TRACK RECORD
For guitarists with great feel, try: Wes Montgomery – Smokin’ at the Half Note; James Brown – Sex Machine; Stevie Ray Vaughan – The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble; Pink Floyd – The Wall; Rage Against The Machine – Rage Against The Machine; Wayne Krantz –2 Drink Minimum; Jimi Hendrix Experience – Axis: Bold As Love.
slightly shorter than the first) a medium swing (≈56-62%) to a heavy (≈63-66%) to triplet to ‘hard swing’ (>66.7%). We’ll look at swing at the quaver and semiquaver level.
Latency: (See Figure 2) Independent of ‘swing’ is where one musical line – let’s say a guitarist – plays relative to the beat. The beat can be decided by the drummer, or a click, or ‘negotiated’ between players; and to play ‘against’ the beat can be extremely powerful. We will call this ‘latency’ meaning a delay, and in fact for a melody or solo line playing behind the beat is generally more common and subjectively more desirable. Much of David Gilmour’s expressive power comes from this epic, relaxed, poignant behind-thebeat playing. Sometimes latency can be so extreme that the music could notated for example a semiquaver later, but there is something in the musical content that we understand as ‘expressively late’ as opposed to ‘displaced’ or simply ‘out of time’.
In addition to the two core concepts of Swing and Latency we will add the following two that we can view as ‘rhythmic inflection’.
Offbeat weighting: Although not technically ‘rhythm’, the relative strength of the onbeats and offbeats has a big effect on their rhythmic impact. For example, a jazz walking bass line can be played as four crotchets (quarter tones), but beats 2 and 4 are a little weightier, this ‘be-BOP’ pattern can also be found at the quaver level in many jazz guitarists’ playing, with a relatively stronger offbeat than onbeat (check out Pat Martino for example). Above a certain threshold an accent might be notated but much of this nuance is lost in translation.
Duration: Rhythm is not just about the beginning of notes, but also when they end. Michael Jackson was notoriously specific about the length of notes (again that may not be notated), as this is a powerful ingredient in the rhythmic ‘snap’ of a phrase.
The following exercises explore these concepts in practical, stylistic ways and you are invited to engage with this subtle but powerful musical technique. This will not only help your playing enormously, but also increase your appreciation for the ‘rhythmic virtuosity’ in players who may not necessarily choose to showcase technique, but have a phenomenal control of timing to achieve their musical goals.