Steady Tempo

[rick-slo]

Shooting for steady tempo or play with tempo (Rubato, Accelerando, etc.) here and there?

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Shooting for steady tempo or play with tempo (Rubato, Accelerando, etc.) here and there?

Both Derek. The crucial aspect is that my timing is spot on - but that doesn't mean that it is always steady.

However, I do like to sing freely across a steady guitar. To be able to play one rhythm and sing another is something that I work on - it is sort of my thing.

[mr. beaumont]

Totally depends on the playing situation.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Totally depends on the playing situation.

Highly depends on the piece of music in question.

[lowrider]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

Both Derek. The crucial aspect is that my timing is spot on - but that doesn't mean that it is always steady.

However, I do like to sing freely across a steady guitar. To be able to play one rhythm and sing another is something that I work on - it is sort of my thing.

That's where I always find a challenge. It takes me a lot of slow practice to get it right

[Brent Hahn]

I think that if you show you can keep time, people will buy into what you're doing more readily (even if they're "civilians" or "lead guitar players" who don't even know what time is.) Once you've done that, you can deviate from it and it will be clear that the deviation is a choice. It's not because you can't play in time and/or don't know the difference.

Listen to just about any of Dylan's early solo stuff, versus just about anyone else of that era. The man's rock steady, almost always. You can sit and play with it. It gives what he's doing cred and gravitas. You may not always understand what his words are about -- heck, even he might not -- but the steady time helps to sell it.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by lowrider

That's where I always find a challenge. It takes me a lot of slow practice to get it right

A metronome helps.

When I was running dulcimer workshops I would suggest folks played with a metronome in order to work on fluidity and phrasing. I was often asked "Won't that make me metronomic?" So I would switch on my metronome and play the melody to "Danny Boy" just up and down one string to show how you can move the phrasing to be expressive and lyrical whilst still hitting strict time.

Try clapping a beat and then singing across it. If you can do that then it's a small step to playing a rhythm on guitar and sing across it.

[rick-slo]

I am thinking for expressive musical purposes being more liberal with tempo than compatible with an eye for catching up with some metronome pace. As
already mentioned what is doable to effect varies with the piece and perhaps even the particular situation of the environment.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

I am thinking for expressive musical purposes being more liberal with tempo than compatible with an eye for catching up with some metronome pace. As
already mentioned what is doable to effect varies with the piece and perhaps even the particular situation of the environment.

Derek, I also sing in a Welsh MVC where tempo changes within a piece of music are commonplace and controlled by the conductor. Perhaps "timing" and "tempo" are two different things? We must always be in time but fluidity vary the tempo. Perhaps I haven't explained that well?

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Shooting for steady tempo or play with tempo (Rubato, Accelerando, etc.) here and there?

Hi rick-slo
For me music ebbs and flows like a river.

There are styles which 'demand' rigid adherence (or at least the players do) to tempo. Dance music is often this way…

But so much music is expressive, and it needs to breathe to be effective.

That said, I will match the tempo/rhythm/ style of a leader of music who is in charge of the tempos when I'm a backing player in live situations. If I'm playing solo, I tend to arrange things to flex.