Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner - Non Classical Play at very fast pace without shifting the beat

Routine work on playing at a very fast pace is well known: to play fast, you must count slow , in large rhythmic units . It helps a lot to play fast and without straining. However, it does not help much to keep the exact downbeat - periodically occurs involuntary its displacement .In any case, the metronome also not very helps here. How can this be solved?

maybe to think in patterns of clave 3-2 or 2-3, that has helped me recently with all tempos

Thank you,KlinkKlonk , this helps! You mean for tempo 300 bpm: 3 quarters + 3 quarters + 4 quarters + 2 quarters + 4 quarters? Good idea , never thought about it . In every bar accents aren't monotonous, so is noticed with ease any deviation from the rhythm even before the inner beats displacement .

Yea the 3+3+4+2+4 is the new orleans second line beat, originally came across the idea on this site http://www.garciamusic.com/educator/articles/improve.groove.html.
What I did was to take long walks or slow jogs with the drum genius app (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/drumgenius/id492279351?mt=8), with my feet on 2 and 4 and tapping and vocalising the clave patterns to internalise it, altough I didn't do it with quarter notes, but with eights, quarter notes or half time at 300+ tempo is probably a good idea though.

KlinkKlonk,thanks for the link. very interesting!

Here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0euY6LTClEU

Thanks! I played this rhythm (on piano) in concert with Delfeayo Marsalis.

Lot of talent in that family:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEJloDaPWPc

Steve Colemans article on Charlie Parker and Koko (I can't find it now, the web page seem defunct) mentions how many of Parkers phrases seem derived from clave pattern, with sudden rhythmic shifts. Parker was also said to be the only one of the NY jazzers, at the time, who could adapt to play with latin musicians; which seem to suggest Parker had a strong sense of internalised clave. Worth thinking about at least.

Rhythm is something you feel rather than a purely intellectual exercise. I think "large rhythmic units" and "Down beats" are being confused. Notes still move towards and away from a structural beat. Sometimes referred to as the "Fat Beat."

Where things start getting confusing is when a single beat happens, usually of the Fat Beat variety, that is not paired with any other notes rhythmically. It happens all on its own, whoomp there it is. Stepping out of a metered structure like this is sometimes difficult for musicians schooled in Western European pedagogy.

Who do you mean? I hope - not Steve Coleman , if you know who it is.


Only for beginners .

Instead Fat Beat, I prefer Trends . A bus rushes forward, but inside you can walk back and forth.

It was true until recently. In the late 90s appeared the rhythm pedagogy that uses konnokol tradition. I personally added the study of scat patterns - according to example of, Bob Stoloff. .

... and here's Bernard Purdie's more subtle take on 2nd line:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khsy0eECpRI

Second line is played as fast as Charlie Parker? I don't get that... and clave for playing tempo bebop 300 ? This thread is puzzling...

,Yes, it really helps, because even a shift in the beats you hear exactly where you are. Permanent rapid quarters don't differ from each other. https://yadi.sk/d/P9I4RWT_uYuem

No 2nd line just happens to have the same accentuation rhythm as a standard 3-2 clave, Whether Charlie Parker though about clave or not, we'll never know. I suggest you read the Coleman article in its entirety, what Nahum posted was only a fragment , (if you can find it) its interesting.
> Further on, it was just a suggestion for feeling time in larger chunks, just as feeling 3 verses four and 6 vs 4 and so on is helpful. Im pretty sure all this is basic stuff for drummers, so I don't see why it shouldn't be relevant for pianist as well.

In "Caravan" just for the sport has reached the tempo of 336 bpm (on melodica) , accompanied by claves - without internal tension and beats shifting . So claves help! I wonder - whose is this patent?

A pro should be able to feel 4 measure chunks pulsing by at any tempo without having to count... that skill has little to do with a clave pattern .

For me personally, claves better than to feel the block of the 4 bars. For a discussion is worth pre-try.