Worship Musician February 2018 | Page 46

BASS [ 5 EXERCISES FOR IMPROVING YOUR TIME | Norm Stockton ] Groove. What is groove? What does that word and groove independent of a quantize function. mean in a musical context? 1. This one’s from David Hungate, the legendary original bassist with Toto and That said, I’ve found one of the most beneficial first-call Nashville session player: set your Some people define it as the element of music areas of focus for developing groove ability metronome to 40 bpm, which will probably that makes one want to dance. I don’t disagree is to calibrate one’s internal sense of time; be the slowest setting on most electronic - any fans of Michael Jackson’s or Prince’s working with a click track to the extent that metronomes. Try to play staccato quarter notes music are well on their way to understanding you recognize what steady and consistent between each click, with the click sounding on groove - although I also feel that a groove- time sounds and feels like. As you work with beat 1 of each measure. Listen for any flams, or oriented approach can be employed playing a click, some of those groovicidal tendencies instances when the click and your bass aren’t tied whole-notes or rests. start to become apparent… such as rushing precisely together (they will sound like “bloom” as the dynamic level builds or dragging as it versus “boom”) and try to adjust your playing I define groove as a feeling of consistent, drops. Until we have spent time with the click, accordingly. This exercise is surprisingly tough predictable, and reliable forward motion in we usually aren’t aware of our natural time yet amazingly helpful - primarily because the the music. It has a consistency and reliability tendencies. metronome isn’t providing any subdivision, so that gives the listener the sense that it could you are reliant upon your own internal clock to go on for another half hour and not be surging I’d like to suggest the following exercises be keep time between each click. With practice, or dragging or wavering in any way. Creating practiced daily to begin the process. As a you’ll gradually be able to lock - or play in sync this feeling with our bass playing is perhaps variation, I also like to use ghost notes (muted - with the click sooner and sooner. 
 our most important musical contribution to notes that are plucked as normal but the fretting any ensemble. hand simply rests on the strings) as they are 2. Set the metronome to 90 bpm - these will less forgiving of discrepancies with the click. be quarter notes sounding on each downbeat. It’s important to point out that groove is rarely Get used to tapping your foot on each click - metronomically precise; there are subtle ebbs These be count “one, two, three, four” to help internalize and flows when living, breathing musicians completed successfully so you can move on the quarter-note pulse - and practice playing play music well together. Before the click track to the next thing; rather, they’re best done measures of: became ubiquitous in the creation of most regularly and consistently to help calibrate your • whole notes of western music, some of the most groove- internal sense of time. Cool? Here we go… • half notes • quarter notes exercises oriented rhythm sections had ridiculous feel 46 February 2018 aren’t intended to WorshipMusician.com