4/4 time at 160 bpm, but
with the metronome at 40. The metronome click represents beat
one. Keep feeling the time in your body. Don’t guess where beat
one is; feel it.
Now imagine the click as beat two, then three, then four. You might
want to count out loud again each time you move the click to a
new beat. Stick with the same scale or tune. Record yourself and
notice if moving the click to different beats changes your time feel.
Now make the click offbeats. Start with the “and” of beat two. Off-
beats can be tricky to get your head around, so definitely do some
counting out loud first. Getting started can feel a bit like jumping
on a moving train. A good trick is to just say “and” on the click a few
times, then “and three,” and then add the other beats. When you
get it going, keep tapping your foot on all four beats and notice
if the click falls exactly in the space between beats two and three.
It might take you a long time to get comfortable with this, but don’t try
playing until you feel confident counting out loud and tapping your foot.
When you do start playing your scale or tune, you might find that you turn
it around and the metronome ends up on beat two or three instead of on
the “and” of two. We aren’t used to hearing metronome clicks as offbeats,
so this can take some time, but it is time well spent!
Here’s the great thing about this exercise: even if you aren’t
completely successful, you are still improving your rhythmic
traction and awareness.
When you are comfortable playing your scale or tune with the metro-
nome on the “and” of two, move it to the other offbeats. My favourite is the
“and” of four – that’s how I do all my scale and technical practice these days.
In the next issue, I will give you some suggestions for specific exercises to
play with this approach.
CANADIAN MUSICIAN 29